As a preeminent influencer in incentives and marketing to millennials, Steve Damerow frequently contributes as an expert, "go-to" source to notable media outlets. Following are some highlights across various industries:
by Steve Damerow
As seen in the July 5, 2017 edition of Wood Floor Business
Wood flooring industry professionals can use employee incentives—prizes, privileges and other benefits that motivate people to act in certain ways—to influence positive change in sales numbers, channel partner relationships and customer experiences. Here are a few strategic best practices for using sales channel incentives effectively within the wood flooring business.
By Steve Damerow, CEO, Incentive Solutions
Exclusive to the May 2017 Edition of Dealer Marketing Magazine
The definition of an incentive program is broad. Anything you do to motivate salespeople can be considered an incentive program. You can tailor a sales incentive program in a thousand different ways to ensure it captures the enthusiasm and interest of your unique audience. This flexibility is a double-edged sword, though, and causes many dealership sales incentives programs to fail. Why? It’s because sales incentive programs often lack structure and clarity. Inconsistent program marketing (or none at all) may make the goals and specifics of the program unclear. The program may be a management headache, or maybe salespeople forget about it because it’s not meaningfully tied to overarching sales goals.
The Incentive Research Foundation found that few companies see the full benefits of an incentive program, which could be a 25-44% performance boost, due to problems in the program’s construction.
Online and mobile incentive technology ties together many of the loose ends that plague incentive program implementation and management, making them easier to structure and oversee. Here’s how going digital revolutionizes dealer sales incentives success:
by Steve Damerow
As seen in the January 5, 2017 edition of Industrial Distribution
Competition is stiff in our economy of stagnant, matured B2B markets. At the same time, channel distributors have a world of information literally at their fingertips. They make many important sales decisions quickly and demand fast, convenient interactions with suppliers. Being able to offer your distributors extra value with distribution incentive rewards can make you immediately more appealing than the competition. When you offer your incentive program through an online platform, you gain additional sales tracking tools that allow you to not only boost revenue but feed better, cleaner, and more valuable sales insights into your business.
By Steve Damerow
As seen in North American Builders Magazine
You already know that your dealers, contractors and other channel partners are using smartphones. Considering that average users check their smartphones about 150 times a day, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ research, they’re probably glancing at their screens every time they enter or exit their vehicles, sending quick texts throughout the day or checking sports game scores, answering online quizzes and playing Facebook games during their breaks. But what if you could motivate them to take your online training quizzes during this quality smartphone time? You could not only promote product knowledge and increase sales, but bolster sales reps’ and partners’ confidence in their skills and expertise so that they can grow within your organization.
Exclusive to Builder and Developer Magazine
By Steve Damerow
One of the best ways you can distinguish yourself from your competition in residential contracting is by sweeping customers off their feet. How can you do this? By understanding what your customers want and how to best communicate with them. Think of customer services the same way you think about any serious, long-term commitment: sometimes you have to sit down and have “the talk” about where your relationship is going.
by Steve Damerow, June 13, 2016
Exclusive to Incentive Magazine
Most people rarely think of incentives as influencing sales decisions through a business-to-business (B2B) distribution channel. Yet the fundamental purpose of incentives remains the same no matter what the context: to influence people to take certain actions. And people respond to, “what’s in it for me?” whether they are employees, customers, or part of the B2B distribution.
According to the Department of Commerce, B2B spending is roughly twice that of B2C spending. Clearly, it is time for B2B incentives to take a page from B2C customer loyalty programs and promote B2B advocacy selling.
As Seen In HVACR Distribution Business
Sep 19, 2016, By Steve Damerow
In the HVAC world, motivating contractors and other sales channel partners to do business with you can be tricky. While business-to-consumer (B2C) companies can be endlessly creative with their products and marketing, HVAC companies don’t have much opportunity to outshine the competition from a business value perspective. As with many other business-to-business (B2B) industries, HVAC products and services must adhere to certain standardizations of safety and functionality.
But with today’s connective technology, “touchy feely” marketing concepts such as customer engagement and personal value – long-held traditions in the B2C world – are migrating into B2B. Engagement tools such as customer loyalty and sales reward programs are undergoing a renaissance, making them more effective and easier than ever for B2B companies to utilize.
By Steve Damerow, CEO Incentive Solutions
Exclusive to Counterman Magazine
Those with ample experience in business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing have undoubtedly wrestled with this question: Should we implement an incentive program? Incentive programs have traditionally been tough to administer due to lack of staff to manage the program and inadequate or non-existent methods of measuring its ROI. Today’s technology has changed all that, turning incentive programs into smart investments that produce better, faster results.
By Steve Damerow, August 24, 2016
Special to Tire Business
Simply put, the purpose behind all incentive plans is to motivate participants to do something they otherwise won’t do.
There are many reasons why your tire distribution partners or customers may not be swallowing the incentives you’re dangling in front of them.
Maybe they don’t have time. Or your incentive rewards don’t impress them. Maybe the thought of filling out a sales claim form makes their brain go numb with boredom.
The good news is that incentive programs have undergone a facelift, thanks to mobile technology.
November 8, 2016
Dealer incentive programs are only as good as the time, insight, and strategy invested in them prior to implementation. If you manage your program the right way, it will help you increase sales and promote loyalty among your dealer principles, retail sales associates (RSAs) and installers. But, as with any other channel marketing strategy, no one trick works like magic to make incentive programs effective.