No B.S. Grassroots Marketing: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Take No Prisoner Guide to Growing Sales and Profits of Local Small Businesses by Dan S. Kennedy & Jeff Slutsky

Author:Dan S. Kennedy & Jeff Slutsky
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
Published: 2012-01-31T14:00:00+00:00

Employee Contest Solutions

The employee incentive contest is a fail-safe idea that can be done several times a year. It takes very little time to set up and almost always provides a super return. First, create certificates that have a strong offer on your product or service. This offer should be better than any standard coupon or discount that you would use. The actual printed piece can be one-fourth of a piece of paper and works best when printed on colored card stock with one color of ink. This special certificate contains a line at the bottom for your employee’s signature and a date.

One of our Street Fighter clients, in Gastonia, North Carolina, received 942 redemptions, of which 250 were first-time buyers from a single crew referral contest promotion. They have a conversion ratio of first-time to regular customer of 27%. That means that of those 250 first-timers, 67.5 will become regular customers valued at about $500 annually. So for the 12 months following the crew contest, our client will have added $33,750 of additional top-line revenue from a promotion that cost him, at the most, $50.

Here’s how it works: Participation in the contest is totally voluntary. Any full- or part-time employee can participate. You start by giving each participating employee 50 of the certificates. They sign them. Then you explain that, on their own time and beyond the perimeter of your parking lot, they can hand them out. Give them to friends, family, and anybody else they come in contact with, like the postman, the cashier, and so on. Their signature authorizes the special discount.

The contest can run for four weeks. If a given employee runs out of cards, you give them more. The results of the contest are based on redemptions. The employee with the most redemptions each week wins the first-place prize, second most redemptions gets the second-place prize, etc.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money on the prizes; most of the time, the managers or owners barter for prizes. They’ll collect gift certificates from other area merchants, especially those they’ve done cross promotions with. These prizes have included video rentals, car washes, restaurant gift certificates, movie passes, free oil changes, CDs, books, small electronics, and so on.

At the end of the month, you tally up all the redemptions and award your grand prize. We’ve given away items including flat-screen TVs, MP3 players, and Xboxes, but the one prize that had the most impact was the one that cost the least: a day off with pay.

This simple contest is a lot of fun for your crew. They get to provide their friends and acquaintances a really good deal at your business. Of course, you’re getting the distribution of that printed piece that provides motivation for that new customer to come in. With 10 employees averaging 50 pieces, you’re getting 500 individually distributed certificates. You should find a very strong redemption rate given the unique method of distribution. Additionally, that piece was personally handed out by an employee, adding integrity to the program.

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