Gift Card and eGift card are a popular gift to give to friends, family or business associate and a gift card does not have to be given for a special occasion (birthday, wedding, etc) to someone but you can give a gift card any time during the years to show your token of appreciation of someone by giving a gift card.
During this uncertain time, everybody facing it might prove to be difficult to splash out on an expensive gift for your family or friends as your budget may be tight and money is spent on essential purchases. At this unprecedented time, gift cards are proving themselves to be the preferred choice gift because of their flexibility in their expiry date, and their amount and the gift cards can increase your customers base with the introduction of new customers.
Why we say this because any gift card whether being digitals or physicals has to have an expiry date which gives you a long time to purchase the products or services you want from your retailer or online. This benefit provides you flexibility in your personal budget and when you can afford it you can visit the retailer mentioned on the gift card or their online store should you have been given an egift card to redeem.
The price range of gift cards is affordable to most budget whether personal or business. As per historical data found on the Gov.uk in their Press Realise article Million wasted as people don't spend gift vouchers in 2013 approximately £2.5 billion worth of gift cards were sold in the UK retails stores as gifts and £2.25 billion were bought by businesses as staff or customer rewards. it has been reported in 2014 that the gift card industry grew by 10% and the UK industry as a whole was worth £5 billion.
Today gift cards are still a good choice for a gift to offer someone and as previously mentioned the current climate provides a solution to tighter budgets when it comes to offering someone a gift.
Therefore businesses you can reward your staff with a gift card during this time for their hard work especially the food industry, Healthcare industry, farming industry which are working doubly hard to provide to the people and keeping the supply meet the demand as a token of your appreciation and ensuring that your staff feels appreciated during this time.
You may know someone who wishes to start their own business online or a brick and mortar and asked you to offer them business advice, buying them a business book or marketing book to help them start up the right way. They may ask you to help them find a comprehensive business plan template or marketing plan template.
You could decide to purchase one of our gift cards to purchase a comprehensive business plan or marketing plan template or any business start-up e-books we have in our online store. Recently a new customer after a skype meeting with me bought our comprehensive business and marketing plan template plus guide, as well as several start-up business e-books from our online, and the feedback left on our Linkedin was very in-depth and professional.
As per Consumer Affairs Minister Jo Swinson gift cards are a popular gift choice, however, many people did not even realise that there is an expiry date and fail to check details meaning 100 million of pounds went unspent meant consumers were losing out as per Press Realise article on gov.uk in 2015.
The article further states that digital gift cards proposing themselves to be the answer to people forgetting to check details or using them before the deadline as they tend to leave the physical gift card in their drawers or wallet and forgot about it totally. As per UKGCVA digital gift cards are becoming more popular and may be more likely to be used because the recipient does not have to remember to take a physical piece of plastic or paper with them to the shops.
The last part of the paragraph suggests that the digital gift card may be part of the solution of unspent gift cards due to consumers forgetting to use them on time. We disagree with this suggestion at Girlfridayz because you can forget an email or never open your email or open your email and do not wish to use the gift card now but at a later date and forget about it.
The solution to this unspent problem and to avoid that your customers losing out you could simply send an automated reminder email if the gift cards have been purchase from your website an example could be:
Dear Simon
Here a friendly reminder about your gift cards purchased
You purchase our gift card on the [insert date] and it expired on the [insert date]. We have a new line of products [insert product line name or product] that you could check out Simon and your gift card would come handy because depending on what you've purchased you could leave with your favourite free product or you could benefit from £50 off toward your favourite product.
Yours sincerely,
[your name and title]
[company details]
This email template is very simple easy to do, it's part of inbound marketing and follow up with customers purchase to ensure the customers return to visit you and purchase from you again. As well as helping the customers remember that they have a gift card to spend before it expires and promoting your new line of product or e-goods if you sell downloadable content.
This template is best implemented for digital gift cards as when people purchase from your online store they have to enter their details to checkout even as a guest checkout so you always capture their email.
It can also be used for physical gift cards if sold online and posted to the customers delivery address. Same thing you capture their email at checkout.
It is a very versatile template too because you could use it if your customers purchase a gift card for someone you could email market this person and remind them to use their gift cards too. If you get this person's email.
The majority of customers spend gift cards within the first 3 to 6 months of receiving them and it is important to remember that the vast majority of consumers that use their gift cards do have a positive experience of the process, and greatly value the flexibility and choice that this option provides.
To make sure that you get the most out of your gift card you should:
check the expiry date and the terms and conditions - if it is not clear, ask for clarification and don’t be afraid to challenge the retailer if things are still unclear
when passing on as a gift the gift card – make sure you inform the receiver of the terms and conditions and in particular the expiry date.
remember gift cards are like cash and make sure you keep them in a safe place
Albert Einstein rightly said "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value"
Therefore knowledge is valuable and purchasing our gift cards the gift of education provides you with the opportunity to get valuable content with our business & marketing e-books, templates plus guides, and marketing playbooks by becoming a person of value in the eyes of other due to your acquired knowledge and skills.
Considering our gift card as a worthy gift to give to anyone who wishes to start up their business or simply grow their business to acquire more customers and increase their revenue is a great decision because you are giving someone else the gift of education and in turn, they can increase their personal development knowledge and skills by becoming a successful person at what they do as well as providing value to other through shared knowledge.
You could use our gift card for yourself or give it to your staff which deals with marketing your business as both of you can benefit from buying our marketing playbook as opposed to attending 1-day training or a one-year digital marketing course because our Marketing Playbooks proved to be the cheaper option to learn business & marketing but its content worth more than what you get during a 1-day training or attending a full year standalone digital marketing course.
Your staff or yourself will learn far more by reading our 100 pages Marketing Playbook The Core Asset of Marketing Revealed over time and they will be able to apply the knowledge learned to their current job as they learn it as well as yourself.
Because when you apply what learn straight away you more likely to retain it and be very good at it over time as marketing is based on market testing and when you find the strategy and tactic which best suit your business you systemised it in your business and my playbooks in both cases present itself as the best option. You get an opportunity to read inside the playbook prior to deciding if you want to purchase it and acquiring it with a gift card makes it more valuable as it was given to you as a gift.
If you like this blog post please share it with your friends, family, and business associate who might appreciate the content as much as you.