Trying To Motivate People To Change? Reward Them!

Want to build sales, change consumer reaction to your marketing?

Then reward them. 

GWP - Gift With Purchase is a great way to build sales!

What’s in it for me? Motivate people by answering this question with a reward. Buy this notebook get a FREE backpack. Agree to meet with me and I will give your a Starbucks Gift Card. These are but 2 examples of using gifts to increase sales. In addition to building sales a gift/reward can create great awareness for your business. Try to offer a gift/reward that ties into and supports your product, service and business! If you offer  athletic gear or clothing then a FREE water bottle makes sense. If you are a dermatologist, then a gift of body or sun tan lotion would be excellent. But we often get the gift/reward wrong. We don’t offer a strong enough reward - or a sufficiently clear call to action. So here’s a mini-marketing refresh on strengthening the reward part of your benefit exchange. If you’re trying to persuade someone to do something, think about sharpening the “what’s in it for me?” answer with a better reward. A compelling reward has five important attributes - it should be: immediate personal reflective of your audience’s values better than competing rewards credible. Immediate: The best rewards are available to our audience right away. Few of us take action based  on a reward that we expect to receive in the far future. It is human nature to seek instant satisfaction  over distant gratification. So think about what your call to action will do for someone in the short term.  Eating a hamburger satisfies our hunger, drinking beer makes the ball game more fun, and wearing  cologne makes us feel sexier. Donating to charity makes us feel we made a difference for one person,  today. How can you show an immediate result may be possible? Personal: The reward needs to make people feel their life will be better as individuals or within  their tight circles of friends, family and community. Take the attributes of what you want people  to do and sell them as benefits. What will recycling or sidewalks or education policy do for your  audience?  At the end of the day, the personal connection, not the grand concept, grabs our attention. Grounded in audience values: We can’t easily change what other people believe, but by plugging  into their existing mind-set we unleash great power behind our message. Make sure the reward  you are offering is something others seek - not just what you want. Those two things are rarely  the same, but we often imagine they are! Better than the competition: Think competitively about your reward. Is it better than what  people get for doing nothing - or something else? Don’t forget there’s a reason people aren't taking action. They may be deriving benefits from those behaviors. How can you make your reward better than what people get from maintaining the status quo? Credible: Last, you need to make sure the claim of your benefit is believable. People need to believe they can get the reward. Show other people gaining the promised benefit or telling a good story can bolster your case.  Make the promise change credible. If people aren’t doing what you want, you may find out why by reviewing this list. Are you making your offer sufficiently irresistible? Or could you sweeten the reward in one of these areas? It’s worth the effort to consider, because a great benefit exchange makes it far easier (and faster) to get to yes.