From Strategy to Success: Marketing B2B Loyalty and Incentive Programs

Neglecting to effectively promote and market a loyalty program is one of the primary factors that lead to its underperformance post-launch. The success of B2B loyalty and incentive programs hinges on all stakeholders—from suppliers to end-customers—being aware of the program's existence and understanding the benefits of participating. Unfortunately, many brands allocate minimal to no resources toward advertising their program to their target audiences and often overlook the importance of maintaining an ongoing marketing strategy after the initial launch phase.

Whether you have a B2B loyalty program, channel incentives program, rewards program, or other program type, this how-to guide will provide you with resources and tools to help you promote and market your program to greater heights. 

Promoting B2B Loyalty or Incentive Programs Is Crucial To Success

There are several different reasons loyalty and incentive programs stall or fail. One of the most common causes is businesses failing to promote or advertise their program once it’s live. These situations aren't limited to B2B industries either - a consumer’s lack of awareness that a program exists or that the program is beneficial and relevant to their lifestyle is one of the top reasons loyalty programs struggle to get traction after launch.

Organizations often encounter various challenges when it comes to effectively promoting their loyalty or incentive programs.

• Many tend to concentrate heavily on the development and implementation phases, neglecting to allocate sufficient resources for the promotional aspect.
• There's sometimes a misconception that the program will naturally gain traction once the initial members are successfully enrolled and active.
• Another reason is when brands fail to create a clear plan detailing how, where, and when to promote the loyalty or incentive program.

Issues like these can significantly hinder a loyalty and incentive program's success. Similar to other marketing efforts, B2B loyalty programs—alongside channel incentive programs, partner programs, and others—rely heavily on users being aware of the program and understanding the advantages it offers. This is why you should approach promoting your B2B loyalty or incentive program seriously, and create a program marketing plan to give your program a strong start.

Set Your B2B Program Up for Success Before Launch Day

Diving head-first into a new loyalty or incentive program without proper preparation is a surefire way to run into issues down the road. Before you begin planning how to market your upcoming B2B loyalty or incentive program, there are a few steps you can take to give your program a successful launch and a strong beginning.

1. Make The Enrollment Process As Simple As Possible

One way to give your program the smoothest roll-out possible is to ensure your program enrollment process is both simple and easy for your intended users to complete.

How your users enroll in your program might have different steps or requirements depending on your brand or the exact type of program you’re launching, but you should still make an effort to avoid overcomplicating the process. Enrollment should be as straightforward as possible no matter what, whether sales reps are signing up customers or customers are opting in themselves.

2. Align With Your Internal Stakeholders

One trap some companies fall into (sometimes without realizing) is the mindset that a loyalty or incentive rewards program is a simple add-on to a business; a side project that operates on its own and in its own space.

The reality is the complete opposite. Highly successful loyalty and incentive programs are the most effective and generate the highest ROI because they are treated as a vital element of a company’s overall business strategy.

This is why it’s important to meet with internal stakeholders before the program launch to inform them about the program and ensure alignment on how the program will interact with different departments such as IT, Finance, Procurement, Marketing, etc. Doing so can help ensure that your program gets the support it needs internally and also that your program is working to support the other departments as well.

3. Define The Program’s Value Proposition For Your Different Audience Segments

A crucial first step in promoting your program is knowing who you’re targeting:

• Who are the intended program users, the people you want to enroll?
• What are their needs, challenges, and goals?
• What do they expect from you and what motivates them? 

It is important to identify your different target audiences because a customer’s decision to join a loyalty program is essentially driven by the question, “What’s in it for me? What do I get out of this?”

Determining the answers to these questions for your target audiences will help you establish a clear and compelling value proposition to incorporate within your program’s promotional messaging. This will make your marketing efforts more effective and more likely to resonate among your intended enrollees.

Think about it this way: by inviting users to join your program, you’re asking them to dedicate some percentage of their time and energy to completing required actions and monetary spending. Clearly stating the value and benefits they’ll receive in return will help your future members understand the program’s purpose and confirm in their minds that participating is worth their effort.

Creating A Marketing Plan For Your B2B Loyalty or Incentive Program

The best way to increase your program’s rate of success from day one is to have a marketing plan that details exactly how you and your teams will promote your program. The days and weeks before launch day are busy, but don’t put off creating a marketing plan until your program is already live. As soon as possible start thinking about where, when, and how you will get the word out.

Benefits Of Mapping Out A Marketing Plan

Building out a promotional plan in advance will ensure you have a holistic communications strategy, creative direction, core messaging, and a promotional timeline established that will support your program through launch day and beyond.

1. Create Customized Marketing Campaigns for Different User Group Segments

One of the most common issues B2B businesses encounter is that key stakeholders, from end customers to sales reps to distributors, end up lacking insufficient information to either promote or utilize the program properly. Because different audiences engage with the incentive program in different ways, you can ensure your different marketing collateral and materials are personalized for each group segment.

2. Ensure There Are No Missed Opportunities or Gaps In Your Plan

Without a marketing plan in place, you may miss out on valuable promotional opportunities. Preparing this plan ahead of time allows you to pinpoint and remedy any shortcomings before they become larger issues.

One area that can go unaddressed is customer interactions with customer service portals. Your customer service teams might be aware a loyalty program is launching but including helpful training materials as part of your marketing plan can help them understand how the loyalty program works and effective ways of promoting the program. For example, when a customer calls in to place an order, the service rep can make sure to inform them of any rewards or benefits they get as part of the program.

3. Identify Your Essential Marketing Channels

Each communication channel has different factors to consider when including them in a marketing plan: reach, frequency, and impact, along with time and cost. Choosing the right channels to promote your B2B loyalty program can increase your program’s rate of success. You can also strengthen your overall marketing strategy by incorporating a mix of different channels and tactics to deliver your diverse messaging and reach specific user segments.

Helpful Guidelines For Making An Effective Marketing Plan

Establish A Branded Look & Feel

Collaborate with your internal teams & stakeholders to determine the guidelines for your program’s creative look and feel, and make sure to document these clearly. Doing so will ensure your various marketing collateral and promotional materials have a cohesive appearance when they’re distributed to different audiences, and spread program awareness more effectively.

Utilize Multiple Touch Points

Maximizing your reach and staying top-of-mind can only be achieved by promoting your program frequently and across multiple touch points. Don’t limit your communications plan to a single channel for a limited run. Ideally, you should be promoting your loyalty or incentive program on an ongoing basis across a variety of outlets - website, emails, SMS texts, print, video, and more. You can run tests to determine which channels have the highest success rates and fine-tune promotional strategies for those.

Include Clear Calls-to-Action

Make sure to include clear calls-to-action across every piece of marketing collateral or communications you send. Again, just being told the program exists isn’t always adequate motivation for someone to sign up; you want to ensure the recipient has clear directions for what to do next and what to expect.

9 Key Components Of A Successful Marketing Plan

While the exact elements that make up your marketing plan will depend on your company, brand, products, customer demographics, and marketing capabilities, you can begin to build out your plan by considering the different ways you want to engage and communicate with your audiences.

Email, website pages, FAQs, and training sessions for example are more formal, information-heavy methods of communication, while print materials like mailers, posters, or brochures serve as visual and physical communication interactions. Social media posts or videos can be used for more engaging and entertaining communication opportunities.

Each type of asset or channel has different benefits and uses. Here are 9 typical elements you can include in your marketing plan for your B2B loyalty or incentive program.

1. Program Overview Flyers, Sell Sheets, Guides, etc.

Key marketing collateral for any B2B loyalty or incentive program is program overview flyers or data sheets that share important details such as:

• Start dates
• Eligibility requirements
• Program objectives
• How to enroll and participate
• How to earn and redeem rewards
• Reward options

These should be in PDFs or formats that are easily shared across large audiences to have the greatest possible reach.

2. Email Marketing Communications

Email is one of the biggest tools used by B2B companies, and is one of the best ways to spread the word about a new program launch to your existing customers and partners. You can send personalized email campaigns for different audience segments that provide relevant info about the program to help guide and nurture them into enrolling.

3. Promotional Website Banners

Promotional banners and banner ads can help market your loyalty and incentive program across different online portals such as your brand website, partner sites, social media accounts, transactional emails like order confirmations or shipping notifications, and more.

One tip is to create a set of banner templates to use for display across different channels that can be easily updated and repurposed for different announcements or promotions. You can also provide these templates to relevant user groups who help promote your program, such as sales teams or channel partners.

4. Dedicated Explainer Website Page(s)

Dedicated explainer pages are program overview web pages on your company or brand website that provide high-level details on your program (eligibility, rewards, etc.) and are essential for promoting your B2B program. These pages should ideally be accessible from the homepage, the navigation, or across relevant product or company background pages.

Remember the goal is to make your program accessible to users and as easy to enroll as possible. The more customers have to go digging through your site to find any mention of the program, the less likely they are to sign up.

5. Free Point Tools or Calculators

One promotional tactic to motivate customers to enroll is by giving them an idea of exactly how much they can benefit from joining the program before they join. For example, one of the ways B2B company Aquatrols promotes its loyalty program on its company website is by providing an interactive points calculator that allows visitors to input different product purchases and see exactly how many points they could receive through the loyalty program. Users can see how many points they’ll get if they purchase cross-category or when they purchase during special point promotions, and so on.

What’s the benefit of offering free tools like a points calculator? Simply put, it allows customers to calculate the potential value they’ll get back from the program before they join. This helps customers understand how the program can specifically benefit them and further solidifies that participating is worth their time and effort.

6. Print Materials

Digital announcements are quick and relatively easy but printed marketing materials can be just as effective in the right situations. Consider including direct mail marketing as part of your promotional strategy.

Announcement postcards or program overview flyers sent directly to customers can help grab their attention and spark their interest. Printed posters that can be displayed in retail offices or employee common areas are also an opportunity to promote your program.

7. Product Packaging

Depending on your brand and the type of program you’re launching, you might have the ability to include promotional messaging on product packaging. This can include on-pack QR codes leading to the program website, in-store signage, or even promo messaging on physical receipts.

8. Enrollment Incentives or Bonus Promotions

Incentive programs and loyalty programs are designed to drive consumer behaviors, and enrollment is considered one of those behaviors. As such you can run special promotions offering valuable incentives or bonuses to users for signing up.

A modular platform like BENGAGED allows you to create promotions and set custom earning/bonus rules for different user groups, so you can create unique enrollment incentives that appeal to sales reps, managers, channel partners, end customers, etc., and that motivate them to enroll.

9. Social Media Channels

Social media is already used by several B2B companies to grow business relationships by networking, sharing relevant industry news or content, and engaging in the online community.

You can use social media to promote your loyalty or incentive program by linking back to your program website in profile bios and pinned posts. You can also create social posts highlighting program benefits and features, or make short videos showing a walk-through of how the loyalty program works.

You can even utilize social media to empower your current program members to help promote your program by sharing or featuring posts from current partners or customers that show appreciation or support for your program. Allowing members to earn points for linking their social media accounts to their member profiles lets you track social activity across dedicated brand hashtags.

Empowering Sales Teams To Be Advocates For Your Loyalty or Incentive Program

For B2B companies, the sales process is when your company can demonstrate to customers that your business is the best option to help them succeed because you know and understand their pain points, needs, wants, and goals. Your B2B loyalty or incentive program should be featured as part of this process because participating in the program will allow customers to receive benefits like:

• Valuable reward incentives or rebates
• Access to business development resources via Co-ops or MDF funds
• Perks for special product training, education, or certifications

For the end customer to understand the value of your loyalty program, your sales reps and channel partners must understand it as well. The more familiar and knowledgeable they are about the program, the more confident and motivated they’ll be when promoting the loyalty program as a differentiator during client meetings.

This is why you should train your staff on the ins and outs of your incentive program and the most effective ways they can sell the program to their customers.

Training should include details such as:

• In-depth instructions on program mechanics & how it provides value to users
• The benefits & rewards available
• Example scenarios to demonstrate how the program will help customers achieve their goals
• The materials and tools available for the sales team to use to promote the program & enroll participants

Along with your end customers, the assets and strategies previously mentioned can be especially effective when tailored for special teams such as your sales reps or channel partners. These include:

Instructional Courses or Video Tutorials

Training courses or videos can effectively help team members develop familiarity with the program. You can create smaller “bite-sized” trainings and offer users rewards or badges for each course completion.

Program Overview Kits

Putting together tailored “marketing kits” can be extremely helpful for ensuring sales teams have everything they need to advocate for your program in one place. These launch kits can include:

• Sales-specific program overview flyers
• Brochures and other promotional material
• Sales pitch or script ideas
• Instructional guides/walk-throughs of the program
  
  

Gamification

Enrollment bonuses aren’t only effective for end-users. You can drive sales rep participation by rewarding them with special incentives or points for successfully enrolling eligible users. You can gamify this process by implementing interactive modules such as game boards, contests, or leaderboards to further incentivize sales team performance. For example, in addition to the usual rewards points you can provide a spin-to-win game board and allow reps to earn “spins” for hitting or exceeding key milestones or goals.

Best Practices To Follow When Promoting Your B2B Program

Once you have your marketing strategy mapped out, materials created, and implementation plan set, you’re ready for program launch day. However, it’s important to keep in mind that promoting your program doesn’t end after the initial launch period is over. Remember: a loyalty program won’t promote itself.

Marketing your loyalty or incentive program should be an ongoing campaign that runs as long as your program is live.

1. Monitor Key Metrics and Track Goal Progress

Your company must have a clear understanding of the different performance metrics and data points that will be tracked and measured after the program launch. Not just enrollment numbers, but engagement, sales, point earnings/redemptions, and so on. In addition to tracking your loyalty program’s overall impact, you will also be able to assess how well your different marketing campaigns are performing and make adjustments as needed.

2. Collect & Utilize Feedback

One key benefit of these types of customer loyalty and partner programs is the ability to collect feedback directly from your most valuable users.

Be on the lookout after launch for signs or reports of problem areas or where members are experiencing roadblocks. For example, suppose initial feedback revealed there’s confusion among members about the point redemption process or how a particular member benefit works. In that case, you can move quickly to address the issue, identify a solution, and implement the fix where relevant in your marketing plan.

This lessens the likelihood of issues going unnoticed and unaddressed until they grow into major problems.

3. Develop Onboarding Plans for New Enrollees

An onboarding plan is a final element in successfully promoting your program - the last step in acquiring new members and the first step in retaining and engaging them. You’ve sold them on joining the program and now you need to ensure they successfully follow through on getting started.

As we said earlier, making user enrollment and subsequent onboarding as simple, straightforward, and easy as possible results in higher participation rates. New enrollees should know the exact next steps to take once after sign up. Having an informative and engaging communications plan in place to guide them through this part of the journey will help increase their adoption and use of the program.