Page 35 - Beverage Master February March 2020

Craft Beverage

Deepening Relationships with a pilot program or highly targeted incentive
Throughout Your Channel promotion. You can always scale, once you’ve prov-
en that you can do this successfully.
Finally, in addition to short-term sales growth and
marketing penetration, your incentive program has However, it’s also important to have a sense of
another benefit that will have a lasting impact on urgency. As craft beer sales continues to grow, so
the success of your go-to-market strategy: relation- will competition for craft beer dollars. Beating your
ship-building. Non-cash rewards are a social curren- competitors to building an incentive program for
cy that achieve emotional impact and memorability your distributor and wholesale sales reps can be a
with sales reps at distributors and wholesalers. In major competitive advantage. Plus, you owe it to
addition to motivating sales growth and reinforcing your future customers to help them find their new
desired behavior, the rewards your program offers favorite beer!
create a sense of personalization.
Nichole Gunn is the VP of
For craft beer producers, your distributors and Marketing and Creative
wholesalers are more than just conduits to the end Services at Incentive
consumer. They are your partners – an indispens- Solutions (www.incen-
able part of your go-to-market strategy. Offering tivesolutions.com), an
your sales reps the opportunity to choose from Atlanta-based incentive
exciting rewards or treating top performers to company that specializes
unforgettable incentive travel experiences rep- in helping B2B companies
resents the type of brand interactions that will set improve their channel
you apart from the competition. But more than sales, build customer
that, these rewards inspire your distributor and loyalty, and motivate
wholesaler sales reps to emotionally invest in your their employees. Nichole Gunn can be reached at
brand and take an active interest in your success. ngunn@incentivesolutions.com

Unsure About Where to Start?
Be Smart, Explore Your
Options and Focus on Scalability

An incentive program can be an integral part
of a craft beer producer’s go-to-market strategy.
However, what about companies who have never
used this type of strategy before? If you are inter-
ested in creating a channel marketing program for
your distributors and wholesalers, do your home-
work. Identify a goal for your program and the
software functionalities you’ll need to achieve that
goal.

Compile a list of incentive program providers who
fit your requirements and who have a proven track
record, with case studies and testimonials to prove
it. From there, begin reaching out to these provid-
ers and enlist their help in planning your incentive
strategy. Use these conversations to refine your
strategy and learn more about what has worked for
companies with similar goals and similar distribu-
tion channels to yours in the past.

Once you’ve decided on a provider, you don’t
have to go all in. It’s prudent to start small, maybe
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