Send Effective Customer Incentives—Make Them Instant And Digital

Whether you’re B2B or B2C, we all need to attract and retain new and loyal customers—which is why we all need the right customer incentives, too.

The right incentive tools can lead to improved customer acquisition and repeat purchases, along with much better customer satisfaction and brand awareness. The wrong tools, however, won’t just be ineffective. They’ll also be a drain on time, resources, and morale.

In this article, we’ll explore a powerful tool for customer incentives: rewards that are instant and digital.

We’ll include how to choose and implement the right types of incentives to target and reward your best customers and, ultimately, boost your bottom line.

What are customer incentives?

Customer incentives are tools that businesses use to motivate specific desired actions from their customers and/or target audience. Essentially, they’re rewards given to reinforce desired behaviors, such as making a purchase, referring a friend, or remaining loyal to a brand.

Customer incentives can take various forms, from offering discounts and loyalty rewards, to giving free gifts and rebates. As we’ll explore below, the best incentives are those like digital gift cards that are instant and digital.

Critically, good customer rewards are mutually beneficial. When done right, giving a reward is a strategic move to encourage repeat actions that benefit both the business and the customer.

Note: 'incentives’ differ slightly from ‘rewards.’ While a reward is the actual object given to the customer, an incentive is the promise of something valuable in return for a specific behavior. This promise is what helps shape customer behavior, driving sales, loyalty, and customer retention.

Reward (n): The object given to reinforce actions

Reward (v): The act of giving the reward

Incentive (n): The promise of something as result of a desired behavior

Incentivize (v): The act of encouraging behavior by promising a reward 

How can customer incentives improve sales?

Companies often use customer incentives specifically because they’re looking to get high quality leads and improve their sales.

So how do these types of incentives actually work? In short, they prompt immediate actions.

When customers know they will receive an instant reward, they are more likely to make a purchase or otherwise engage with your brand quickly. This is particularly true in today’s fast-paced world, where instant gratification is not just valued, but expected.

For example, offering a digital gift card as a reward for purchasing a certain product can lead to immediate sales boosts. Customers will choose you over your competitor because they want that instant satisfaction, and that innate joy we all get from ‘freebies.’

Think about that popular carrot and stick analogy. In this case, incentives are the carrots that businesses use to proactively engage with potential customers and their existing customer base.

And we’ve all heard of Pavlov’s dog, an experiment where dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, just by consistently pairing the bell with food. Over time, the dogs began to associate the bell with their food (ie, their reward), demonstrating how repeated positive reinforcement can drive behavior.