Gift Cards and More - February 2012
Sunday, 12 February 2012
February 2012
Welcome to the second edition of our revamped monthly newsletter "Gift Cards and More". Using the existing technology on your terminals that allows you to offer gift cards, you can offer your customers far more!
Michael
Give the gift of an experience
Everyone knows someone that is impossible to buy a gift for because, well they already have everything, right? Then there are those who you just have no idea what to buy them….
Have you ever noticed that very often the people who buy your gift cards are not your regular customers? If they don't know anything about your business, then they aren't going to know how much to spend? Giving customers the chance to purchase a package or experience for a loved one helps them feel like they are providing a more personalised gift.
It's helpful when putting together your various gift card packages to think about how each can appeal to people who aren't in your typical customer base. Take the spa industry for example, which is dominated largely by female clientele. However, anecdotal evidence tells us that it is usually men who are buying spa gifts for the women in their lives and need direction about what to buy.
Why not get a new card design for experience packages as distinct to your “normal” gift card design? That way, you, the gift giver and the recipient know exactly what they can get with their “experience” card?
What are others up to?
A Card Commerce customer since February 2011, Travelshop365.com hit the ground running with their gift card marketing - using social media to promote and sell gift cards.
According to a global survey of business use of social networks, companies that use social media to acquire new business in the UK have seen increased profits in the past year of 40% (compared to 25% that didn’t). Travelshop365.com has realised this potential and is using its ‘Pre-paid Travel Gift Card’ to drive its marketing effort.
With no physical outlets, Travelshop365.com has had to be creative in marketing its gift card offer. As a key part of this, they have actively embraced social media, looking first to their own website and Twitter and, more recently, at iPatter.com.
iPatter, a new and growing internet phenomenon in the UK, allows Travelshop365.com to offer discounted cards to corporate and retail clients alike. They realise that customers will spend more than the face value of their cards and target this uplift in spending to entice customers to use their service in the highly competitive UK Travel market.
Travelshop365.com use Twitter to promote their gift card in the same way they promote holiday deals. They have however offered customers the chance to win a Travelshop365.com gift card by simply re-tweeting Travelshop365.com Twitter messages to all their followers.
Said Rob Campbell of Travelshop365.com “Our Travel Gift Card allows us to offer customers an exciting and unique way to buy holidays, give holidays and save up for holidays. Advertising and selling the card via social media helps us sell more cards and generate more interest in our brand too!”
Key Learnings
- If people don’t know about your gift card they can’t buy it
- Cards can be used for much more than just ‘gifting’
2012 Calendar – Key Dates
The 25th of December is not the only key gifting date in the calendar annually, in fact there is another big one coming up this month…. Valentine’s Day!
Merchandising and marketing will be key to your business realising all that your gift card programme has to offer this Valentine’s Day. Remember advertising your gift card programme doesn’t have to cost you, you can do it through Facebook and Twitter for free for example.
According to Andrew Johnson, director-general of the UK GCVA, “gift cards and vouchers are becoming a growing trend for events such as Valentine’s Day. A voucher for a spa day, for example, is a great way to treat your partner and give her some time to pamper herself. You can also win brownie points by buying vouchers for a romantic hotel break, which will also give you quality time together as a couple. Or why not simply give her a gift card or voucher for her favourite shop, so she can buy something that she really wants.”
So you should bear these dates in mind:
Valentines Day - February 14th
Mothers Day - March 18th
Easter - April 8th
Fathers Day - June 17th
Christmas - December 25th
And of course it will be someone’s birthday on all 366 days of 2012!
