A Mexican Mosaic

Keeping participants engaged in a yearlong sales campaign is as great a challenge as meeting aggressive sales goals. Caterpillar Financial Services maximized the appeal of their 2006 dealer incentive trip to Cabo San Lucas with a twelve month communications plan that used the image of �A Mexican Mosaic� of terra cotta tiles, chili peppers, and Mexican beaches to motivate participants to reach specific sales goals for 2005. Every three years, Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar, Inc., awards the top performers from their fifty-nine North American dealerships with a unique travel experience. The program was designed to increase sales and strengthen the relationship between CAT Financial and the financial managers within the dealerships. The 2005 program targeted nine diverse sales initiatives. To motivate dealers to focus on all nine products, for the first time, participants had the opportunity to qualify for three exotic trips to Cabo San Lucas for their dealerships. The strongly visual �Mexican Mosaic� theme was woven into all program communications. Following a teaser email, all participants received a package detailing the rules and eligibility requirements and enticing trip details. Included was the first of several �program reminder� gifts, Cabo Coasters. Every time a dealer put his morning coffee cup on his Cabo Coaster, he was reminded of his chance to earn the trip to Mexico. The program logo, depicting Mexican mosaic tiles, was used on all program print materials, the comprehensive Intranet site and a specially designed newsletter called El Sol Del Mosaic (The Mosaic Sun). This much anticipated monthly- newsletter included fun facts about Cabo San Lucas, Spanish lessons and a Q&A section with ideas on how to increase sales of each of the nine targeted products. On-going communications from territory managers directed participants to the Intranet site where all information about the program and the incentive trip was housed. Participants could log on and review their monthly metrics to see how they were aligned with the targets for each initiative. The program�s theme was the inspiration for a �Mexican Mosaic Bingo� game that was designed to encourage dealerships to focus on the nine-targeted initiatives. In order to qualify for one trip, dealers had to meet the targets for the three main initiatives, represented by three boxes running diagonally left to right on the bingo card. Once those targets were reached, the dealership had the option to earn another trip by meeting the targets for two other initiatives, giving them another line of bingo running horizontally, diagonally or vertically. Dealers who filled in the entire bingo card by meeting all sales targets qualified for a third trip. The 2005 Mexican Mosaic Dealer Incentive Program achieved record-setting numbers.