12 Nov Make Gift Cards Cash in for Your Business
Gift cards are everywhere—they’re online, offline, and a default present for those who have it all and for those who are not so easy to shop for.
As prevalent as gift cards are, simply having them available without strategizing their impact means you could be leaving cash on the table. Utilize one or a few of these strategies to bolster your gift card sales, engage your customer base, and help stabilize your cash flow during slow months.
Gift Card Basics
In the most basic terms, gift cards are a pay-now, complete-the-transaction-later option for goods or services, with the option of the final transaction completed by someone other than the individual who purchased the gift card.
Gift card value options are set by you, the business. Whether gift cards can expire may be determined by your local or state government. Most appreciate a gift card that doesn’t expire; however, some of the strategies below utilize terms outside of “gift card” as there are deadlines involved.
Gift cards come in all shapes and sizes. Paper, plastic card, and digital options are available – and customizable. If you’re not taking advantage of gift cards that celebrate your brand, consider it! If humor is a part of your brand, make your gift card equally as amusing. Elegant, you say? Consider a classic design with a fancy script.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s discuss a few strategies.
Gift Card Strategies
Buy One, Get One [BOGO]
A great option during seasonal peaks, BOGO plays to the hearts of crafters who love to get a little treat for themselves while shopping for others. When a gift card for a determined amount is purchased, say $100, your customer would receive a separate gift card for a rate you set, maybe $5. It’s not a lot to give away – 10% and higher discounts are common – but this extends 5% of the total purchase as a thank you.
Buy This, Get That
Similar, yet different, Buy This, Get That rewards your customer for shopping while moving your seasonal, stagnant, or overstocked inventory. Most consumers focus on the gift card they’ll receive and fail to notice your strategic move behind the scenes.
Start by selecting one product, a grouping of products, or an entire category within your store you’d like to push. Don’t pick your entire store; use a different strategy for that. Buy This, Get That is to help your inventory flow as much as your cash flow.
Once you know which product/s will be part of your offer, determine the language around your promotion:
- Spend $200 or more in upholstery fabrics, and get a $25 gift card!
- Buy 3 skeins of X brand’s sport or fingering weight yarns, and get a $10 gift card to spend!
- Spend $50 or more on holiday-themed notions, and get a $5 gift card on us!
Buy Now, Spend Later
Have a high-revenue season followed by a slow-revenue season? First, welcome to the club. Second, consider testing this gift card strategy.
With Buy Now, Spend Later, if a customer makes a purchase over a certain threshold, they’ll receive a gift card at a later date to spend as they please. You can also use multiple tiers to encourage higher spending upfront. Implement this for your entire catalog, a specific category, or seasonal products.
An example of Buy Now, Spend Later:
For the month of December, each time you shop we’ll treat you with a gift card to shop in January. The more you shop for your friends and family, the more you’ll earn!
Spend $75; get $15
Spend $150; get $35
Spend $300; get $65
***Digital gift cards will be sent out in January to your email on file or the email used to make the initial purchase. We recommend signing up for our free rewards program where you can update your account info anytime and earn rewards every time you shop with This Yarn Shop.
Notice the opportunities to promote your customer rewards program or mailing list on top of choosing when you want gift cards to go out. Maybe February would be a better month for your business to strategize delivering gift cards.
Punch Card
Punch cards are an expansion of the Buy Now, Spend Later program blended with your hometown coffee or sandwich shop punch reward cards. Instead of receiving a punch for each purchase and a reward once achieving a completed card, your customer purchases a punch gift card upfront, which can be literally or virtually punched each month.
A former client of ours used this concept during the holidays with the offer of $150 punch cards, offering one yard of fabric (typically valued at $14.99) each month of the following year. If the yard was valued over $14.99, the customer was responsible for the difference. If the yard was valued under $14.99, the difference did not carry over. Additionally, if the customer missed a month the value did not carry over, and if used online with shipping required, the customer was responsible for shipping costs.
From your customer’s perspective, they’re receiving the opportunity for 12 fabric yards for the price of 10, whereas you, the savvy retail owner, know very few punch card holders will remember to shop all 12 months, let alone a majority of months. This also incentivizes customers to shop frequently with your business, keeping your brand at the forefront of their minds. If they forget about you, they lose out on the deal and potentially lose some of their punch card investment.
Our client sold nearly 250 of these punch cards, bringing in roughly $35,000 in immediate revenue and boosting foot traffic and sales throughout the following year… who can only buy one thing when it’s all so tempting, right?!
Let the Games Begin
Think scavenger hunts, advent calendars, and bingo cards. These are all similar concepts with different executions, and best for a brick-and-mortar setup. Each of these is a fun way to get your in-person customer base engaged while either moving overstocked products or, if you’re feeling charitable, collecting donations to help a local community organization.
For a scavenger hunt, try smaller gift cards to the first 5 to 10 customers who find, then purchase or donate, half of the hunt and a special prize or larger gift card value to the first customer who completes the entire hunt.
For advent calendars, designate an item for donation or purchase to each day of the month, ideally with limited to no repetition. Since we can safely assume no one, ideally including you, will be in your shop every single day in a month we suggest encouraging customers to donate or shop for multiple days at once, as many times as they’d like during your advent month. Reward your customers with $1-5 dollars per day completed once the month has ended. One of our clients is trying a “reverse advent calendar” that asks for a single donated food item for 27 days of the month. Each donated item counts as a percentage point; customers who donate all 27 food items receive a 27% discount off of one store item.
Bingo cards are a game format that excites people of all generations. Allow customers to shop to their bingo card over a limited period of time, one to four weeks at most, and once the time expires invite customers in to collect their reward. Be sure to determine how many BINGOs you’ll reward ahead of game promotion and place those details on your Bingo card. Consider $5 per Bingo (all squares in a line), up to 4 lines, and $50 for a Blackout (completing the entire card).
Need help getting started? Customize Stitchcraft Marketing’s Bingo Card template for your crafty business. Be sure to edit the bold items and each square to suit your business!
Notes for games:
- Select items or actions you’d like your customers to complete. Think “schedule machine maintenance” and “attend one class” as much as “donate 2 canned food items” and “purchase new needles.”
- Choose which is simplest for you to put together and track. Consider making a physical sheet that your customer must be in charge of! Simply stamp, punch, or sign off each item and hand the sheet back to your customer – or keep the sheets in a folder at your register.
- Consider timing that will benefit your cash flow needs the most. If February through April are commonly slow months for you, consider running your game or calendar in February and requiring customers to come in to collect their rewards by March 15 to increase your foot traffic, and ideally sales, during these lighter months.
Make Gift Cards Work for You
It’s easy to leave gift cards as an afterthought addition to your business, but they can be a strong tool that drives immediate revenue goals, moves select inventory, and bolsters cash flow for months to come – as long as you implement a strategy! Each of these will take a little effort to set up the first time, but the potential benefits and fun are endless—for you and your customers.
Need help deciding which gift card and marketing strategies will work best for your business? Stitchcraft Marketing is a marketing agency of crafting experts. We customize every program to showcase your brand, engage your customer base, and generate sales in a way that is nothing less than magical. Contact us today to get started!
No Comments