Successful Gift Card Marketing Strategies

You should have 2 goals when planning your gift & loyalty campaigns:

1. Increase your customer base

2. Maintain your existing and new customer base.

Let's look at a few real life strategies that have been successful gift & loyalty Campaigns.

Lunch restaurant uses gift cards for launch:

The owners of a lunch time restaurant, located near a university, was about to open. They wanted to create a real buzz from the moment the store opened to ramp up their business.

We came up with a plan to make 100 gift cards with a value of $4.00 each. The owners knew their average ticket price was around $8, with a "cost of goods and services" around about $2.50. They could afford to give the cards away and still make a profit.

Two days before the opening we hired someone to hand out cards to students, explaining that they would only be good on opening day. When the restaurant opened its doors there was a line-up out the door. A lot of students brought their friends with them and many ended up spending $12 as an average ticket price.

And since the food and service was good, still to this day this lunch time restaurant has one of the busiest lunches in that area.

Florist increases deliveries with gift card strategy:

A florist I worked with knew that most of the flowers they were delivering were to people who were receiving flowers from someone. The company wanted to try to increase their customer base to include the people receiving the flowers.

After working out their "cost of goods and services" they determined they could maintain profitability and still include a free $10 gift card with each delivery. They tastefully added a free card when they delivered flowers, and soon saw a dramatic increase in orders due to their gift card campaign.

Clothing retailer challenges larger chain stores with savvy strategy:

A clothing retailer who was finding it challenging to compete against larger chain stores used a gift card strategy to turn things around.

The owner trained his staff to ask new patrons if they had shopped at the store before. If the answer was no, the sales person would offer a gift card in the amount of roughly $5.The free card was a big motivator. The store owner observed that patrons would begin to shop and would buy something due to being given a gift. (This is a sales technique called the 'reciprocal agreement').

But the store owner didn't just want one-time customers, so he trained his staff to reload the person's gift-card during the check-out. Customers, already in a positive frame of mind from the initial gift, received a cheery comment like "Thank you for your business, we added $X to your gift card for your next visit." That simple strategy turned many casual shoppers into loyal, repeat customers.

Other strategies at play:

Gift and loyalty cards can be used in many unique ways. A few other creative strategies I have seen include:

• Small business owners using cards as rebates on products instead of holding a sale. A sale gets people in the store, but it doesn't encourage them to return. Rebate gift cards do both.

• A high-end jewelry store giving out $50 gift cards during the holiday season to doctor's offices, knowing the doctors are likely to come in and purchase an expensive product due to the gift card.

Gift and loyalty cards have been used successfully by mechanics, massage therapists, beauty salons, restaurants, coffee houses, home improvement companies, accountants and companies in many other industries. This is no longer a business marketing method that is limited to larger companies, but a strategy that you can put to work in your business immediately.

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