Gift Vouchers
How to make the most of your gift vouchers
Even this tried and tested promotional method should always be evaluated and adapted in terms of the nature of our own business. Gift vouchers are popular with many retailers – as well as service establishments such as health and beauty salons. They are an effective way of getting an existing customer to act as an advertisement for you, and when the bearer of the voucher redeems it there’s an opportunity to convert that person into a repeat customer.
I know of a toy shop owner who thought about his business and his market and opted for a specific voucher: a Birthday Gift Voucher. So what’s the big deal – surely any voucher can be used as a birthday present? That’s true, but in this instance the store owner wanted to focus his promotional activity on this event. Birthdays are important to children – his prime market – and they’re forever going to birthday parties.
Giving the voucher a special identity made it easier to create an association between his shop and the event. Then he set a fixed value to the voucher: a low figure, let’s say just $5. One’s first reaction is to regard that as silly – what kind of present can be bought for $5? Not much, and that was his point. Firstly, any kid can afford spending $5 on a voucher. Some buy a number of vouchers at a time. Secondly, as news of these affordable vouchers spread, he now had streams of kids coming into his store – many of them being exposed to his shop and products for the first time. He reckons that fifty percent of them end up buying something for themselves as well and become repeat customers. Then the voucher recipients come in and they normally end up buying something of far greater value than the vouchers in their possession.
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