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