Would it be easier to get the budget you need for an effective channel incentive travel program if your chief executive knew that 83% of participants—customers who sell your company’s product—would be less likely to suggest your widgets if there were a reduction in program benefits? A new study from Maritz shows that may be the case.
Motivating and rewarding the resellers of your company’s products—the channel partners—is an example of an incentive travel program that can have outsized consequences to improve or hurt the company’s bottom line. That is why Maritz recently surveyed hundreds of channel partners—the participants in travel incentive programs—from various industries to understand their experiences, preferences and what truly drives their engagement.
Practical questions were aimed at understanding what participants loved, how it changed their behavior and how they would structure the program if they were designing it from scratch. The resulting report, “Channel Incentives: Protecting Your Budget, Boosting Your Returns for 2025 & Beyond,” could help all meeting planners prioritize the features that make the biggest impact.
Smart Meetings sat down with Casey Epley, director of product advancement at Maritz, to better understand the role channel incentives play in leveraging business relationships and learn tips for advocating for and making the most of incentive budgets.
Motivated to Sell
The proof that channel incentive programs work was pretty overwhelming, according to Epley. A total of 91% of respondents said incentives have a “high” or “very high” impact on their motivation to sell. That means that most people in these programs care about the incentives and are selling more at least in part because of the incentives.
Learn More: Incentive Travel, a How-to on Fostering Greatness
In fact, respondents said they mattered more than short-term discounts and almost as much as profit to the business. Incentives are a powerful tool to build partner loyalty and brand awareness. 91% of respondents agree that the opportunity to earn rewards encourages them to learn more about that brand. Plus, 92% of sellers say they actively keep earning opportunities in mind while performing their daily tasks. The report concluded, “Successful programs don’t just influence a single sale; they help your brand stay top of mind, ensuring partners continuously engage with and advocate for your products.”
Conversely, if the travel and financial incentives are removed, the behavior—buying and reselling the company’s products—would significantly decrease. In fact, 83% of participants said that if incentives were removed, that would impact their sales effort.
That insight places incentive programs in the role of revenue generators, rather than cost centers. Designed strategically, they can be used as a tool to address fluctuating inventory levels, supply chain disruptions or promote priority products.
Best Practices for Channel Incentive Programs
But not all channel incentive programs are equal. The Maritz report found that partners dropped out if rewards were too hard to earn or took too long, communications and offers weren’t relevant, rewards weren’t appealing or rules weren’t clear or were confusing. The most effective programs simplify the rules, personalize the reward experience and communicate effectively.
Learn More: Defining Exceptional Channel incentive Programs
Epley stressed the importance of making rewards flexible. Points programs allow participants to choose their own adventure, whether that is a new handbag or taking the family on a trip.
While there might be a base level of cash reward, adding competitive elements with unexpected prizes at different levels can make the program even more compelling. Rebates, gift cards, merchandise, trophies or symbolic rewards, like tier progression or points toward an incentive trip are also popular.
Ideally, the incentive designer will have a chance to test interest and adjust based on uptake. By watching the bell curve, tweaking the program to sweeten the gold rewards can move more people to the higher levels if too many are doing the bare minimum or move the bar higher if too many are achieving costly elite levels too soon and then were not as motivated after they had already qualified for the Hawaii trip. At that point, unlocking an exclusive catamaran trip or some other perk may be required to keep everyone engaged.
Learn More: SITE Study on Gen Z Incentive Travel Preferences
Whatever you offer, make it easy to use and communicate the benefits clearly. “Rule structure may be the most important thing,” said Epley. The best way to structure the sales challenge varies based on the culture of the industry you are working with and the relationship.
Exclusive sellers can be influenced to purchase more frequently and more premium products. Measurables may include order accuracy, growth compared to the previous year or product categories. Other partners may have a choice of brands they can recommend. The yard stick may be based on more transactional measurements.
“As you are looking to capture wallet and mind share, personalize the behavior you are trying to incentivize for best results,” Epley advised. The more rules fit the specific partner or industry rather than feeling like they were written for the general market, then the more likely the partner is to participate.
Technology companies, for instance, respond to rebates and discounts more than manufacturing or other more mature industries that have a culture of offering non-cash rewards.
One finding that surprise Epley was the popularity of training programs as an incentive activity. “They rated learning as a critical benefit. That was a big light bulb for us.
