Tweet

A Look at Incentive and Rebates Programs

Written by: Sheryl Strasser

Article Overview: Businesses have a greater chance of succeeding if they are able to not only offer a quality and successful product, but also if they are able to offer the consumer something that their competitors have been unable to successfully offer yet. As a result, there are a number of incentive and rebates programs that can be offered by a business that would more realistically attract the consumer to the product or good that is offered by a manufacturer. Still, some consumers and businesses may wonder what the costs are of having such programs and what the return is on these investments.

A Look at Incentive and Rebates Programs

No one wants to lose money, not the manufacturer or the individual consumer, and so it will be very important that the incentive and rebates programs are legitimate and actually effective for everyone involved. They should not cause the business to lose money, but neither should they scam the consumer out of money either. Because of this, it will be very important that businesses thoroughly research their different options when it comes to these categories and that consumers make sure that they understand the pros and cons of different programs that might be offered to them by the manufacturers. There are almost unlimited forms of incentive and rebates programs. Some of the programs are instantaneous and others are ones which will take a period of time to complete. As a result, the benefits of each option need to be weighed carefully in order to come up with the right choice for the individual business and the individual consumer as well. What many businesses will do is offer both an instant savings and a mail in rebate. This ensures that the consumer will get one benefit, but not necessarily another. In many instances, consumers are looking for instant savings. These are more convenient and do not necessitate any work on the part of the consumer. On the other hand, programs that take time to process may not be acted on either initially or at all since they require work and time and the individual consumer may convince themselves that the investment was still worth it since they were able to get the instant savings.

Incentive and rebates programs that take place over time may not be as worthwhile for the consumer, but they work out better for the company in some instances. Since they are offering the program, they look like a considerate and beneficial company in which the consumer can get involved with in a business manner. However, if the individual consumer does not put in the necessary amount of work, they do not actually receive the reward, since there are stipulations in place as to what needs to be acted upon in order to get these rewards. This is better for the company since they do not lose as much money. Additionally, this works to illustrate again why instant and time sensitive rewards will be offered to consumers and why they are so successful and mutually beneficial for everyone that is involved in the process of consumerism.

Related Articles
  Tips on How to Create Effective Employee Incentive Programs
  What are Key Questions to Ask Yourself About Incentives and Rebates
  How to use customer incentives to dramatically increase customer loyalty
  How to build customer loyalty
  Dealer Incentive Programs

Article Tags: benefit, business manner, consumers, instances, mail, money, period of time, pros and cons, rebates, right choice, stipulations



Related Forum Posts
Any experience with McManus UK Ltd.? - Did anybody already deal with any of the McManus UK Ltd offshore entities? I do have a program, but not enough cash. I have been advised that they can fund investors with access to Private Placement Programs but they don’t want to joint venture with me. They want a fee for the service. This is why I want to find out if anybody has had first hand experience with this group? Patrick Ohara, Financial Consultant
Re: Small Business Advice Seminar? - Wow! Thanks for the detailed answer Takuya, and I'll be sure to highlight your response to the seminar company. The only problems that I could envision about inviting a guru speaker are a) this company wants to brand its owners and trainers as the "gurus" and b) they offer seminars all across Canada on almost a weekly basis, so it'd be difficult to get that many gurus. [quote="Takuya":2ajo8olk]Incentive is nice, but it might draw greater number of attendance if a guru speaker can come. Instead of thanking people for attending, it'll make the seminar to look more of a privilege to attend.[/quote:2ajo8olk] To expand on this point, perhaps they could advertise that seating is limited and notify those who pre-register how many seats are remaining to emphasize how it's a privilege to attend. Moreover, I believe that showing that most of the seats are taken will act as a "call to action" and get others excited about taking part in the event. [quote="Takuya":2ajo8olk]I don't know what your friend's budget is, but if you happen to be promoting something real high end, instead of inviting a guru speaker, you could offer Ipod, too.[/quote:2ajo8olk] I believe the sponsors of these seminars include Staples and Bell, so the prizes from their contest draws are already high end items.
Re: You don't need to go to a "real" school to get - [quote="OmnivoreInk":cwl01a6m]There are, I think, two types of people who go to school. Those who want to learn, and those who don't.[/quote:cwl01a6m] Hi Barbara, I agree with your comment 110% and that's why I could probably argue that it doesn't even matter if you go to a community college or distinguished University. At the end of the day, you're all given: a) an instructor and b) a textbook and it's really up to the individual to decide what he/she wants to get out of it. The [u:cwl01a6m]only[/u:cwl01a6m] real difference between "schools" is the level of student competition since all grading is done on a curve. For example, my grades at Seneca College's Continuing Education Programs are about 15% higher than what I got during my UofT undergrad! But another reason why online courses aren't that great is because I don't know why I need to pay $300-600 to read a bunch of "cookie cutter" content (via course website and textbook) and then have an "instructor" grade my paper or test? I mean, if you're really interested in learning more about something and have the self-discipline, why not just save your money and read a bunch of related articles on the web for free or buy a textbook for $100 to read at home? One might even argue that taking courses and getting degrees and diplomas are really only beneficial to people who want to have a career working for someone else.
HRPreneur - Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and I recently started my own Human Capital (HR) consulting firm called HRPreneur Inc. HRP focuses on making human capital a strategic differentiator for SME's. Below is a summary about HRP; Who We Are: HRP is a Human Capital consulting firm with 30 years of experience that becomes an extension of your company by providing a full array of services to help you create a highly engaged workforce focused on achieving strategic results in order to build a long lasting great company! Mission: HRP provides small and medium sized businesses a Strategic HR Business Partner to increase employee engagement, resulting in cost savings, increased productivity and results at an affordable rate! Vision: To inspire and warrant SME's reach their full competency! Cost Effectiveness: We provide over 30 years of experience at a fraction of the cost at a strategic executive HR business level You will save between 50% to 60% in costs per year on salary, bonus, benefits, training, office space alone We will provide you additional cost efficiencies through our services Services: • Strategic Human Resources Planning • Organizational Redesign • Change Management • Organizational Culture Development • Employee Engagement Programs • Leadership Assessment and Development • Compensation Design • Talent Acquisition • Assimilation and On-Boarding • Performance Management • Talent Management & Succession Planning • Human Resources Due Diligence • Human Resources Audit • Full Service HR Outsourcing
Small Business Advice Seminar? - Small business advice seminar is pretty generic though. Unless the host has pre-existing relationship with the audience, it's kind of hard for the attendees to assess the value of a seminar in such situation. And it's easy for the rest of us to say something you see tested everywhere else so let's get something creative so that Kevin could find something he never would have thought about. Here is my suggestion... Incentive is nice, but it might draw greater number of attendance if a guru speaker can come. Instead of thanking people for attending, it'll make the seminar to look more of a priviledge to attend. Whenever you finish a seminar, the attendees would look back evaluating the ROI for the time that was spent being there. Even though the content wasn't a perfectly delivered one, the greater the influence the host would have with the attendees, the better its after effect would become. So that the bit of celebrity attendance, it would boost the credibility for the next time around. It doesn't have to be a super guru, but just a well known local one once seen on TV news or something. I don't know what your friend's budget is, but if you happen to be promoting something real high end, instead of inviting a guru speaker, you could offer Ipod, too. Now as for the email campaign ... I would pay someone in the local area who has huge database of newsletter subscriber list and approach him with can't lose offer, like paying him upfront and splitting some of the revenue from the backend. Then have him do a few promotions to his list just about the seminar while building anticipation. My friends and I have done similar what we could call "launch" to our lists of people using a few step methods. First mail invited people to click through to our first video -- this showed some "private" behind the scenes type of screen shots of what we wanted to sell with just a small lead capture form below the video to build more list. Second email had another set of short video that showed more content inside, which lasted like 5 minutes so that anyone interested would stop and watch what we had to say. Third one, forth one just kept on building up some anticipation until people said, "Umm.. it's impossible for me to physically attend your seminar (or luncheon) on Monday 12 pm, would you take our cash in advance so that we could buy your recorded DVDs?" Of course, who would refuse that! Well, this time around may not be possible to do anything like that, but as soon as this seminar is over, you might want to video some of the attendees and ask for testimonials. Before the next seminar, have people pre-register for the email list and you can send promotional emails to that list every three to four days, just showing the testimonial videos and results of the attendees. I haven't personally used this method but I know this works the same way as the method I mentioned above. At this time, the audience is thinking "I don't know what you're going to do in your seminar, would it be worth my time to attend or are you going to waste my time?" Most pre-seminar promotions sort of leave it up to the attendees to figure out if it's going to be worth or not. And some hosts mistakingly think if it's free, there is nothing to lose. But they don't realize is it still requires people's opportunity cost to attend a seminar so no matter if it's free or not, it's still costing their valuable time and the only way to really build anticipation is clearly articulating the benefit they'll receive in advance. So if your friends could come up with something super unique to say about the seminar, it could expand it from there. But if their message happens to be still generic, I think it would need the help from a guru speaker.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Do You Deserve To Be Happy and Successful?

Unspoken Yet Important Rules for Book Proposals

Paint A Word Picture - Excite Your Customer

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.