Digital gift cards are the gift your business needs

Digital gift cards provide a win-win situation for both customers and businesses. 

We all know how difficult it can be to choose the right present for a friend or family member. 

We also know how difficult it can be for businesses to acquire more customers and increase loyalty. 

Fortunately, there's a perfect win-win solution to both of these predicaments - Gift cards. They make gift-buying easier for customers - and they have a surprising number of positive advantages for businesses, which this article will explore in detail.

Digital gift cards make the entire process even easier again. Your customers can now complete selection, purchase and delivery without leaving their sofa. Or leaving your website.

They’re also the perfect way for your customers to deal with gift-giving in 2021. And they can also be a valuable revenue stream when you need it most.

So, what exactly is a digital gift card?

A digital gift card is exactly the same as a physical gift card, except that instead of being a physical piece of plastic people put in their wallet - it’s an electronic file people keep in their inbox.

The purchasing, sending and redeeming is all based on a digital code. This code can be redeemed in-store or online, which means additional foot-traffic to your store, or visitors to your web-store. Either way, it’s a win-win.

How do digital gift cards work?

In some respects digital gift cards are the same as physical gift cards. You get paid in advance and the recipient is then able to use it to purchase products, or use the balance of their gift card as a discount for a more expensive product. 

People will often find your gift cards by searching for them online, so joining an existing platform will help your gift cards become more visible. People then pay for them online, which triggers an automatic email to the recipient containing the code. 

All of this happens without your business having to do a single thing. It’s almost the perfect process.

5 ways that digital gift cards can help you grow your business

• Boosting sales to a broader audience

Gift cards can increase your sales with three different audiences. 

First of all there are your existing customers, who are happy to buy gift cards from you because they know and trust what you offer. That gives them confidence that the gift card they’re buying will lead to a great gift for their loved one.

The second group are the potential customers who would usually not shop with you, but they want to find a gift card that the recipient is going to enjoy. There is little chance of this group becoming regular customers, but it’s still an increase in general brand awareness. This is more prevalent for stores offering niche, or specialized, products like children’s clothes or foreign wines. 

Finally, the third group are the recipients of the gift cards. In a lot of cases, people will spend more than the value on the gift card, and pay the extra themselves. Over time, this can add up to a lot of extra sales.

• Introducing new customers to your business

Acquiring new customers can be expensive and increasingly difficult with increased competition and the proliferation of communication channels.

Digital gift cards, on the other hand, can lead to brand new customers coming to you to redeem their present. Depending on the situation this could, in turn, lead to you converting them into return customers, with a greatly enhanced Life-Time Value.

• Increasing loyalty to your business

Another aspect of gift cards is that they can be linked to your loyalty program - allowing customers to collect points when they purchase gift cards. 

This means that the person buying the gift card can earn points or rewards, even though they’re technically buying a gift for someone else. 

Of course, to do this you need to have a digital loyalty program in place. There are some excellent options available that offer this service, which we will get to later.

• The feel-good factor

One often overlooked aspect of digital gift cards is the positive association that comes with their arrival. A lot of famous brands pay a lot of money to be associated with happy moments in people’s lives and digital gift cards can achieve the same thing for a lot less.

Chances are they will have received the digital gift card from someone they care about, to celebrate a special event like a birthday, holidays or some other event in their life.

This is a powerful way for your brand to create a great first impression, and will help you with converting first-time customers to regular customers.

• Better for the environment, and better for your bottom line.

It may seem obvious, but digital gift cards require no production, no printing and take up zero shelf space. They can also be delivered via email, which means no need for postage or a courier.

This makes them more eco-friendly, while also reducing the time and money you have to spend on physical gift cards.