Personalization, the mug is half empty
The marketing and incentive landscape is riddled with a vast amount of products and offerings to motivate customers, suppliers and employees. Personalizing is a strategy to consider for forward looking companies who want to differentiate their programs.
"To Personalize, or not to personalize?" Is not the only question…"How to personalize?"- that should be the question for any promotions manager or incentive program when it comes down to picking products. One of the largest misconceptions is that personalizing costs more. The second is that it is more difficult to execute.
With today’s technology and offerings, companies such as Hbc make it economical, cost effective and simple to execute on the strategy of personalized communications. The real challenge is what happens after you personalize an offering – but, let’s save that for the end of this article.
So let’s address the key question. Why Personalize? Simply explained, people respond to what they relate to, as well as what is relevant to them individually.
By making an offering personalized you are doing several things. First you have their name on the offering/product or service – they know it is for them. This is where a lot of companies miss the boat. Not that they’re not effective, but a personalized T-shirt is still just a T-shirt. Have you ever received a gift that had your name on it, but you still didn’t like it? Or much worse, it wasn’t relevant to the situation for which you received it? As an example, think of receiving a personalized coffee mug from a Vintner at a wine convention. It just doesn’t make sense.
Context is everything. Personalizing goes way beyond just adding a name. There are also opportunities to add situational customization into your product. Take Hbc Gift Cards for example. You cannot only personalize the name on the card and add your company’s name and logo to transfer the good will; you should also customize it to specific situations like Employee Anniversaries, and so forth (see the image gallery). Together this combination makes for a powerful incentive.
So let’s go back to the forgotten side of personalizing. You’ve done everything right up to this point. You’ve personalized their name on the incentive product. Your company has added their corporate logo to ensure you have your branding ever present. You’ve even taken it to the level of customizing based on the situation for which you are giving the gift. All good - right?
Not if you want to take your program to the next level. The gift itself should make a unique connection with the recipient. The forgotten side of personalization is that you are unable to make a impression unless you are able to PERSONALIZE the ACTUAL GIFT ITSELF. This takes your program to a level that is way beyond any amount of boardroom planning and employee surveys could. Everyone individually has unique needs and interests, so not have them participate in the final step of the process by choosing an incentive gift that will motivate them on a personal level.
An example of that is, Hbc Custom Gift Cards (no surprise). Not only is the card personalized to the situation and to them as an individual.. but they are able to have the flexibility to purchase exactly what they want at that moment. One more benefit of this incentive approach is that they have the option to “Share with their family and friends” the experience and enjoyment of the reward. Not something you can do with a coffee cup or golf shirt, although you can add them to your incentive program to make it even stronger.
So next time you offer a corporate incentive, personalize it! And what better way then with a product such as gift cards.
Scott A. Martin
Founder
The Personalization Consortium
http://incentivemarketing.org/associations/2592/files/0506-13b%20rpt.pdf
http://www.usegiftcertificates.org/associations/3747/files/Gift%20White%20Paper9.22.05.pdf 20Card%
Tags: Personalization