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Written by: Mrudul
10 Awesome Tips for Using Gift Cards to Boost Your Holiday Sales
This is the season of hope. From the time the world went into a metaphorical shell, all of us have been praying for December to come sooner, the season of Christmas, and the dawn of a new year that all of us are waiting for. If you are a retailer, this is the season when
This is the season of hope. From the time the world went into a metaphorical shell, all of us have been praying for December to come sooner, the season of Christmas, and the dawn of a new year that all of us are waiting for. If you are a retailer, this is the season when you make bank. Despite the pandemic still looming large over our heads, retailers are getting ready for this holiday season. One way to increase your sales is to use gift cards for your store.
If increasing your sales was an area that you never really mastered, here are 10 awesome tips from us on how to do it with the help of gift cards.
Make noise about your gift cards on your social media profiles. Even before you launch them, hype it on your various handles before you give them the news. Many customers will be more than happy to purchase the gift cards online. The gift cards don’t have to be in physical forms alone. Write blog posts around it. If you have the budget for it, do not hesitate to spend your ad money on promoting them.
Want more sales? Here is an easy way for you to fill your coffers- use gift cards as a promotional item. Tell your customers that for each $100 gift card that they buy, they will only have to pay $90. And the promotion is on top of anything else that they will buy using the gift card. In fact, encourage customers in your shop to buy gift cards and then make the purchase using them since they will be getting a fat discount. More often than not, the value of the gift card will not be fully utilized, which means they will come back for more. Ta da!
Tell your customers that for every $100 they spend, they will get a $10 gift card. These are not arbitrary numbers, of course. You can even give them a $20 gift card for a $100 purchase based on how the economics work out for you.
Market it in such a way that only your most loyal customers get to use gift cards. In fact, gift cards should not only be one that is useful to give to friends and family. But it should come with many benefits that your average customer wouldn’t think twice about wanting to be your ‘loyal customer.’ For example, your loyal customers could get access to a unique community of your customers where they will have closer access to your brand, be the first to get to enjoy your products, and so on. It increases the appeal of being a loyal customer and gives an exclusive feeling since gift cards are not for everyone.
If you bring out unique gift cards, especially for your holidays, you will find that your customers will buy them just for the novelty value. You know that most of these gift cards are for friends and family and are rarely for personal use. Once your customer’s gift card recipient extinguishes the money in the gift card, they can still keep the holiday-themed gift card as a remembrance of your customer’s generosity and the holiday. Please do not forget to mention that the gift card can be used even after the holiday season. Many customers believe that seasonal gift cards can be used only during that period.
One mistake that most retailers make is their placement of gift cards. Keep informing your customers that they are available; that’s the first step. The second step would be to display them at many places in your store, or if your customer is on your website, then inform them about the gift cards using push notifications. Also, remember that buying gift cards can sometimes be an impulsive decision, so one more place where you should place the cards is at your point of sale.
Making your offer more attractive is the best way to make your customers feel closer to you as well as close a sale. Gift cards can be impersonal, but you can make the experience a level upwards by personalizing it for the customer. How nice it would be if you could add the name of the recipient and allow the customer to make small changes in how it is presented or packaged! It is all about finding ways to make the experience better. Even a tiny amount of personalization can mean a lot to the customer and can tilt the buying decision in your favor.
How about using gift cards as a source of incentive for your employees? Instead of just pushing offers for your customers to buy gift cards, you could offer a little more for your employees and sell them. For each sale of a gift card, you can offer your employees an incentive, or the employee who sells the most number of gift cards can be the one who becomes the winner.
People love to be a part of contests. Why not go the same route? Create a contest during the holiday period, just for customers who buy your gift cards. Or you can even announce that each customer who is going to purchase gift cards will be eligible to receive a gift since it is the holiday season. This will surely get them interested. Even the ones who weren’t thinking of buying a gift card will be open to the possibility of it.
We mentioned creating holiday-themed gift cards; you can also go a step ahead and create a gift card design that will completely blow the minds of your customers. These cards represent your business, and you should ensure that they are superb. Use the help of professionals to get the work done.
As a retailer, if you are looking to amp up your sales volume, then gift cards are one of the best things you can do to make that happen. Provide them such a delightful experience that they keep coming back for more.