If you’ve ever jumped into spring cleaning at the turn of the season, set a new year’s resolution or created a to-do list to kick off a new quarter, you’ve likely experienced a psychological phenomenon called the Fresh Start Effect.
This phenomenon is behind the “clean slate” mentality and burst of motivation people experience following a temporal landmark, (a.k.a., an event or date that marks a new beginning). Whether it’s a new month, quarter or year, a fresh start makes people a lot more likely to set and reach their goals.
For businesses, this window is the sweet spot to boost partner engagement through incentive programs. By aligning your incentives with temporal landmarks, you can take advantage of the refreshed motivation people feel at the start of a new period.
Ideas to Harness the Power of New Beginnings
Let’s explore strategies that can help you make the most of the Fresh Start Effect and bring more motivation, energy and engagement to your program.
Create FOMO with Time-Bound Incentives
Time-bound incentives tap into people’s desire for exclusive gains and fear of missing out (not today, FOMO!). They also provide an immediate outlet for the extra motivation that comes from a fresh start, making these incentives a powerful tool for increasing program participation.
By creating a sense of urgency and competition in your program, you can drive more engagement and draw out exceptional performance from even the least-engaged program participants.
Quarterly or Biannual Challenges
Introduce competitions or rewards at the beginning of each quarter or half-year. Be consistent, and partners will start to look forward to these challenges as a regular event.
Monthly Goals
Offer incentives for achieving specific targets within a month, such as increasing revenue by a set %, recording a certain number of new products sold or completing training.
Frequent Bonuses
Provide small rewards for daily or weekly accomplishments to maintain continuous progress. Incentivize daily checkpoints or consider offering unexpected rewards that keep partners consistently engaged and focused on your program.
Get the Ball Rolling with Goal-Setting Incentives
Following temporal landmarks like January 1st or the first day of the month, partners will already have more motivation potential; you just need to act on it. Natural goal setting opportunities like these are the perfect time to build onto partners’ momentum and direct it toward your program.
New Year, New Goals
Offer extra rewards for setting ambitious but realistic goals at the beginning of the year, such as creating a new personal best, advancing team sales objectives or progressing stretch goals.
Milestone Bonuses
Reward partners when they reach significant milestones in their goals, not just at the finish line. You can reinforce progressive steps like completing 50% of a sales target, staying on pace with product training or simply participating regularly in the program.
Build Hype with Holiday or Seasonal Campaigns
Launching themed incentive programs around holidays or seasonal changes is a great way to inject energy and excitement into your program. By playing up the holiday mood, your program will feel more relevant to partners, and a lot more fun too.
Holiday Challenges
Help your program stand out around the holidays by creating themed challenges. For example:
- 12 Days of Incentives Countdown: Feature a new mini challenge each day, such as completing training, reaching a sales milestone, or submitting a customer testimonial. Allow partners to earn points daily with a bonus for completing all 12 challenges.
- Winter X Games: Select a series of holiday-themed tasks tied to program goals, like “Pipeline Prep Snowboarding” to encourage partners to build out their Q1 pipeline.
Seasonal Promotions
Offer special incentives during different seasons to increase participation. Give your partners a winter break with rebates or discounts, or showcase season-specific reward options, like the hottest new e-bike or luxury beach gear for the summer.
What seasons drive your business/industry?
What are the spikes or lulls in your selling cycle?
Back-to-School Promotions
Use the back-to-school theme to encourage partners to develop new skills. Associate your program with the continuous learning and growth opportunities partners need to build their own success.
Start Acting on the Fresh Start Advantage
The Fresh Start Effect is a strong motivational trigger, and businesses that understand and know how to apply it in their incentive programs have a major advantage.
By aligning rewards with psychological cues, you make your program engaging, actionable and memorable too. New beginnings are a time of refreshed potential; be the program to leverage that momentum for your channel partners.
