Newsletter
| Feature Article - October 2004 | ||
Increasing the Excitement Around Your Stored-Value Program |
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| Many specialty retailers and restaurants offer stored-value
cards to their customers, either as a gift card or as a low value payment device. But it's becoming
increasingly difficult to differentiate one program from the next.
Is there anything that merchants and hospitality providers can do to make their stored-value programs stand out from the crowd? We think there are several things you can do to increase the excitement and velocity of your program. For a standard stored-value gift card program, merchants can use several different types of promotions to increase the level of excitement. For example, creating a swipe and win sweepstakes when the gift card is redeemed is an excellent way to drive additional sales. Think about it: your customers are purchasing a gift card that has a certain value, and the person that they give it to has the opportunity to redeem their gift card not only for your product or service, but also for the chance to win a prize. Who wouldn't want to give a gift card that may make the recipient a big winner! Another opportunity that can benefit both the merchant and the customer is the use of receipt coupons, or custom coupons, as part of your gift card program. You can use these coupons to drive customers to locations that need an increase in traffic. Or better yet, make your coupons applicable to certain times of the day when traffic isn't as high as you'd like it to be. For example, many restaurants are finding this an effective way to drive traffic to days of the week or times of the day that are not traditionally strong for them. Giving customers 10-15% off is a great marketing investment for creating a busy restaurant during traditionally slow periods. If you are using the stored-value card as a low-value payment system and you want customers to re-load their cards, give them a bonus when they add value to the card. An excellent way of encouraging the re-load is by adding custom messages on the receipt as the value of the card is depleted. An alert like "Your card value is $10. Re-load your card with $50 and get a free coffee" alerts customers to their card status. Or it could be something as simple as giving them $105 value on the card when they add $100, or a coupon for 5% off their next purchase. It doesn't take much to make your stored-value program stand above the rest. Just a little innovative thought around what you want your customers to do, and what they would view as a valuable reward for performing that action. Best of all, the incentive that you provide can be at a low cost to you, but have great perceived value to your customers. (See the article from our last newsletter titled "Leveraging Perceived Value in a Loyalty Program").  Related Articles and Links
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