• Can You Measure Your Incentive Program’s ROI?
• Study Shows Overall Incentive Marketplace Is Still Growing
• Tradeshow Professionals Say Promotional Products Drive Booth Traffic

Can You Measure Your Incentive Program’s ROI?

Measuring the ROI on your incentive programs is one sure way to ensure that they are maintained and that they continue to contribute to your organization’s sales and profit growth.  But there are a lot of factors that can contribute to increases in sales and performance.  How do you isolate those that can be attributed to your incentive programs?  The Incentive Research Foundation has examined this question from a number of perspectives for both incentive travel and for sales incentive programs in general, and has a number of research and analytical suggestions to offer companies that are interested in pinning down their incentive ROI more specifically.  For the IRF’s white paper on measuring ROI for incentive travel programs, click here. For the IRF’s analysis of determining ROI for sales incentive programs in general, click here.

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Study Shows Overall Incentive Marketplace Is Still Growing

A total of $46.1 billion was spent by U.S. companies on incentive travel and merchandise in 2006, according to the “Federation Study 2007: A Study of the Incentive Merchandise and Travel Marketplace,” sponsored by the Incentive Federation and conducted and prepared by GfK, the fourth largest marketing research organization in the world.  That total represents a significant increase from the just-under-$30 billion figure that was reported in the Federation’s last comprehensive survey in 2000.  It also represents $32.7 billion spent on incentive merchandise and $13.4 billion on incentive travel. 

In addition to budget figures, the report looks at how merchandise and travel incentives are being used.  According to the study, some 34% of U.S. companies overall used either travel or merchandise incentives last year, with 31% using merchandise and 10% making use of travel incentives.  The average budget for travel incentives in 2006 was $164,271, with more than three-quarters of incentive travel end-users spending between $100,000 and $500,000. The typical budget for merchandise incentives was lower - $119,008 – and just under half of merchandise incentive users spent between $100,000 and $500,000.

For a more detailed look at the “Federation Study 2007,” click here.

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Tradeshow Professionals Say Promotional Products Drive Booth Traffic

How do tradeshow professionals draw crowds to their booths? To find out, the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) surveyed tradeshow professionals and meeting planners at the TS² tradeshow in Washington, DC.  What it found was that promotional products were an extremely important tool that allowed exhibitors to reach out to potential buyers in the tradeshow environment.  In fact, 71% of the survey respondents who said they used promotional products said they were “effective” or “extremely effective” in accomplishing their goals.

To view PPAI’s bulletin, “Tradeshow Professionals Cite Effectiveness of Promotional Products As Traffic Drivers,” click here.

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