Three Reasons to Add Custom Gift Cards to Your Business

August 2, 2008 – 11:47 am

by Al Duggan

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 strategies you will need to make a choice on is gift cards. Are they for you? Can they really help your business? It may not appear to be an easy choice to make from the outside, but achieving “more” in your competitive market often requires you to explore effective ways to build your profits and increase customer loyalty.

There are certain categories of business — such as restaurants, spas and beauty salons, and specialty retail — where gift cards have supplanted long-standing paper gift certificates as the preferred means of pre-selling products and services. If you’re in these types of businesses, chances are you already have a gift card program in place. But plastic gift cards have found their way into many, if not most, non-traditional businesses as their general popularity grows among consumers. Automotive and motorcycle dealers, grocery stores, even pet-sitting services have had great success with gift card programs. But is it right for YOU? Here are three reasons you need to consider a gift card program for your business, regardless of what you sell.

Your Clients Demand Gift Cards

You’ve heard gift card critics say that gift cards are impersonal and uncreative. Yet consumer demand for them continues to grow year over year, placing gift cards in the top three in terms of most-requested gifts along with electronics/media and clothing. Today’s consumers expect their favorite businesses to offer gift cards and will often seek businesses that do. Why? They may want to introduce their friends to a business they enjoy. Perhaps they know the recipient well enough to be sure it will be a useful and appreciated gift. If a gift has to be mailed, dropping a gift card into the mail or ordering it over the internet sure beats standing in line at the post office with a box.

Building Your Brand

A slick gift card design is like a miniature billboard. Your glossy image is not only attractive, but it promotes and reminds people of your business. The larger plastic gift card providers can offer you a range of customization options. From standard themes, created for quick shipment, to full-color options that use your company’s colors, logos and images, there is customization available for any size business. Combine this with a variety of in-store promotional materials like fully custom card carriers and hangers, eye-catching displays, posters and more. Now, you have a multi-faceted campaign to promote your gift card and drive highly profitable sales.

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).

There is a vital benefit that every gift card program provides your business. It’s a sale that’s booked. The card may be purchased today, but redeemed tomorrow, next week or never. Regardless, that is money in the bank. Money you can use today for your company. This is an ideal situation for any business, and a good gift card program is a superb way to achieve that.

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 biggest provider of plastic gift card programs to small to mid-sized merchants.

Tags: Business