PITFALL #1

Poor Planning

Incentives…
...it all depends on the objectives you’re trying to accomplish.

When asked, a wholesaler will tell you their objective is "to increase sales". Yes, that’s theirs, yours, and everyone elses too. It has to be much better than that.

The single most important element in an incentive promotion is planning. Just as a house can’t stand without a good foundation, an incentive promotion can’t be successful without good planning.

Whether your objective is to increase the sales at your counter, increase the purchases of higher margin items, introduce a new product line or increase the sales from one month to the next, there’s an incentive promotion designed to achieve it. But which one?

Should you run your own, ours, or a vendor’s? And what kind? A trip or frequent buyer promotion? A counter or premium promotion? Or how long do you run it? This month, six months, a year? You must choose an objective and make a plan on how to accomplish it.

Before you run your next incentive promotion ask yourself:

1. Did we identify an area of weakness we’d like to improve upon or an area of strength we’d like to take advantage of?
   
   
2. Did we establish realistic and attainable objectives for that area?
   
   
3. Are we designing or getting the professional help needed to design an incentive promotion to attain these objectives?
   
   
4. Do we know for a fact that it will be profitable?

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