8 Key Strategies For Successful Gift Certificate Marketing

Gift certificates work. As more and more small businesses find out, they enable you to make more sales and improve customer loyalty towards your business. And it’s not only for spas or massage therapists: virtually every service provider under the sun would gain by offering gift certificates (also called gift vouchers or gift cards) to their customers. So if you haven’t started to offer them, why don’t you try it out and see what the impact on your business is? The returns on investment can be great provided you focus on effective marketing strategies.

Gift Certificate Benefits For the Small Business Owner

1- Increase sales

Gift certificates help you make more sales by reaching new customers, and they also make these customers spend more than face value of the card (on average, 20 percent more). A minority (about 10 percent) will use only part of the certificate’s value, which means you keep the profits.

2- Increase cash flow

When someone buys a gift certificate, they are pre-paying you for services that another person will receive later. In other words, gift certificate sales really represent cash deposits or full payments for services planned for well in the future, which means 100 percent of the cash is yours to use until the certificate is redeemed.

3- Increase brand awareness

Gift certificates give you the opportunity to advertise and promote your business with wallet-sized billboards. You were already paid because of the sale of the gift certificates, so you are allowing new customers to try out your business with a paid visit from your existing customers.

Gift Certificate Strategies

1- Personalize gift certificates

Make sure that you have a selection of gift certificates so that you can answer all the gifting wishes of your customers. Having unique designs and personalization options like a space to write a personal message helps. Also make sure that you offer custom gift certificates for special occasions: birthday, christmas, valentine’s day, mother’s day etc.

2- Partner with relevant businesses

A very effective way to market your gift certificates is to partner with another local business. The way it works is that you offer gift certificates for the other business, and they would do the same. It works better if your businesses are somehow related, or could attract the same category of customers.

3- Use a reciprocal agreement strategy

Reciprocal agreement is a widely used sales technique meaning that you first give an item to somebody. The sense of reciprocation, deeply rooted in human social behavior, makes the customer want to give something back. You could offer a gift certificate of small value to a person visiting your shop for the first time. Reciprocal agreement kicks in and you have turned a visitor into a customer, likely along with a juicy purchase.

4- Use a liking strategy

Liking means that we are more sensitive to people we like, like our friends, and so we value more advice or opinion coming from them than coming from a stranger. This is also a widely used sales technique. For example, at checkout time, you could offer a gift certificate to a customer and to his best friend (if that still makes economic sense to you). That will act as a referral and you’ve secured a new customer, your customer’s best friend.

5- Take advantage of impulse purchases

You should place all gift certificate designs on a highly visible, easily accessible, well-organized page on your website, as well as on your confirmations and receipts, which will appeal to impulse purchasers. Big stores all have their gift cards at that location, that’s because it works.

About the Author: Gift Certificate Factory provides gift certificate templates that you can print and sell to your customers. You can also find additional resources about how to sell gift certificates and gift certificate resources for small businesses.

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