Putting the “Gift” in “Gift Card”

How I use gift cards to generate future sales and reward customers

Gift cards are a great way to generate future sales and builds customer loyalty. Customers are virtually guranteed to visit your store if they have a gift card. But more than generating future sales, gift cards are a great way to reward your loyal customers.

A couple of years ago I learned about a local restaurant that did a gift card promotion just prior to Christmas each year. What they did was they had one day only where customers could purchase gift cards and receive a bonus gift card equal to 20% of their gift card purchases that day. So if someone spent $100 on gift cards, they would get a $20 gift card free. If they spent $1,000, the customer gets a $200 gift card free. They have been doing this for a number of years and has built up to $18,000 in gift card purchases in this one day alone.

So learning this, we decided to try the same thing. Last year, in 2008, we had our first event. Then this year, we did it again. We advertised the promotion through our customer email list, on our Facebook fan page and in our direct mailing that we did for the Christmas season.

We were very pleased with the overall results. Although we are still a long ways away from the results the local restaurant is doing, this year, we sold twice as many gift cards as last year. It is certainly gaining in popularity.

So if you’re looking for a great way to generate cash as well as future sales, then this program is certainly something worth looking at.