As a retailer, if you are not investing in a gift card strategy, you are doing a grave injustice to your store. People love gift cards since they are an almost fail-safe gifting option. They can quickly guarantee a new set of customers, higher order values, reduced returns, and so on. It has win-win written all over it.

In this article, we look at why you must invest in gift cards, including various strategies to market them to your customers.

Why should you invest in gift cards?

• They expose you to a new set of customers
• It is one of the easiest ways to build a great relationship with the customer and the gift card recipient
• Gift cards help drive traffic to your website
• They are great as a tool to resolve disputes or discrepancies
• Store credits given back as gift cards are a clever way to ensure that the customer shops with you again
• They increase the order value of customers’ shopping bag
• You can personalize the gift cards to make the occasion more special
• Since gift cards are prepaid, the customer is more likely to pay full price for the products

Statistics that show why gift cards are an eCommerce store’s asset:

• 65% of customers are likely to visit businesses that offer gift cards
• Customers spend an average of $59 more than the value present on the gift card
• 33% of customers spend more on gift cards than any other gifts
• The value of unredeemed gift cards between 2000 and 2015 is more than $45.7 billion and the unredeemed value is usually returned to the store
• 81% of customers are interested in receiving store credits in the form of gift cards

Gift card marketing strategies that drive sales and increase brand awareness:

1. Leverage them as incentives:

Gift cards are usually given as a gift. Therefore, offering them as incentives for customers is an ideal way to use them as a tool for reward. The gift cards can be used as a prize for a contest, in a giveaway, or as a reward for completing a survey. Promote them across multiple channels where customers are most active.

They could also be a part of your loyalty program. For example, a gift card can be the first incentive that a customer gets as soon as they join your loyalty program. Here, you are able to provide immediate value to your loyalty program members while letting them get a taste of your gift cards.



2. Create gift card landing pages:

Come up with a unique design for every occasion where you are looking to create unique gift cards. This is where creating a separate landing page for each of these occasions is a marketing masterstroke. By doing so, you will know the number of gift card sales for every occasion, including other marketing metrics. These metrics will be crucial to figuring out your gift card performance. Make sure that your gift card landing page’s copy and design are in line with your brand lines. Also, you must choose the right offer to make it appealing to your target audience.

3. Use email marketing:

Many predicted the death of emails, but they couldn’t be far from the truth. Email marketing is one of the easiest methods to get close to your customers. Even your “coldest” leads will become warm with the right series of nurturing emails. While it is prudent to create separate emails to talk about your gift cards, don’t hesitate to slyly drop a sentence or two about it.

Thanks to email marketing automation tools, you don’t even have to put in time and effort for days on end. A one-time setup with an experienced email marketer can make a world of difference to your marketing outcomes. The incredible ROI of 4200% that is splashed everywhere as email marketing’s results is no joke.

4. Bundling:

Make the shopping experience more appealing to your customers by adding a gift card to their purchases. Offer personalized gift card options based on their previous shopping experience as a value-addition to the bundle. Customers who are hesitant about getting gift cards will be happy to get them as a part of the bundling since they stand to profit from it. Make sure you optimize your product bundles based on seasonal marketing campaigns.

5. Offer gift cards after a spending threshold:

One of the easiest ways to introduce customers to your gift cards is by offering them for free after they have spent a certain amount. Make sure the gift card has a top up of at least ten or twenty dollars to make it worthwhile for the customers. They either give it to a loved one for free or are more likely to buy a few more things at the same time. No matter, the outcome is positive for your brand.

6. Invest in SEO:

While outreach campaigns with big spends on Facebook or Google Ads will always fetch results, you mustn’t ignore SEO. It won’t give you immediate results, but it can act as your cash cow. This is where having exclusive landing pages for gift cards is a brilliant idea, as discussed. Make sure that the landing page is perfectly optimized for both customer experiences and search engines.

• Below are a few ways to SEO optimize the gift card landing page
• Make sure the page loading speed is optimized
• Write persuasive copy that your target audience can relate to
• Leverage SEO best practices that can help you make the most
• Regularly indulge in A/B testing to refine the campaign’s effectiveness



7. Invest in micro-influencers:

Micro-influencers are those who have a follower count in the range of 10,000 to 100,000. These influencers hold a lot more sway over people’s emotions when compared with an influencer in the same field with tens of millions of followers. Why? Because they are more relatable and sociable enough to respond to customers with questions. Also, according to Emplifi, micro-influencers generate 60% more engagement than macro-influencers. Don’t burn your pockets by using someone with millions of followers.

8. Create a gift card promotion-focused content calendar:

To get a big ROI on gift cards, you must create specific marketing content for them. Go through your calendar, one quarter at a time. Find out important dates when it will make business sense to leverage gift cards. Identify important dates in your niche and add them to the gift card content calendar.

9. Track gift card metrics:

Make sure you track a few metrics that are important to how your gift card campaigns perform.

• You might want to look at the following metrics
• The average price of the gift cards
• Number of times a customer redeems the gift card
• Amount of unused money in them

10. Keep experimenting:

As a marketer, you know that the best outcomes happen when experiments happen. By tracking your gift card campaign’s performance, you will know how they are faring. Find out different ways to attract more customers to your gift card. Trial-and-error marketing methods are great to find out one that can outperform well-known and proven strategies.

Wrapping up:

The best thing about gift card marketing is that you can get started with ease. Implementing them is as easy as a few clicks. A gift card is a marketing tool that gives you multi-pronged benefits from day one. From brand awareness to reducing churn you are only limited by your imagination in getting the best out of it.

If you are looking for a strategy that helps drive sales and increases brand awareness, gift cards are a great choice. The 99minds team would be happy to help you with it. Our plug-and-play software can help you create gift cards, coupons, and referral and loyalty programs, etc.