Gift Voucher Marketing Tips to Increase Your Sales This Autumn.

21 Sep 2020

Does your business sell gift vouchers?

If you’re not taking care of your customers, your competitor will. That’s why attracting and retaining customers is always the number one priority for small businesses. Implementing a gift voucher scheme is a valuable technique to get new customers through the door and encourage them to make return visits this autumn.

According to the Gift Card and Voucher Association, physical gift cards are still the main delivery mechanism for gift card purchases, at 73.7% of total gift card expenditure in 2020. Moreover, shoppers in the UK tend to spend an extra 35%, on average, over the value of their gift card when redeeming it! Vouchers have been a successful lifeline for many small businesses during the recent pandemic, providing additional financial support, whilst being forced to stay closed. Now as businesses are opening their doors again, gift vouchers are a fantastic technique to gain that extra revenue and ensure customers return to your shop to redeem their gifts and spend that extra bit of cash.  

So, if you’re not already offering gift vouchers in your business, you could potentially be damaging your long-term financial success. Lets take a look at some useful tips for marketing these moneymakers:

Vouchers for a specific occasion

Vouchers are often a last minute gift rather than long-planned purchases. With that in mind, you can market them around holidays and gifting occasions to give customers that extra nudge. A more general seasonal voucher may be effective enough, covering you for a number of months. Halloween, Bonfire Night and Christmas are also around the corner – why not advertise your vouchers with these in mind? Additionally, you could even try some birthday or anniversary-themed gift vouchers for people to buy for their loved ones.

Promote everywhere 

People love gift vouchers; you just need to promote them! The most obvious way to show them off is to make sure they are visible when people enter your business. Place them at the front desk, stands, dressing rooms, waiting areas and window displays. You could even use other physical products such as cards on tables or posters that encourage customers to inquire about your vouchers.

Email campaigns are another highly effective technique to increase gift voucher sales. Be sure to send these emails out close to big holidays to ensure the best response. You may choose to send just one email, or perhaps a couple running up to the holiday or occasion. Remember, over-emailing may actually have the opposite effect whereby the customer treats it as spam, so be careful not to go overboard. We recommend sending a maximum of two emails each month.

Promoting your vouchers through social media is another successful way to increase sales and improve your brand awareness. Using platform-specific advertising options to target people who fit your demographic allows you to reach people at that golden time when they’re just about to buy. If you choose, you could pay for boosted adverts to gain an even further reach.

Voucher Design

Large businesses’ gift voucher designs can often be a bit plain, so why not differentiate yourself by making them stand out? Bespoke designs will help make your vouchers more memorable and appealing to the customer as opposed to the more mundane forms that already exist.

Discounts and promotions

Many businesses don’t realize the power of promos to gain new customers. You could offer new customers a free £5 gift voucher for every £50 gift voucher they buy. Alternatively, you may want to treat specific loyal customers to a free £5 gift voucher, to ensure their return. By setting an expiry date on these deals, you will create a sense of urgency in the customer’s mind, thereby encouraging them to buy now rather than later. Remember, people do not enjoy missing out on a good deal! Interestingly, these discounts and gestures don’t necessarily have to be that large to have a positive effect on customer behaviour.

Summary

These are just some of the ways you can improve your gift voucher marketing in your business to improve your sales this season. Never underestimate the power of gift vouchers, and be sure to create ones of high quality and authenticity.

Welcome to Secure Vouchers

You can create your own voucher, use one of our templates, or our team of gift voucher design experts can give you a helping hand. If you’d like to find out more, then please feel free to contact our friendly team who will be happy to help.