Imperial Marketing Creative Solutions - Creative Merchandising That Gets Results

| The Strategist | Creative Solutions | Product Gallery |

Destination – Success!

While Annual Service Awards are a great way to recognize employees, consider implementing a year-round incentive program. As the following case study illustrates, a year round incentive program, properly implemented, can have excellent results on your bottom line.

Objective:
The most creative incentive program is designed to drive your business and motivate employees. To reach these goals, the program objectives must be simple, specific, and obtainable. For this program, a locally headquartered national bank, we have three main goals:

Increase specific products sales and business-building activities.
Create an environment in which employees feel valued and rewarded.
Develop an atmosphere of teamwork and drive employee performance beyond a reestablished minimum standard.

Solution:
Another big step in the success of your program is the launch. Success hinges on employee participation; communication outlining the details of the program and motivating participants must be clear and concise. In this case, our national bank started with "stress ball" desktop reminders that were sent out along with details of the program explaining how employees could earn points toward merchandise and trips. As part of this initial welcome kit, employees received a 128-page catalog featuring more than 1,200 merchandise items. In addition, they received a separate travel brochure that featured a broad variety of travel packages at different price points. The target audience varied widely in age, interests and ability to accrue points, so offering a wide range of award choices was critical to the success of the program.

The program was structured to reward not only individual goal achievement, but also to doubly reward and promote teamwork. "Destination Points" were earned for non-traditional product referrals (annuities and mutual funds) as well as for opening new personal and business checking accounts along with transaction processing efficiency. Not only did points accumulate with each new transaction - when an individual met or exceeded his/her individual goal, points automatically doubled. Banking office managers earned points based on the office's total performance. If the banking office met its goal, then everyone's points doubled. Points were earned on a monthly basis and were redeemable quarterly.

As an added incentive, a sweepstakes overlay was created. Each month a banking office team member reached or exceeded his/her goal, they were entered into the Destination Sweepstakes. If the office as a whole met its quarterly goal, the management team gained entry into the sweepstakes as well. Fantastic quarterly sweepstakes prizes included trips to Cozumel, Walt Disney World and a cruise to the Mexican Rivera- plus fifty other prizes each quarter.

Results:
Properly planned, launched and administered this year round incentive program was a huge success.

More than 75% of all eligible employees earned points based on meeting performance criteria.
A stellar year in new checking account openings, mutual fund and annuity sales, non-traditional product referrals and transaction processing efficiency.

Contact your Imperial Representative about planning an incentive travel program for your team!