From start-ups to established businesses, the basic objectives are the same: more customers, more profits -- more. Growth is a simple aspiration with a thousand ways to get there and a myriad of services that have a strategy to help you. Finding the right solutions isn't easy. In fact, the journey can be disorienting. No one guaranteed the success you want would happen overnight.
One of those steps that both new and established businesses have to consider is gift cards. Can they really make an impact for your company? Are you missing profits without them? Perhaps, this is one of those decisions you have been putting off but know you should make.
For many types of businesses, gift cards have become a no-brainer. Most dining establishments, salons and day spas have all traded in their once-popular gift certificates for the plastic. They know the benefits of pre-selling themselves to their customer base and expanding to new clients. Today, more and more of the non-typical merchants are using gift card programs. From supermarkets to car dealerships to even pet-grooming services, the gift card has found itself as a successful business tool. Let's take a look at whether gift cards fit your business. Consider these three simple reasons why gift cards might actually work for you.
Your Clients Demand Gift Cards
It's often said that gift cards aren't a creative gift. The demand for them, however, tells a different story. Plastic gift cards were among the top of the most-asked-for gift items (clothes and media/electronics are the other items in the top three). Whether it's because of a gift card's ease of use and delivery; or because the gift-givers want to introduce their friends to a service they like; or because there are more and more creative choices that will be appreciated by the recipients ... gift cards continue to rise in popularity. More and more consumers expect business establishments to offer gift cards. If they don't, they often find a competitor that does.
Image is Everything
There are a variety of advertising products out there to help get your word out. But few can match the appeal of a shiny new gift card with your identity presented on the card. Many of today's larger gift card companies can offer you considerable options related to your card's appearance. From inexpensive, quick-ship "standard" card designs that are personalized with your business name to full-color designs based on your artwork, logo or photography, the options are many. Regardless of how your card is designed, it will become a small billboard in your customer's wallet -- a durable reminder that your brand is their preference. Add some matching, customized merchandising materials -- such as posters, custom card hangers and carriers, or attention-getting card displays -- and you have an integrated marketing plan to drive attention to what may be your most profitable product -- your gift card program.
Driving Your Revenues
At the expense of sounding presumptuous, it's a pretty good guess you could use more business. More traffic. More loyal buyers. More revenues. These are precisely the types of business issues gift cards are designed to address. A gift card generates at least two trips to your store -- one for the card purchase, and at least one for the redemption (more traffic). A percentage of those new customers are going to like your business enough to come back and they may even bring their pals (more loyal buyers). All those new customers are coming to your business to buy things -- maybe even more expensive things than they would consider if they didn't have that gift card (more revenues).
Whichever type of gift card program you decide to develop, there is a crucial aspect that all gift card programs share -- as soon as you sell a gift card, you boosted revenues. You've essentially had a consumer make a pre-payment. That plastic gift card may be redeemed in a few hours, in a few days or weeks ... or quite possibly, never. But that sale is already made and that revenue is yours. You can use that money to help your business now. This is an envious position for any business to be in, and a gift card program is an excellent way to place you there.
About the Author:
Al Duggan is an expert in custom gift cards and is the Vice President of Business Development for Valutec Card Solutions, LLC, a Metavante (NYSE:MV) company, the country's largest provider of plastic gift card programs to small to mid-sized merchants.
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