gift card marketing Archives

Closing the ‘gift card gap’: Unlock the power of data

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Savvyseo

An efficient business works like a well-oiled machine. Each department and level feed into one another to keep the cogs turning day to day. In order to keep everything working smoothly, key team members across the business need to have visibility and a clear understanding of how each department is contributing to the wider company goals.

To put this into the context of gift cards, if gift card managers cannot provide visibility and data around how their gift card programme is contributing to wider company goals around customer acquisition and retention, how will senior management understand their gift card programme’s value and provide appropriate resources for it to achieve its potential?

This knowledge and visibility breakdown has been dubbed by Savvy as the ‘gift card gap’. Without the data and tools available for gift card managers to illuminate the success story, the true value of gift cards might remain hidden in plain sight within your business.

What is the ‘gift card gap’?

Did you know that 54% of gift card managers do not use data to manage their gift card programme and 37% do not have strong internal management? These statistics were uncovered during 2023’s GCVA’s annual conference and bring some context as to how the gift card gap has become an issue.

Sure, if you’re a gift card manager then you understand the power of gift cards. But how can you demonstrate this with those at the top of the food chain who may not yet totally share this understanding in the same way? Without the data to tell the story internally of gift card performance, you are likely to find yourself struggling to be heard and get on the agenda in the boardroom.

How data can grow your gift card programme

Data is the key to bringing the success and challenges of your gift card programme to life. Unlocking the insights hidden in your data will mean you’ll never miss an opportunity to make strategic decisions that will generate further revenue and grow your gift card programme.

Not only will data provide new opportunities for your gift card programme that you may not yet be aware of, but it can be instrumental in building the case for gift cards within your company. It’s always going to be important to be able to report on the basics; gift card sales, return on investment and redemption rates. However, the more you drill down and filter your data, the more specific findings you can present. This will not only close the gift card gap and build the case for gift cards but provide value to other parts of the business too.

Let’s explore the many ways that data can close the gift card gap.

Know your gift card programme’s worth

How do you know if your gift card programme is actually profitable for your business? How often have you been challenged on themes of incrementality and cannibalisation? If you can’t say for sure or you don’t have the numbers to be able to answer these questions, then the default doubters tend to win the argument.

Ironically, your business already has all the data needed to answer these questions. It just isn’t sitting in one easily accessible place. Being able to prove your gift card programme’s return on investment (ROI) with solid data could be one of the best steps you can take to put your programme on the front foot.

Identify your strongest and weakest channels

As a gift card manager on the front line of all things gift cards, you may understand that your gift cards aren’t selling as well in-store compared to other channels, for example. As a result, you may want to invest in in-store team training in this area in order to make improvements. Or perhaps you can see the success of your gift card within gift card malls and want to ensure the investment is there to continue this focus.

With data, you can demonstrate and track the redemption behaviour of your gift cards. This allows you to identify and prove your strongest and weakest channels. This informs future activity and any missed opportunities. For instance, if in-store is an area that needs a little boost, analytics data can even provide you with visibility over which store or stores are performing the weakest and strongest so that you can effectively focus your efforts where it is most needed.

Having this level of visibility means you can lay out the business case in numbers, clearly demonstrate what it is you need and why and in future, report back on how this investment made an impact.

Analyse the ROI of your marketing activities

Marketing is an important part of any gift card programme. After all, your gift cards won’t sell themselves! Sometimes, marketing can feel a little like trial and error. However, with the right data, you can streamline your marketing activities and ensure that what you’re doing actually holds value.

Better still, real-time data allows you to make changes to your promotions whilst they’re still running in order to maximise their potential. For instance, if you’re running an online gift card offer that data shows isn’t getting much traction, you may decide to schedule additional email marketing and social media activity before the promotion risks making you a loss.

Being able to report successful marketing campaigns to CFOs and C-suite managers means that you have a better chance of securing the marketing budgets you need to continue shouting about your gift card programme.

Understand redemption & uplift behaviour

Whilst all gift cards are instantly loaded with funds upon purchase, not all of them get redeemed. But the level of non-redemption varies wildly. Very few retailers actually have detailed insight into this dynamic, which in some cases dramatically alters business case estimates for different sales channels and campaigns.

Uplift is a related dynamic and a key metric to consider. The average additional spend on a gift card is 35% of the card value. It can be one of the most impressive elements of a gift card programme that you can report on to demonstrate ROI.

Far too many brands use average estimates for non-redemption and uplift. Having real-time access to the actual performance data can transform understanding of what is happening on the ground every day, building confidence in the commercial decisions being taken.

Analytics data can show you which channels specifically create the best end-to-end commercial impact and in turn, the true ROI of your marketing campaigns and gift card programme as a whole.

Sales targets

When it comes to reporting to senior managers, sales targets are often an important part of the conversation. Make these conversations a whole lot easier and take your reporting and forecasting to the next level with gift card analytics data.

Unlocking gift card analytics data will allow you to gain a clear understanding of whether you are on track to meet your gift card sales targets. You can analyse the data with weekly, monthly and quarterly year-on-year comparisons to add more detail and colour to the picture. Split by sales channel, sales partner or brand and provide the most accurate forecasting for your gift card sales.

The Savvy solution

In order to really showcase the value and opportunities lying within gift cards, you may need a little helping hand from the data. Data is the key to unlocking the gift card gap and giving those that need it the knowledge to understand your gift card programme’s potential.

Savvy’s Analytics platform is designed to provide visibility of exactly this. Our interactive dashboard gives you an understanding of everything from load values and outstanding redemption values to marketing campaign results and channel performance.

You can also identify trends by filtering this data by channel, partner brand, promotion, store location and even card type. This paints a detailed picture of areas of success and areas in need of attention to report back on.

It’s time to command attention in the boardroom. Demonstrate your successes and identify missed opportunities with data to engage your senior managers. It’s as simple as signing up to Savvy’s Analytics platform.

Book a free 30 minute meeting today and one of our friendly experts can walk you through an interactive demo of our world-class Analytics technology, bringing to life exactly what it could do for you and your business.

For more information, contact us. We’re available via our website or give us a call on 0870 735 2829 (UK), 0190 22752 (Ireland) or 001 (502) 489 4439 (USA & Canada).

How gift cards can help to drive footfall in off-peak times

Posted on April 11, 2023April 4, 2023 by Savvyseo

The majority of businesses suffer quiet periods at some point in the week, month or year. For restaurants, it might be that pre-dinner time rush between 2pm and 4pm. For hotels, it might be the start of the year after the Christmas chaos between January and May before kids break up from school and people begin travelling a little more. Zoos and attractions often struggle to attract crowds during the winter season. Retail can see quiet times hit at any point outside of the October to January peak season.

Let’s face it – off-peak times are never particularly kind to business sales. You need to stay open and continue paying staff but you’re just not seeing the footfall to offset the associated costs. It’s a common dilemma. You can, however, utilise these quiet periods to give you the opportunity to focus your attention on other things – namely your gift card programme.

The good news is that gift cards have a lot of potential in boosting sales and driving footfall in off-peak times. Take advantage of this quieter period and ensure that your gift card programme is really delivering for you. We at Savvy are here to explain just how to do that and how we can help.

Ensure your gift card can only be used at certain times

Every business wants customers to continue spending during their quiet times. Wouldn’t it be great if you could restrict your gift card usage to meet this need? With Savvy’s new gift card platform configurations, now you can.

Let’s say for example that you run a hotel. Whilst you still need to have paid staff working, and pay utilities and equipment expenses as normal during your quiet months from January to May, it proves pretty hard to fill all available rooms. As a result, your profitability suffers.

Savvy allows you to place restrictions on your promotional gift cards around these quiet times of the year (or week or day) to help combat this. It drives footfall in off-peak times. This encourages the gift card user into your premises to spend their gift card value (and hopefully a little extra) when business is quiet and you need the sales.

And with any kind of business, it can really put customers off visiting if your premises are looking empty. They may assume it’s because your products, food, drinks or service are sub-par. People attract people. Getting your gift card users in during off-peak times can spark a chain reaction and drive in additional customers. This creates that all-important buzz and atmosphere that makes an experience in retail or hospitality more enjoyable. As a result, you might just keep people coming back for more.

Tailor your gift card marketing

Placing restriction controls on your gift cards doesn’t have to feel like you’re limiting your customers. Cleverly tailor your gift card marketing activity to create a buzz around these specific times or days that you’d like your gift cards to be used.

If you run a restaurant, you may decide to restrict your promotional gift card usage to lunchtime between Monday to Thursday to fill tables and drive footfall during off-peak times. If this is the case, try marketing a ‘mid-week lunch club’ where gift card users can redeem their vouchers and give it an exclusive feel.

You could even offer a free soft drink for all redeemed gift cards during the lunch club to create more of an incentive for your customers. Perhaps you could offer dishes on a ‘secret’ menu that are only available during these off-peak times to encourage customers in and make them feel like they are part of something a little more special.

Ensure the basket value meets a minimum value threshold

It can sometimes be frustrating when a customer redeems their gift card against sale items rather than your full-priced items – especially if the basket value of sale items is not any higher than normal. Any business owner with a gift card programme will know that you often rely on the uplift that gift cards can bring, with the average additional spend on a gift card in the UK being 35% of the card value.

However, you might decide to offer promotional gift cards to sales channels where the minimum basket value is agreed in advance. For example, you can offer B2B clients a 15% discount on your promotional gift cards but they cannot be redeemed during the Christmas period and must have a minimum basket value of £50.

You’re giving terrific value to the end customer, but the terms of engagement are balanced. You can enjoy the peace of mind that you’ll be making money from your sale. As a result, your gift card uplift should stay healthy.

Add Savvy’s analytics platform to the mix and you can gain a greater understanding of your gift card uplift as a whole, with data exposing which sales channels are performing poorly or superbly when it comes to uplift, allowing you to move forward and focus your efforts accordingly.

Offer a free gift card as an incentive during off-peak times

You could also use gift cards as a way of rewarding those who spend with you during your off-peak times. These gift cards could hold a minimum value in order to avoid eroding your margin and to ensure they still make financial sense. This incentive could be the difference between someone choosing to visit during your quiet period versus your busy period.

Similarly, you could consider implementing a referral programme where a gift card with off-peak restrictions is offered as a reward for any customer who refers a friend or family member. Not only are you encouraging your customer back during off-peak times with their gift card and strengthening their relationship with your brand, but you’re attracting brand-new referral customers to impress in the process.

Whatever promotion you decide to run, just be sure to market it sufficiently so that your customers are aware that it’s running. Utilise your social media platforms, website, POS materials and of course your staff to share the promotion details and as a result, drive footfall during off-peak times.

Don’t let quiet times and seasons slow you down. It’s time to utilise the power of gift cards to drive footfall during off-peak times.

Need more control over your gift card programme? Want to make your gift cards work harder for you? At Savvy, we’re all about helping you win. We put you in control and give you the power of our gift card management and analytics data to level up your gift card programme.

Contact us and let’s start a conversation. We’re available via our website or give us a call on 0870 735 2829 (UK), 0190 22752 (Ireland) or 001 (502) 489 4439 (USA & Canada).

How to get the most out of your gift card programme

Posted on April 4, 2023 by Savvyseo

We may be a little biased here at Savvy, but we believe that gift cards are pretty wonderful little things with big potential. There is so much more to gift cards than customers simply redeeming them and spending with you. With the right tools and knowledge, your gift cards can really work a lot harder for you. In fact, gift cards could actually be the answer to some of the frustrating business challenges you may be facing.

At Savvy, we help brands all over the globe realise this. As a result, we help them win in the world of gift cards. In this article, we cover a few ways that you can get the most out of your gift card programme with a little help from us and our platform.

Boost your sales & footfall during off-peak times

Off-peak times are something that the majority of businesses experience at some point in the week, month or year. They can make day-to-day running costs difficult to balance. Whether it’s mid-week afternoons for restaurants or the winter months for hotels and attractions, off-peak times can take their toll on business performance.

However, when configured in the right way, gift cards can give off-peak times a much-needed business boost. With Savvy’s platform configurations, you can apply restrictions on when gift cards can be redeemed in order to drive sales and footfall during those times when you really need them.

Take a theme park, for example. January to May might be a particularly difficult period for business. The potential of bad weather and school term times in full swing can consequently slow bookings. Savvy’s platform capabilities allow you to place restrictions on your gift cards around the time of year (or week or day) that they can be redeemed to help combat this, encouraging the gift card holder into your premises to spend their gift card value (and hopefully a little extra) when business is quiet and you need the sales.

The ability to boost sales and footfall during off-peak times with gift cards is also invaluable for restaurant businesses. Typically, weekends and evenings are the busiest periods for restaurants. So, what happens on Monday to Thursday before 5pm? You are open for business incurring all the associated fixed costs paying utilities and staff, but the footfall just isn’t there.

Consider restricted gift card usage windows to fill tables during these quieter times. Create an incentive by offering a free soft drink for all redeemed gift cards during these times. Or perhaps offer dishes on a ‘secret’ menu that is only available during off-peak times. Help customers feel that they are getting something special.

Connect to new customers with Savvy’s API

And of course, reaching new customers can only ever be a good thing – especially for boosting sales and footfall. Savvy’s API is connected with over 160 platforms, selling gift cards across B2C third-party, B2B direct and B2B third-party sales channels.

Wouldn’t it be great to see your gift card amongst the gift card malls in supermarkets and online outlets? Would selling your gift cards on Amazon deliver a step change in sales volumes the way it does for thousands of other businesses? Wouldn’t it be great to see your gift card offered by businesses as part of their customer rewards scheme? Your gift card is pretty awesome – give it the exposure it deserves and entice new customers. Savvy has the connections and ability to make this happen.

B2B rewards market

One of the most fruitful of these potentially untapped channels is the B2B rewards market. In fact, in their State of the Nation March 2022 report, the Gift Card and Voucher Association (GCVA) found that over the last three to four years, an almost equal proportion of consumers received a gift card as a reward or incentive from a company as the proportion that had purchased gift cards for themselves. This is showing no sign of slowing as we move into 2023.

An organisation may use an employee benefits platform such as Perkbox in order to reward their workforce with points each month that can be collected and exchanged for a gift card. By integrating your gift card with platforms such as these, your brand is amongst the options that employees can choose from when investing their points.

Again, you can control the redemption rules for these new customers using our platform configurations in order to drive their business during your off-peak times. With access to the right tools, your gift cards can truly work to benefit your business and solve the challenge of dealing with your off-peak periods.

Avoid margin erosion

As you may be aware, gift cards are often sold at a discount with the load value sitting higher than the purchase value. Sure, these promotions are super effective and work wonders when attracting and rewarding customers and encouraging repeat business. But when these gift cards then go on to be redeemed against sales items, for instance, it can eat away at your margin. Not ideal!

The good news is that with Savvy, you can actually set restrictions around location, times of day, and specific days or date ranges. This ensures that the gift cards you sell to specific channels during promotional periods can only be redeemed during specified timeframes. This encourages a healthy return on investment and is another example of how you can ensure your gift card is tailored to your business needs.

For example, you may want to avoid selling people a gift card on promotion during Black Friday sales that will then be redeemed during peak trading windows. Why not set a start date of 30 days away before that card is redeemed, ensuring you really are selling advance future bookings rather than discounting those bookings already coming your way? It’s not unusual for retailers and the like to set these restrictions, so don’t be concerned about feeling as if you’re limiting your customers.

Maximise your gift card marketing activity

It would be great if they did, but unfortunately, your gift cards will not sell themselves. They need effective gift card marketing activity behind them to give them the best chance at success! But what are the best ways to do this?

In-store marketing

Digital gift card sales soared over the pandemic, leaving physical gift card sales choking on the dust. Since then, however, digital sales have plateaued and now the playing field between the two channels is pretty level. With that in mind, your in-store gift card displays need to be pulled back to the forefront of your mind. Think carefully about how you’re presenting them visually.

Are your gift cards located at the register? Sure, this is great for planned purchases, but also ensuring they are displayed around the store can maximise those impulse purchases too. Focus on engaging visuals for your point of sale (POS) material. Use signage for clever taglines to showcase the reasons why a customer should purchase your gift card.

Utilise incentives and rewards

Gift cards can be used to inspire your customers to spend more when used as incentives and rewards. Boost sales on your pet supplies website by offering a £5 gift card to those who purchase to a particular threshold, such as £50. Offer a pre-loaded gift card for their next visit once a customer purchases ten sweet treats at your dessert parlour.

You strengthen the relationship between your brand and your customer and you pretty much secure a return visit. It’s a win-win. Plus, 72% of gift card users spend more than the original value of their card, so you should reap the rewards of offering freebies.

Gift cards work hand-in-hand with loyalty. They allow you to attract customers by encouraging them to sign up for your loyalty programme, reward the customers who spend with you and even reach out to customers who have lapsed their spending with you.

Leverage key events

Whatever your business, seasonal events and holidays throughout the year can really give your marketing activity a bit of colour and focus. Have these in mind when planning your gift card marketing. Starting with the obvious, Google searches for ‘gift cards’ see an enormous spike every single December in time for the gifting season. You’d be crazy not to leverage Christmas time to really amp up your marketing activity.

You can also look outside the box and outside of the holidays we all know and love, however. There’s a celebratory day for pretty much anything if you search hard enough. National Doughnut Day, National Burger Day, National Book Lovers Day – you name it, it probably exists. Check out this National Day Calendar for key dates and plan some fun gift card marketing activity around a date that suits your business.

Whilst marketing is key for a successful gift card programme, it can be difficult to know you’re driving activity in the right direction. With Savvy’s Analytics platform, you can gain real insight into your gift card performance as a whole – not just in relation to marketing. Discover which channels are performing best such as in-store versus online and which of your stores are hitting the hot spot with their sales. Filter data by sales, uplift value and redemption value over specific time periods such as month-on-month or year-on-year to monitor and compare.

Understand outstanding redemption

You might be selling plenty of gift cards, but is non-redemption of your gift cards an issue? 10-19% of gift cards are never actually redeemed. You’ve already received the revenue, but revenue typically can’t be recognised until a corresponding product or service is provided, making it difficult to improve your P&L (profit & loss).

To get the most out of your gift card programme and your redemption levels, Savvy’s Analytics platform provides you with a clear understanding of load values and outstanding redemption values. This visibility helps you to build an accurate picture of your total gift card liability in real time. Filter by channel, partner, brand, promotion, store location and card type to spot trends. This enables you to take the appropriate action to encourage gift card redemption.

At Savvy, we’re always looking for new ways to help your business and your gift card programme win. The capabilities we offer to our customers are always evolving as we strive to allow you to truly maximise the potential of your gift card programme.

If you don’t feel like you’re getting the most from your current gift card programme, turn to Savvy to help you take control. To learn more about how our Gift Card Management and Analytics platform can help you, just contact us and let’s start a conversation. We’re available via our website or give us a call on 0870 735 2829 (UK), 0190 22752 (Ireland) or 001 (502) 489 4439 (USA & Canada).

How to improve your gift card marketing

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Savvyseo

You don’t need us to tell you that gift cards are a real boost to business, whatever sector your company is in. However, with the chaos of running a business, seasonal promotions and new product launches, gift cards can often get left by the wayside and not given the exposure they deserve.

But of course, gift cards won’t sell themselves! That’s why it’s important to sufficiently market your gift cards and make sure they’re at the forefront of your customer’s minds.

Need a little inspiration on how to improve your gift card marketing? Savvy is here to help.

Levelling up your gift card marketing

There is a multitude of ways you can breathe a little life into your gift card marketing activity, from easy wins and beyond. Plus, when trying to nail those promotions and campaigns, Savvy’s Gift Card Management and Analytics platforms can be your best friend when ensuring success… Let’s explain.

Improve your gift card visibility in-store

So, how can you get customers to take more notice of your gift cards? It’s actually pretty simple. It may sound obvious, but making your gift cards more prominent within your stores can be enough to make a big difference.

Think carefully about how your gift cards are displayed in-store. Gift cards are tactile – are you offering customers the space to freely browse your choice of designs? They are commonly located at the register. Whilst this is great for planned purchases, it’s also a good idea to not confine them here. You should also display them around the store to maximise those impulse purchases too.

Gift cards shouldn’t be an afterthought, pushed to a dusty corner of your store or wherever there’s a bit of unused space. Pull your customer’s attention as soon as they walk through the doors with eye-catching visuals and point of sale (POS) material.

And why just leave it at visuals? Use signage for clever taglines to showcase the reasons why a customer should purchase your gift card. Perhaps it’s made from eco-friendly materials. Perhaps you’re currently offering a free £5 gift card balance top-up with every new purchase. Shout about the benefits to tempt those sales.

Your gift card display should be treated with as much care and attention as any other area of your store. Are the designs up to date or are your Christmas-themed cards still out in January? Are the terms and conditions still correct or do they need replacing? Keep it fresh and keep it relevant. Your customer won’t value your gift cards if you don’t!

Educate your team

Sure, you understand the value of your gift cards – but that doesn’t mean your in-store teams will too. And if they don’t understand the value then there is little chance that they will be focused on ensuring gift card sales are maximised.

If this is an area that could do with a little development, spend some time educating store staff on the importance of gift cards to your business. You could even incorporate gift cards into your sales and customer training, highlighting the dynamic of sales, redemption and lift. Guide your staff on the situations where they may be able to boost gift card sales. For instance, if a customer is looking for advice on a product to gift or if a product they are looking for is out of stock.

Consider assigning a member of staff to take ownership of gift cards within store. Store managers already have a lot on their plate. Look to more junior members of the team who would enjoy the extra responsibility. Ask them to ensure the gift card display is in-line with the plan and to reorder designs when they start to run low.

Drill down into the data with Savvy’s Analytics platform to show your teams how successful gift cards can be and why they need in-store prominence. Create the business case for fresh new card designs, attractive displays and persuasive signage with your gift card sales and redemption numbers. By consistently reporting gift card activity to your team, gift cards will stay at the forefront of their minds.

And lastly, everyone likes a bit of healthy competition, right? Using Analytics to report on gift card sales and redemption levels across stores, show each in-store team how they compare against each other. Incentivise them to generate more sales and secure that top spot. A reward for the best-performing store is sure to get those sales brains ticking.

Use gift cards as incentives and rewards

If you thought that all gift cards were good for was gifting and simply loading value to be spent, then think again. Gift cards can also be used to inspire your customers to spend more when used as incentives and rewards.

For example, let’s say you want to boost sales on your clothing website. Offer a £15 gift card to those who purchase to a particular threshold such as £100. You might just inspire someone to add that extra item to their basket that they were umming and ahhing over, resulting in an extra sale with just a small cost to you for the customer reward.

Or, let’s say you want to reward the loyal customers of your coffee shop. Perhaps once a customer purchases 10 coffees with you, you offer them a pre-loaded gift card for their next visit as a treat on you. As a result, the relationship between your brand and your customer is strengthened. You pretty much secure a return visit. Plus, 72% of gift card users spend more than the original value of their card, so you’re likely to still make money despite the freebies.

Gift cards work hand-in-hand with loyalty. They allow you to attract customers by encouraging them to sign up to your loyalty program. They allow you to reward the customers who spend with you and even reach out to customers who have lapsed their spending with you.

Similarly, social media can be somewhat of an untapped avenue when it comes to gift card marketing. Explore the possibility of running a social media competition with a pre-loaded gift card as the prize. With the above uplift statistic in mind, you’re likely to get some extra sales out of the winner’s spending. Not to mention the benefits of engagement and brand awareness that social media competitions hold.

If you are a Savvy Analytics customer, use our platform and your analytics data to understand your average load by channel. How can you use this intel to push your customers to the next level?

Leverage key events

There are certainly dates in the calendar when your gift card sales are likely to benefit from a bit of a boost. For instance, every single December, Google searches for ‘gift cards’ see a spike and gift card sales skyrocket as people prepare for the biggest gifting period of the year. Gift cards make the perfect present for any gifting season as they reduce waste and give the recipient the much-appreciated gift of choice.

But which other key events can you leverage? Amp up your gift card marketing around key shopping events such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween and Black Friday. Depending on the nature of your business, you could even take advantage of more niche events such as International Womens Day (8th March 2023 globally), National Burger Day (28th May 2023 in the US) or National Book Lovers Day (9th August 2023 globally). Check out this National Day Calendar for key dates.

Savvy’s Analytics platform arms you with the ability to identify which periods of the year suffer weak sales and a drop in footfall. Perhaps your phone stops ringing in January. Maybe the Summer months drag on with few customers coming through your doors. A little forward planning into key dates that you can leverage and create exciting marketing campaigns around can help you boost your sales during these identified weaker periods.

Utilise the sales channels available to you

A huge driver for marketing activity is to build awareness and connect with new customers. To do this, sometimes you need to look a little further afield. Are you making the most of the sales channels available to you?

A simple place to start would be gift card malls. Gift card malls can be found either online or within stores such as supermarkets. They offer gift cards from hundreds of different brands all in one convenient place. Could you explore putting your name amongst them to broaden your reach?

Gift cards have also become incredibly profitable within the B2B channel. More and more organisations are investing money into employee benefits and customer rewards. Gift cards offer the choice and flexibility needed to please the masses, making them the perfect reward to cater to all kinds of people effectively with just one product.

In fact, the Gift Card and Voucher Association (GCVA) reported in their State of the Nation March 2022 report that over the last three years, an almost equal proportion of consumers received a gift card as a reward or incentive as the proportion that had purchased gift cards for themselves. There’s no denying that this channel for gift cards is going from strength to strength and tapping into the B2B rewards market could be well worth your investment.

Not sure how to utilise these channels? At Savvy, we have access to all the major API sales channels to help you broaden your gift card programme’s horizon – including gift card malls and B2B channels. Plus, with our Analytics platform, you can use real-time data to prove to your business that the returns by each channel and channel partner justify the third-party commissions.

Understand your redemption lift

Are you aware of which marketing channels generate the most redemption lift for you? For instance, have you seen evidence that customers who come through your paid ads or email marketing channels spend more on top of their gift card value than those in-store?

When it comes to marketing, it’s never a good idea to just ‘wing it’. In order to maximise your marketing channels, you first need to understand them. By understanding who is spending the most and where you can hone your efforts on the best-performing channels or use this knowledge to bring others up to speed.

With Savvy’s platform, you can view redemption lift by:

Channel
Brand
Card type
Location

This allows you to build current and future marketing campaigns around this knowledge with the added peace of mind that you are spending money in the right areas.

Complement this with our Analytics data to show your business the impact of gift cards and redemption lift, for both gift cards and return cards. By proving the business case for gift cards, you have a better chance of gaining that all-important internal buy-in for additional gift card initiatives.

Limit exposure and maximise sales

Gift card promotions need to make money, not lose money. Although not losing money is rarely something you can guarantee in marketing, grasping and controlling the return on investment of your promotions by applying a variety of rules and restrictions can make it a lot easier to avoid.

With Savvy’s Gift Card Management platform, you can apply validity rules such as whether a gift card’s validity is open-ended or has a redemption end-date, time and date restrictions, basket rules and sales channel rules.

Let’s say for instance that you’re running a Black Friday promotion on your gift cards. However, you don’t want the value of any purchased gift cards to be then spent on discounted items in your store over the sales period. You could either restrict the usage to full-price items only or perhaps add time and date restrictions so that the card can only be spent once the Black Friday chaos has been and gone.

Studies have shown that senior leaders often know little about just how powerful gift cards can be. And you know what else is powerful? Knowledge. Savvy can give you the knowledge to help you understand exactly how customers are using and engaging with your gift cards. This is a vital part of driving your gift card marketing forward and making better, more informed decisions for your next campaign.

Turn to Savvy to help you take control of and understand your gift card marketing activity. To learn more about how our Gift Card Management and Analytics platform can help you, just contact us and let’s start a conversation. We’re available via our website or give us a call on 0870 735 2829 (UK), 0190 22752 (Ireland) or 001 (502) 489 4439 (USA & Canada).