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Gift Card Promotion Ideas: Tips & Strategies

Revel Systems | January 12, 2021 |

Featured Advice
Gift Card Promotion Ideas: Tips & Strategies

7 Superior Tactics for Marketing Gift Cards

As global communication continues to bridge the gap to even the most remote locations around the world, your business’s pool of potential customers broadens. Technological advances make it possible to create unique and creative ways to draw eyes to your brand. 

The methods of attracting customers haven't changed too drastically in the past decade. Flyers, social media ads, email campaigns, direct mail, and advertising gift vouchers are still tried and true. However, businesses are continually modifying and adapting their approaches to meet today's markets' demands.

Today, we’re going to discuss how to promote gift certificates and are sharing a quick primer of gift card promotion ideas.

Gift Certificate Marketing Ideas

If your company hasn’t already done so, you might want to implement a gift marketing strategy. According to a survey analysis from First Data, it's been proven that marketing gift cards will attract new clients who would have otherwise done their shopping elsewhere. Additionally, gift cards increase a customer’s purchasing limit, resulting in higher revenue. 

If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “how can I promote my gift cards,” here are a few gift card advertisement strategies that can get you started.

1. Make Your Gift Cards Physical and Digital


When developing your gift card ad, you want your customers to know that they can purchase gift cards in both physical and digital formats.

With the current global trend, it’s easy to see why digital gift cards are surging. The entire digital sector of e-gifting has already surpassed the double digits in the billions, and this is in no short part due to digital marketing gift cards

However, digital gift cards haven’t completely replaced their physical counterpart. The trend of physical gift cards are also on the rise, so make sure your registers have a healthy supply of them in the check-out lane. 

2. Advertise Your Gift Cards Throughout Your Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Any effective marketing strategy considers the fact that a customer needs to engage with your brand multiple times before making a decision. And this strategy includes marketing gift cards in a variety of ways. 

Whether you’ve created a brand awareness email campaign, sent out flyers, or have a physical store, customers need to be reminded that you offer gift cards. 

You will want to place your gift cards everywhere. Social media posts should contain a link to them, customer receipts should have a callout, and all registers should provide an opportunity for your clients to purchase one. 

3. Encourage Treating Yourself


While the premise of a gift card is to be used as a "gift," data shows that over 50 percent of purchased digital gift cards are intended for self-use. So, why not promote it as such? 

You can market gift cards to suit a variety of self-use purposes. If you’re running a shop with daily repeat purchases, you can advertise your gift cards as a type of debit system to instill brand loyalty. Or, you can monetize on the theme “treat yourself” by encouraging your customers to purchase gift cards for their own shopping needs. 

4. Structure a Gift Card Email Marketing Campaign


A callout to your gift cards doesn’t have to be a small blurb attached to a larger email campaign. Rather, you can create an entire campaign around gift-card promotion. Email newsletters can be an effective method of marketing gift cards.

An email campaign can offer your gift cards as a quick solution for those in search of an easy gift. You can use them in your newsletter along with an additional promotion, such as holiday sales or the launch of a new product. 

5. Increase a Customer’s Lifetime Value with Gift Cards


While you can use gift cards to promote brand loyalty, you can also use them as upselling methods. A gift card program acts as an incentive for customers to spend more money at your store. For example, you might structure a loyalty program to issue a free gift card if the client reaches a spending threshold, or when they surpass a certain number of transactions.

Gift cards provide a great customer experience by making your customers feel appreciated for purchasing from your business.

6. Enhance Their Visual Appeal


Unless your company has global recognition, you’re going to need to invest in your gift cards’ graphic design and copy. If you can, try and capture an emotion in a short turn-of-phrase. Or, create a strong graphic that makes your gift cards eye-catching. 

While you’ll want your card’s design to remain on brand, gift cards provide you an excellent opportunity to expand your creative boundaries.

7. Target Outside Your Usual Demographic


Marketing gift cards give you a fantastic opportunity to reach people outside your standard clientele. While self-purchasing gift cards are on the rise, you shouldn't forget that they are still marvelous gifts (and people know it!). Customer buying habits clearly demonstrate this around holidays. If your target demographic is middle-aged women, direct an email campaign to target married men for Mother's Day.  

Trusting Gift Card Technology

We hope that this marketing gift cards guide provided solid advice to help expand your business. By incorporating gift cards into your product line and loyalty programs, you’re likely adding demands to your point of sale needs. Revel Systems offers the most advanced POS hardware and product management system available, including integrated gift card management. Contact us today and request your free demo.