we typically reply in under 30 minutes
Written by: Mrudul
Top Ten Ways to Engage Customers Post-Holidays With Gift Cards
In this article, we look at some of the best ways you can engage customers after the holiday season, with the help of gift card incentives.
Gift cards were seen as a thoughtless investment once. Recipients have been guilty of forgetting to use them. They used to lie untouched in the drawers of most recipients’ homes. But here’s one more kicker: Customers are happy to spend even after the holidays. You must have an effective post-holiday promotions strategy in place to get the best bang for your buck. Add gift card incentives into the mix to make your campaigns successful.
The sale of gift cards is a great opportunity for eCommerce stores to multiply their post-holiday sales. Since gift card recipients end up spending more than the value on it, making gift cards a huge part of your post-holiday marketing strategy is a wise move to make. Most gift cards in circulation will see them getting spent in January, and this inadvertently extends the holiday shopping season. To increase sales during this time, you must have an effective strategy in place.
In this article, we look at post-holiday marketing ideas and retaining customers after the holidays.
A gift card purchase is like a normal purchase of your products at the store. You must make it a point to send thank-you emails to those who buy gift cards, holiday or not. Ensure that the email is tailored to the fact that they have purchased a gift card and not a product. It could read, “Thank you for gifting {company name’s} gift card to your loved one.”
Include recommendations on how the recipient can best use the gift card. It could include the suite of services or products that they can get using the gift card, it would make the experience even smoother.
The period after the holiday season is expected to be a lull. This is where you can incentivize the gift card recipient by having a clear call to action where they would get extra incentives if they were to use the gift card after the holiday season. With most people not using the gift card immediately, it wouldn’t be too difficult to convince them to wait for a little incentive. By persuading them to use the gift card at a later date, the season post holidays wouldn’t be a dry sales spell. It will result in a steady revenue stream for your business.
Customers who have bought gift cards during the holiday season are more likely to repeat in the next year too. This will be a reality only if you have offered them a delightful experience for the first time.
Write a series of emails where you include them in all the holidays. One of the major special occasions that comes at the beginning of the year is Valentine’s Day. Target customers with targeted and relevant write-ups for each of these occasions to get them to purchase your gift cards.
The gift card purchaser is likely to buy an existing customer of yours who loves what you offer. To increase your bottom line, you must focus even more on the gift card recipients. You may not get any information about the gift card recipient until they make a purchase using it. This is when you must collect details to put them into a series of nurturing emails.
Understand the type of products that they would be interested in, and send them relevant recommendations. You can sweeten the deal by offering a discount or giving them exclusive access to the latest product on your shelf. This will easily make them feel strongly about your brand.
Sending them irrelevant content or recommendations can be a turn-off. It can immediately sour the relationship. This is why customer engagement strategies and post-holiday gift card promotions should be carefully drafted.
If you have scheduled a clearance sale, send them to gift card participants alone. In fact, this will encourage more customers to look at gift cards as an alluring option when they make a purchase. The exclusive access to clearance sale products should only be for a few days or hours, otherwise, it can impact how other customers feel about your brand. But if you could pass the message that gift card users are likely to get an upper hand at times, you will certainly create a shift in their perception of them.
With a lot of money spent during the holidays, customers are more likely to tell themselves to cut back on their spending. This will result in fewer sales than expected. But this is where eCommerce stores must step up. Sweeten the deal to your gift card recipients by offering them an extra product or service to the products that are on flash sale.
Creative gift card campaigns are great tools for customer retention after the holidays. One of the easiest ways to engage customers post holidays and purchase gift cards is to offer a better deal on it. If a customer wants to purchase a $50 gift card, then add $5 on top of it. During the month of January, sales is expected to dry. If you can come up with such an offer where buying the gift cards will be profitable, most customers who frequent your store will be happy to make the purchase. In fact, such purchases will mostly be for themselves, and that’s a good thing as it also tells you about their trust in your brand.
If a customer has purchased above a particular threshold during the holidays, you can offer them a gift card that is redeemable only afer the holidays. This will result in them walking to the store afte the sales season is offer. You will have customers who purchase from you during the dry season, and you can even expect them to spend more than the value on the gift card. This is a win-win for everyone.
Gift card incentives for loyalty program members is one of the best customer appreciation strategies. For customers who are part of your loyalty program, you can send gift cards of the value of $5 or $10 and encourage them to make a purchase. The free gift cards can be sent from the beginning of January so that it will encourage them to spend during this period. Building post-holiday brand loyalty becomes easy with the right loyalty program with gift card incentives. If you use software like 99minds, it would be easy to engage your customers.
A review from a customer who loves your product is one of the best things you can have. Incentivizing customers in lieu of reviews poses a moral dilemma since it begs the question that the review is biased. What if you could send gift cards to customers after they post the review, but without advertising about the incentive in the first place? This way, no one can call you out on dishonorable business practices. Also, this is one of the best ways to delight customers as they would have never expected an incentive.
Boosting sales with gift cards is a great way to get more customers walking into your store. The holiday season is a great time to leverage gift cards, but so is it post the holiday hullabaloo. We have listed some of the best gift card redemption tips post-holidays so that you don’t have to go through a dry sales spell after the holiday season. The last thing an eCommerce store wants is to see a decline in sales after an impeccable holiday season, although it is the norm. This is where you can engage customers post-holidays with gift card incentives.
If you are looking for a gift card and loyalty program to make sure that your post-holiday sales doesn’t die down, you are in the right place. Get in touch with the 99minds to see how we can be of help. We are here to help you get rid of the proverbial post-holiday blues for eCommerce stores.