It’s a busy time right now. From delivering Fall programs to budgeting for 2016 to preparing for the influx of January Joins…it can be easy to overlook something as simple as selling gift cards during the holiday season. But it’s worth your attention.

Shoppers want their gifts to be thoughtful and useful to the recipient, which can be a tall order. 80% of holiday shoppers turn to gift cards for two main reasons.

(1) it lets the recipient choose their own gift and

(2) it’s easier and faster for the shopper to purchase.

With members, participants, and others coming through your doors all day every day, it’s a cinch for them to take care of some holiday shopping while they’re with you.

Not only does the initial purchase of the gift card represent revenue for your association, it likely represents even more once the card is redeemed. The majority (51%) of gift card recipients will visit a store more often than they would otherwise and they typically spend more than the value of the card—$23.41 more on average! While the revenue from gift cards is nice, there is also an even more meaningful opportunity for engagement and sharing your mission with the shopper and gift card recipient alike.

Maximizing Gift Cards Sales for Your Association

If you are planning to sell gift cards this holiday season, here are a few tips to maximize this offering:

  1. Communicate, communicate, communicate! Your constituents may not know that you sell gift cards. Have a sign at the front desk and mention it during check in, include a blurb in your email communications, feature it on your website, do a social media blitz.
  2. Target those communications. Would your Silver Sneakers participants be interested in gifting their grandchildren a camp experience next year? Let them know that it’s a possibility through a targeted email.
  3. Incentives work. 32% of gift cards are purchased due to an incentive and 40% spent more than they had planned to when an incentive is offered. Bonus points for testing different incentives to see which are most effective.
  4. Hold a friendly competition between your centers or between staff to see who can sell the most gift cards during a certain time period.
  5. Packaging. Make the purchase and gifting experience even easier for the holiday shopper by having wrapping taken care of. Offer a branded card/envelope with a space to write the amount, names of recipient and gift giver, and a heartfelt note along with your website URL where they can find updated program and membership offerings when they are ready to redeem.

Ready to place an order? We’d be happy to help!

Sources: 2014 National Retail Federation Gift Card Spending Survey, 2014 First Data Prepaid Consumer Insights Study

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