In just a few short months, it’ll be that all-important period in the ecommerce calendar - Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. BFCM is one of the biggest events in retail, and for good reason. Whether you’re looking for a pre-holiday sales lift, to acquire new customers, foster further loyalty with existing customers, or test out some new sales strategies. Whatever you want to achieve over BFCM weekend, you’ll need to use all the tools you have at your disposal to make the most of it.
And you most likely already have a tool that can improve sales, incentivize customers, build loyalty, boost acquisition, and increase average cart spend. The tool in question? Gift cards.
Here are 10 ways you can use gift cards to do all of the above and more this Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend.
#1 - Offer gift cards instead of a discount
Everyone expects a discount on Black Friday weekend, so almost every brand runs a sale with a deep discount. But when so many brands are running such similar deals, how can any stand out from the competition? Not only that, while BFCM is great for acquiring new customers, it can be difficult to retain them due to how they first discovered your brand. They got your products on a discount, so will they ever come back?
Running a gift card promotion instead of a discount is an easy way to stand out, and boost that post-BFCM retention rate. For example, instead of offering 10% off all products you could offer a $20 gift card for every purchase over $40. And this could scale depending on the total cart value. What this means is that you get that first purchase, and the customer is guaranteed to return to spend that gift card. Or they may give that to a friend or family member who will in turn become a new customer.
#2 - Offer a gift card with purchase + discount combo
Perhaps you want to stick to some tried-and-tested Black Friday classics and offer a discount. But maybe you also want to shake things up a little and really grab the attention of all those BFCM shoppers. Gift cards offer an easy, effective way to boost your Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions.
After all, what’s more enticing - a 10% discount, or a 10% discount plus a $5 gift card? This solves a similar retention problem discussed previously, and it’s likely that with a low value gift card that the customer will spend over that value. This also allows you to reduce that discount as you’re offering something on top of it. Instead of feeling like you need to offer a 20% discount, you can offer 10% with the gift card. The customer still gets that initial excitement of a reduced price, plus the reward of a future purchase.
#3 - Create an exclusive giveaway for loyal customers
Black Friday/Cyber Monday are a goldmine for acquiring new customers, but don’t forget about your long-time, loyal customers. Repeat purchasers are more likely to spend more - in fact in one study it was found that the top 10% of customers spend up to 3x more, and the top 1% spend up to 5x more.
With that in mind, it may be of value to create some exclusive giveaways and deals that only apply to existing customers. And one of the easiest ways to grab their attention is by giving away a gift card to spend on Black Friday weekend. This kind of promotion can be run in the weeks leading up to BFCM, creating a buzz with your customers.
#4 - Create a giveaway for all BFCM customers
Retention is a big problem with BFCM and the holiday season. There are many customers who may just be looking for a one-off, discounted purchase, or they may be buying a gift for someone else. In these and other cases, they’re less likely to return to your store in future. However, maybe you can offer them something more that will grab their attention.
Over the course of BFCM weekend, make it clear that every purchase is eligible to win a gift card, and the value and number of prizes available. Add this to your store, as well as in email communications following Black Friday. It could scale also, so the more the customer spends, the higher the gift card value they could win. This creates an extra level of excitement, as well as keeping customers engaged with your brand to see if they’ve won.
#5 - Run a buy-one-get-one promotion on gift cards
Everyone loves a BOGO deal, especially during events like Black Friday. How about adding gift cards to the mix? As we’ve discussed, gift cards are great for retention, so with two gift cards in hand that could mean big wins for that retention rate.
This kind of offer effectively gives the customer double the value of whichever gift card they purchase, which they can either give in full to their recipient, spend on themselves at a later date, or split between themselves and others. This is even more valuable to your store and brand when 61% of customers will spend over the value of a gift card. So if they buy a $25 gift card, they have $50 to spend and chances are they’ll spend even more than that.
#6 - Use gift cards as part of your BFCM retention strategy
With retention being the biggest challenge post-BFCM weekend, you need to have a plan for it ahead of time. How will you make the most of all those newly acquired customers? How will you convince those first-time discount shoppers to come back and spend again, and at full price?
The answer lies in keeping them engaged and incentivized. And post-purchase you’ll have one of the most effective channels for doing this - email. Use email marketing to keep in touch with your BFCM customers, and use gift cards to incentivize them to return for another purchase. It could be something small, like offering a $5 gift card 3 months after Black Friday if they haven’t yet returned for another purchase. Or you could make it more complex, offering different values depending on the size of the original purchase and their engagement with both emails and your website. For example if they spent over $100 and they’ve browsed your site in the last 2 weeks, they get a higher value gift card than someone who spent $20 and hasn’t browsed your site in the last month.
#7 - Create a special offer for bulk buying gift cards
Especially around the holiday season, people are buying more gifts than any other time of year. This might be for personal gifts, or for groups of friends, organizations, or as corporate gifts. Whatever the reason may be, gift cards are a simple and well-received option that takes the stress out of buying multiple gifts at once. If you already offer the option to buy gift cards in bulk, then you want to encourage customers to make use of this.
The easiest way to promote bulk purchasing is to run some kind of offer over BFCM weekend. For example, it might be a buy 10 get 5 free, or a flat discount such as buy 10 get 5% off. After all, not only is it easier to buy 10 gift cards at once with a bulk purchase option, it’s also better for you as the merchant to get 10 new customers as the result of one order.
#8 - Enable gift cards to be displayed as an option when a product is out of stock
Black Friday weekend is notorious for products running out of stock quickly. The better the deal, the faster that stock will fly out the door! Initially, this will seem like a really positive thing to have happened…but then what happens to all those customers who were a little late? If they had their sights set on that product as a gift, just for it to be sold out, they may just go to a competitor.
Instead, open up a plan B - gift cards. If a customer has their heart set on a specific product, then a gift card means their recipient can still get that product just at a later date. Or they can pick something else from your store that they’d enjoy even more. Some customers may still opt to pick a different gift, but many won’t want to waste the time and effort it took to find that product and a gift card gives them an attractive alternative.
#9 - Allow customers to give a gift card for an item on pre-order
There are many reasons why you might be offering a pre-order on a product over BFCM and the holiday season. From a product going viral and running out of stock, to supply chain issues, and more. Whatever the reason, customers may want to reserve an item as a gift but they don’t want to show up empty handed if the item won’t be available before the date they intend to give it.
So, allow them to opt for a gift card as a pre-order. A sort of IOU “to redeem against this product when it’s available”. Apps like Govalo allow you to send a product as a gift, where the recipient gets a gift card in lieu of a physical product. This means the original customer has something they can give to their recipient, and you still make the sale.
#10 - Offer a gift card as a pre-order incentive
Securing pre-orders can be difficult at times. Customers often won’t want to wait, or to part with their money without guarantee of a product being delivered ASAP. Especially when it comes to Black Friday and the holidays, they want their order and they want it fast. But as we’ve discussed, sometimes you have no other choice but to offer a product as a pre-order. In these cases, you may want to find a way to incentivize customers to opt for a pre-order.
One easy and effective strategy is to offer a gift card as an incentive. In other words, they place a pre-order, they get a freebie. It may be $10, or even just $5, but they get something in return for their pre-order. This not only incentivizes them, but it also secures a second order be that from the original customer or from whoever they give the gift card to.
—
BFCM is a huge opportunity for any store, and how much success you see from it will depend on your strategy. By including gift cards as part of that strategy, you’ll have new and unique methods to interest, entice, and engage customers over Black Friday weekend and beyond.
Want to improve your gift cards? Check out Govalo over on the Shopify App Store.