How to Get Your Customers to Redeem Their Retail Gift Cards

Most retailers will see up to 50% of their retail gift cards sales take place over the holiday season. Now that the holidays have come and gone, and everyone has gotten back into their normal routine, how can you make sure those gift cards get redeemed instead of lost in the back of a wallet, purse, or junk drawer? We have some ideas that will help encourage gift card holders to get shopping, sooner rather than later.

Retail Gift Cards & Sales

First off, let us quickly state the significance that retail gift cards can play in growing your business. Having gift cards available for customers to purchase helps your business increase in revenue, increase your potential for future sales, decrease returned merchandise, and attract new customers. However, this article is not meant to convince you of the benefits of selling gift cards. Instead, we want to help you encourage customers who have already bought gift cards to go spend them!

The great thing about gift cards is that you can use them to encourage customers to take a variety of positive actions. Actions that will hopefully result in higher sales. The four most common actions that retailers try to encourage from their gift card customers include:

1. Visiting the store
2. Trying a new product
3. Purchasing a more expensive item
4. Choosing a particular brand

Once you decide what it is that you’re trying to get customers to do, the next step is to design a campaign around that goal. Here are some effective campaign examples that we recommend:

Bonus Gift Event

Target your consumers who possess your retail gift cards by offering a “bonus gift” event where anyone who shops using their gift card is given a small gift at the time of their purchase. You could also use this opportunity to offer gift card holders a trial size of a brand new product, dependent on if they make a purchase using their retail gift cards. The exclusivity of the event makes it enticing to the group and will inspire them to spend, instead of hold onto their gift card.

One-day Sale

Along the same lines as the event listed above, this “one-day sale” event could target gift card holders, offering them a specified percentage off of their purchase when they pay using their gift card. If one day doesn’t sound like enough time, try turning the event into a weekend-long promotion.

Gift Card Guides

A brilliant idea for marketing to gift card holders is to create gift card guides. Have a guide available that features products that fall under common gift card nominations, for example: “25 Gifts Under $25”. Make a list of the most popular sale items, naming it “Top Sellers”, and send out an email blast to show off what other people are purchasing with their gift cards. Customers like to know what they are able to get for their money, and guides are an easy way to help them visualize their options.

Mobile Gift Cards

With more and more customers spending time on their phones while shopping, now is the perfect time for your store to introduce mobile gift cards. The ease of access to mobile cards will incentivize gift card holders to visit your store more frequently, and spend their money quicker. No more remembering to bring their physical card from home – if customers have their phone, they have their money!

All of these campaign ideas can be used to encourage customers to visit your store, try out a new product, purchase a more expensive item, or choose a particular brand. It is ultimately up to you and your team to get creative with how you will implement these ideas, or come up with an idea of your own, to get the most out of gift card redemptions.

Discover more about our retail gift cards marketing.