Create Incentives and Contests for Your Customers

By startupprincess | Published June 28, 2007

Libraries have figured out how to get young children to read in the summer: incentive programs!

My 7 year old son woke up this morning a 7am to read. I’ve never seen such enthusiasm from a child to learn…or was it the prize waiting for him at the Library next week if he finished his 90 minutes required. He’s read 50 min. in 2 days…that’s more than he’s read in a month on his own–willingly. I have to hand it to summer programs at libraries who get kids excite03-21-07 Cracker Jack Eveningd about winning prizes, attending parties, and going on field trips if they complete their reading. I loved that the library also required not only reading on their own…but the books had to be checked out from the library, not from book clubs or from books we have at home, they have to be borrowed from the library, emphasizing a need to keep returning to the library and keep kids excited about what the library has to offer.

I never really thought of the library as being a business, but it is. If everyone stopped borrowing books and purchased from Amazon and getting research info on Google instead, then libraries could potentially go out of business and many jobs lost. Of course that would never happen, but I like that the local library has a marketing program.

What’s your marketing program? How are you getting your customers to return again and again? What incentives do you have in place? Are you running a contest or do you offer a gift with purchase? Do you offer free shipping? Do you have a free eBook for subscribing to your newsletter? images.jpg

Today’s Magic Wand: Think about what incentives work for you…what motivates YOU to buy? Create an incentive for your customers this month. Let us know how it goes!

What incentives have you tried? What is effective for YOU? I’m going to call out a few members here: Lisa Rousseau, Carol Rice, Jamie Lentzer, Celest Benn, and Sabrina Bouyahi. Anyone else is welcome to comment also! ;)

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9 Responses to “Create Incentives and Contests for Your Customers”

  1. Lisa R on June 29th, 2007 2:23 am

    We offer free shipping as well as a free book with purchase. The free shipping has been especially effective with an e-commerce business. Once someone has purchased and become a member, we keep providing incentive for them to keep active with being able to earn points to win prizes.

    Summer reading programs at the library for kids are great:)

  2. startupprincess on June 29th, 2007 9:39 am

    Lisa, Sounds like you’re doing well with your incentives! Great work! We all love prizes.

    My husband often sells electronics to companies who use them for sales incentives. When one particular company gives away a plasma TV sales increase by $150k in 1 week! Why don’t they do this EVERY week? That’s what I want to know. ;)

  3. Jamie Lentzner on June 29th, 2007 9:57 am

    For direct orders through our website we offer free gift wrap and gift card. Repeat customers, family and friends get a flat discount on their orders. Most of our business is through other sales channels and if we are shipping to the store we make sure and ship all orders together, or rush an order to make sure that the store pays as little in shipping as possible. The stores are thankful that we are not trying to gouge them for a profit.

  4. startupprincess on June 29th, 2007 12:43 pm

    Thanks Jamie for sharing what you do here…great ideas. I like that you ship orders all together, that is very considerate.

  5. Teresa Morrow on July 1st, 2007 2:24 pm

    Kelly,

    Just wanted to let you know that I posted about this on my blog
    http://www.keybusinesspartners.com/incentives-contests-and-campaigns-oh-my

    I thought it was definitely great info for my visitors to know about.

    Great Post!

  6. startupprincess on July 1st, 2007 3:39 pm

    wow, thanks so much Teresa! ;)

  7. Incentives, Contests, and Campaigns, oh my! on July 3rd, 2007 4:32 pm

    [...] Kelly King Anderson of Start Up Princess wrote a post about her son whom came into her room at 7am to read. Now, she was overwhelmed by his enthusiasm to read at this early hour, however, she knew where this was coming from. See, the local library had set up reading goals for the kids to reach each week and if each kid met the goal, they would receive a reward. In essence, her local library had set up an incentive program to get the kids to read each week. You can read the post “Creating incentives and contests for your customer” [...]

  8. 101 Things Women Entrepreneurs Wish For at StartUpPrincess.com on July 9th, 2007 10:40 pm

    [...] Incentives for Customers [...]

  9. Unique Incentives for Schools to Go Green on November 30th, 2009 1:07 pm

    [...] (and adults) love contests and they thrive at the opportunity to be the best.  This could be used to the schools advantage!  [...]

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