Selling gift cards is an excellent way to tap into your existing customer base and reach new audiences. It gives your customers a chance to show how much they love someone. It has win-win written all over it. Gift cards aren’t a novel idea, the likes of giants like McDonald’s and JC Penney introduced them as early as the 1970s. eCommerce retailers these days know the kind of difference these cards can make to their bottom line. While it can significantly boost sales, it also does a great job of increasing brand value.

In this article, we look at how integrating gift cards with your Shopify store can put your sales machinery on overdrive. By following the strategies outlined below, you’ll be able to increase your gift card conversion rate and increase goodwill among your customers.

Why is Shopify Gift Card Integration a Must for Your Store?

Before we delve into strategies for maximizing gift card sales with Shopify integrations, let’s look at why you must have gift cards in the first place.

Customers who use gift cards from your store are more likely to make purchases that exceed the value of the gift cards It is one of the easiest strategies to increase your customer base as most customers who buy gift cards buy them for their loved ones, and that too on special occasions. All of this makes the act of receiving gift cards special and memorable You don’t have to sell any product when you sell gift cards. It is a cash-flow generating machine when rightly used Since gift cards are digital in nature (there are physical ones too), there is no shipping or fulfillment that you have to worry about Customers who are the recipients of your store’s gift cards are more likely to return to your store to make additional purchases Want customers to keep coming back to you? Gift cards as store credits is your answer With the right promotional strategy, gift cards can act as your marketing ally You can make gift cards even more special than it already is, by personalizing them for the recipients

What Shopify Gift Card Best Practices Must you Use for Increasing Sales With Gift Cards?

Integrating gift cards into your Shopify store is an incredibly easy process. The holy grail is about using the right strategies to improve your sales.

Let’s look at some of the gift card eCommerce strategies to increase sales in your Shopify store. Create Interesting Designs:

By simply creating designs that stand out, you can capture the attention of those looking for a gift card. It can be the difference between a “Let me grab this gift card for my husband!” and an “I’ll keep looking for a gift.”

Below are a few pointers on coming up with interesting designs Make sure anything you design is in line with your brand identity elements. Your creativity shouldn’t let you forget that your brand’s colors are purple and red Creating designs for different holiday seasons is another way to capture a piece of the celebration pie You can arouse the curiosity of your target audience by allowing them to personalize the gift card design Design gift cards so good that its recipients want to keep them as souvenirs

Create Special Landing Pages for Gift Card Promotions on Shopify:

A marketing maven would know that landing pages increase conversions. It applies to gift cards as well. With separate landing pages for each occasion, you can be on top of the gift card performance metrics. The number of people who visited the landing page, the channels that gave you the most hits, and the offers that elicited the most responses, are metrics that can be used to improve your landing pages. The right offer and the right copy and design can make a world of difference to your gift card promotions on Shopify store.

SEO SEO SEO All the Way:

Shopify online stores have built-in features that help with optimizing your content. Unless you have the funds to invest regularly in Facebook or Google ads, investing in SEO is a no-brainer. Make sure that the gift card landing pages are perfectly optimized for search engines and offer a great experience for customers.

Below are a few ways to use SEO for gift card campaign optimization Google’s recommended page load time is under two seconds. Keep this in mind for your Shopify store and your gift card landing page Make sure the copy is exactly what your target audience is looking for A/B test the copy and design on your gift card landing page for the best results

Your ultimate objective should be to improve the gift card user experience. By doing SEO, you will be able to increase the reach of your gift cards to a huge audience. Incentivize Gift Card Purchases:

A no-brainer initiative for your gift card program success is to incentivize it for each buyer.

Let’s look at a few incentives for gift card marketing on Shopify Use gift cards as an incentive instead of offering discounts for customers Retain customers who are looking at competitor products by offering them gift cards with cash topped up Offer free gift cards when customers refer their loved ones If you are looking to upsell or cross-sell, incentivize the move with a free gift card

The best part is that you are boosting revenue with gift cards by giving them away for free at a small value added to it. Such gift card sales tactics aren’t predatory in nature and help the customers too.

Use Gift Cards in Email Marketing:

Sending information about gift cards in your email newsletters is the closest you can get to a customer in the real world. Emails are personal, focused, and specific. It has the ability to forge a connection that no other marketing channel can dream of. That’s precisely why an ROI of 4400% for email marketing doesn’t sound incredulous. Gift card ROI on Shopify can be easily increased with an effective email marketing strategy.

You can “nurture” your newsletter subscribers by sending a series of follow-up emails to get them closer to buying your gift cards. The best part is that it is achievable without being loud and pushy. If you are looking for gift card growth on Shopify, email marketing should be a strategy that you must focus on.

Wrapping up:

Using gift cards for your Shopify store is one of the best marketing tools to have in your arsenal. Even hardened marketers will admit that even though gift cards aren’t considered a marketing channel, it does make a huge dent in your sales and marketing efforts. Shopify gift card benefits are a dime-a-dozen. Utilizing the right gift card sales strategy, you can make your Shopify store a resounding success.

Choose a Shopify gift card app like 99minds that can supercharge your sales. 99minds is an all-in-one platform that allows you to create gift cards, coupons, discounts, loyalty programs, referral programs, location-based promotions, and so on.