Incentive programme for employees to participate in the digital marketing of your business

Some typical cases we come across:

• Members of the sales department do not act as brand ambassadors on LinkedIn by posting and publishing frequently to improve brand awareness.
• The marketing department has to generate content on technical topics, but the technical department does not collaborate in the review or updating of the content.
• The little content that is distributed by the sales and technical departments does not form part of the content strategy stipulated in the communication plan.

In short, there is no alignment of objectives between departments. Have you ever had a similar experience? Well, we have found a solution. Read on.

The generation and distribution of content is key when it comes to improving your company’s brand awareness within the digital ecosystem. As the owner or director of a department, there is no better music to your ears than seeing your employees generating content and distributing it on Social Networks; after all, they are some of the best ambassadors of your brand. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s all very nice, but when it comes down to it, very few employees actually use LinkedIn to publish content. What’s more, in some industries, not even the sales department is used to using this channel. The question is, then, how to encourage employees to collaborate with the company’s digital marketing. The answer is by generating a points system that involves a reward. We have called it the Incentive Programme for employees to participate in your company’s digital marketing. We would like to highlight that this programme has been designed not only by us, digital marketing experts, but we have worked with Manuel Lanuza, partner of Human Way to validate the application of the remuneration system in companies with established human resources departments and incentive systems already in place.

What is the Incentive Programme?

Create a points system through gamification to generate relevant content. The system we are using in one of our clients is as follows:

The challenge then lies in keeping employees informed about the evolution of the score. Normally it is the marketing department itself that is responsible for this task, more specifically the company’s content manager. One of the most successful cases where we see the implementation of this points system is to send an email with the updated score every month. It is the workers themselves who inform the marketing department about the different actions they have carried out on Social Networks.

The other big question is, what are the winners offered to participate in this incentive system? The answer to that question depends very much on the budgetary constraints of the company in question. We go from the least to the most aggressive remuneration.

Whatever the circumstances, we emphasise that the communication or digital marketing department retains the power to determine whether the quality of the content is sufficient for it to be considered eligible for points. This clause in the points system is established precisely to ensure a certain quality of content and avoid, for example, meaningless comments on LinkedIn or irrelevant posts that do not add value to the community. It is for this reason that maximum limits are set when publishing posts and comments.

Non-monetary prize for the first three finishers

Establish in-kind prizes for the top three finishers that do not involve direct financial compensation. The example we applied to one of our clients is as follows:

• First Place: A trip for 2 people to a destination in Europe.
• Second place: A weekend for 2 people in Spain.
• Third Prize: A dinner for 2 people in a restaurant.

However, there is the possibility of using certain compensation platforms that offer flexible benefits that can be chosen. We will talk about this option in the third of the options, equivalence between points and euros.

The benefits of this system, which we consider to be the least aggressive, is that the company can deduct all these expenses in its profit and loss account and that there is, therefore, a tax benefit compared to the two other methods. In addition, such a (non-monetary) system generates a somewhat more intrinsic motivation than monetary compensation systems, which may encourage a change in behaviour that is sustained over time (whether or not the incentive system exists in the future). Finally, non-monetary systems avoid the “direct clash” with the company’s variable remuneration systems and are easier to activate/deactivate or modify if deemed necessary.

Bonus for the top three

This is a mixed option, in which the management sets a closed budget to allocate to such an incentive scheme. This budget is divided among the top three finishers as follows: 60% top ranked, 35% second ranked, 15% third ranked. This system is easily applicable, limited, and measurable by the employees who will participate in it if they are aware of the prizes before the start of the programme.

Establish an equivalence between points and euros

Each point earned is equivalent to 1 Euro to which the employee is entitled. This system is the most aggressive, as the impact of the actions will be measurable by the employees and they will see a direct reward for their efforts. However, it may be that if there are no further incentives in the employee’s compensation plan, the focus on core tasks may be neglected. We only recommend this system for B2B sales departments that already have strong incentives in place for sales achievement.

One of the drawbacks of establishing this monetary compensation system is that the company-wide compensation system may be affected and therefore may need to be modified to ensure a proper balance and coherence between all business objectives (e.g. by including it as a personal or team objective within the company’s model). In this sense, it may be necessary to redefine the company’s entire objectives/variable remuneration model, for which we have strategic human resources consultancies such as Human Way.

There is also the option of maintaining a parallel system, using platforms that allow points to be exchanged for euros. Examples of such platforms include Be Inspiring Tools and many others. The beauty of using such platforms is that employees can choose from a variety of rewards, such as subscriptions to gyms, books, training, etc…

The key

The key to the correct implementation of this system is, as always, change management and people. It is important to have a good method of communicating the implementation of this system to the workers and that it is understood. For this it is essential that once the counting of points has started, there is a weekly follow-up on the evolution of the points for each of the participants, where a ranking can be seen and the workers can compete with each other.

This is the task that CRONUTS DIGITAL can cover when the company’s digital marketing or Human Resources department is unable to deal with this type of issue.

Results

Having explained these three examples of remuneration programmes, they can be invented and adapted to the type of company to which they need to be applied. And although content generation will be less relevant in B2C companies, content can be shared on LinkedIn about company culture, new business challenges and so on.

One of our clients operating in the industrial sector has opted for the top three prize option and these are the results:

• The content generated for distribution in the digital ecosystem tripled and is of course much more specialised.
• The number of followers of the company on LinkedIn increased by 60% three months after the implementation of the system.
• 60 eyes see more than 10 and the website is much improved.