It's less than a month to Christmas and many business owners are trying their level best to make sure they have the best sales this festive season. Gift cards have been known to benefit many businesses with regards to customer retention. Well, you don't need to sell gift cards in order to boost your business, but then you can incorporate gift cards as part of your marketing strategy. With the current advancements in marketing, it's very important for every small business to have a gift card program as part of their marketing strategy. Your gift card program can have both electronic and the traditional old-school printed gift cards. There is a wide range of gift card programs that business owner s can choose from. There is also the option of picking two or more gift cards programs depending on your clients and customers.
In order to make sure that you make the most out of your gift card program you need a few pointers here and there. Having a successful gift card program for your small business will involve more than having the gift cards ready for your consumers and clients. Since its Christmas season, you will find that gift cards will be bought by customers who are buying gifts for their loved ones. In order to make the best out of your gift card program and make more money, you need to utilize the following tricks.
1. Have Your Gift Card Visible and Accessible
Take a look at how the major retailers handle their gift cards. Most of these retailers have their cards displayed all over the internet and on their premises. The cards are easily visible to every customer who walks into their stores or accesses the internet. Using the same idea, make sure everyone knows you have a gift card program, place the gift cards on the counters, put up a sign for your customers. If you have newsletters, include links to your online gift cards in the newsletters. Have many gift cards ads on your website. It's almost Christmas time and gift cards sell most during this festive season.
2. Customizing The Gift cards
Creativeness has been known to win the hearts of many. Make sure you go a step further and have the gift cards customized depending on the customers’ preference. You can make your gift card program more interesting by having ribbons or envelopes that you can use to package the cards like gifts. This will make your customers feel special. Nobody wants a gift that is not packaged like a gift even if it’s just a gift card.
3. Making The best of E-Gift cards
We can't ignore the fact that the world has moved to do things electronically compared to a few years ago. The same way there are plenty of e-gift cards that consumers can use. Since many people these days use mobile payments, it's more sensible for you to offer your clients the option of getting electronic gift cards. When picking a company that will help you with your gift card program it's important to make sure that the company can offer you both the traditional physical gift cards and electronic cards. Electronic gift cards are the digital solution when it comes to selling gift cards. The electronic gift cards are fast to send, need no postal charges, easily accessible and most important not limited to geographical location and can be bought anywhere. With a reliable and functional website, you can comfortably sell e-gift cards and send them to your clients.
4. Public Relations
When running a gift card program you will have a more interactive relationship with their clients. You will have to collect information of both the sender and the receiver of the gift cards. So how do you make use of this opportunity without coming out as obnoxious and annoying? You can send an invite or a request for both parties whether they would like to receive newsletters, discount alerts or new product launch news from your business. Make sure the marketing messages you send are friendly and are not only drafted for the Christmas season. Offer them additional offers like a discount if they redeemed their gift cards before a certain date.
5. Loyal Customers
Every business needs a reward program for its loyal customers. You can give your customers a new experience; incorporate the customer loyalty program into the gift card program. You can have a system where customers are rewarded with gift cards if they reach a certain threshold in their shopping. You can also reward the loyal customers who have always shopped in your store ever since the year began, this will create a more personal relationship with your customers. You can have gift cards sent to your list of loyal customers.
6. Making use of the BOGO marketing strategy
BOGO simply means Buy One Get One. It’s one of the best marketing strategies loved by customers. Many business owners assume that the BOGO program is only applicable to large franchise businesses. The BOGO strategy can be used in the gift card program, like if a customer buys a $100 gift card they can be offered a gift card worth 10% of their gift card. Giving the customer an opportunity to spend more will definitely improve sales. You can also add shopping coupons to the BOGO program.
7. Using Gift Cards For Replacement
During the holiday season, you will experience customers returning products they had bought. You can use this opportunity to market your gift cards, when faced with any scenario where a customer returns a product, instead of refunding them using cash you can give them gift cards with the same value of their total purchases. This will also reduce the chances of you having to deal with fraudsters who might want to steal goods and return them in an effort to get a cash refund. Always make sure the customers have receipts when you are dealing with the return goods. In case you opt for this, then it's important to update your return policy so that your customers can be aware of the changes and the options they have.
With the above seven tips, you will be able to make the best out of your gift card program. And enjoy more sakes this festive season.
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