Gift Cards are a gift! And not just for the recipient.
The reality is that Gift Cards offer a huge opportunity for many categories of hospitality businesses. Let’s examine why Gift Cards are great for hospitality and how you can drive sales.
Here are our top 10 tips for getting your Gift Cards flying with TalkBox.
- Make it easy and promote it
If your business does gift cards, then offer both physical and digital versions. Promote your gift cards in all of your marketing channels and make sure your staff know how to sell them and redeem them to ensure a great customer experience for both purchasers and recipients.
- Take advantage of TalkBox Recurring Messages and Scheduled Reminders
Most of the significant gifting occasions are known dates like Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. TalkBox has the right features to help make this simple for you. Start with creating a Template or Section that you can re-use. In fact, if you create a TalkBox Section, you can actually add a tile about Gift Cards to any communication.
If you have created a TalkBox Template be sure to name it so you know when you want to use it e.g. Mother’s Day 2025 so you can adjust it for next year.
You can then either set up a Recurring Message for fixed dates or schedule it in plenty of time to capture sales.
TOP TIP: if your business does virtual gift cards online, send an email on the morning of key occasions like Mother’s Day or Christmas Day just in case your recipient needs an emergency gift.
- Schedule Reminders or Download the Impact Data Hospo Events Calendar
Some dates for key gifting occasions or key sales opportunities aren’t fixed, such as Black Friday. Never miss an opportunity to sell your gift cards by downloading the Impact Data Hospo Events Calendar. Click here to download.
TOP TIP: why not create a Gift Card for key Hospo or Giving Days that have added value. For example if you are a Pizza Restaurant why not create a Pizza Day Gift Card that has 10% above it’s face value added and spread the word with TalkBox.
- Competitions and giveaways
Hospitality businesses are often asked to donate to local charities and events. Rather than give cash, consider giving a Gift Voucher. This will add more value than just a mention or Certificate of Appreciation as the recipients may be new to your business. If you are giving away a significant gift card as a major prize you might consider some smaller ones as well to increase the value of the prize pool and increase your branding opportunities.
Don’t forget to invite all your recipients to join your database so you can keep marketing to them.
- Know your audience and opportunities
There may be a difference between who your best customer is and the person who is likely to be looking for a gift for them. For example, your RSL Club might target an older audience compared to a hip juice bar that’s targeting young adults.
But the key here is who buys gifts for your target audience and how do you target them if they may not be on your database?
The key is to get your target audience to tell the people purchasing for them about your gift cards. Have some fun with your marketing and suggest to your seniors that their kids and grandkids should be showering them with gift cards for your business so they can keep enjoying their favourite place.
- A great way to thank your staff, key suppliers and frontline workers
Being successful in business is all about relationships, so when you want to say thanks to staff or suppliers why not use one of your own gift cards? Even if the recipient re-gifts you still get the opportunity to showcase your business to a new guest.
Or if your business is near a hospital or school you could create a special Gift Card dedicated to Nurses or Teachers that customers could purchase to reward these amazing individuals and don’t forget to promote it regularly in your TalkBox communications.
- Make your gift cards into an experience
Learn from the gift card industry masters, the health and beauty sector. They have made millions by turning a gift card into a total experience.
How could this work in your business?
Rather than just a $ voucher, could you create a gift card that was dinner or breakfast for two? Creating options at different price points on your website can create more interest in your gift cards and set you apart.
Perhaps, you could get a also branded box to put your physical gift cards in and include a little token gift such as a branded bottle opener to add a more tangible element to the gift.
- Don’t have a loyalty program, use them to surprise and delight your regulars?
Creating moments of joy is a great way to keep your customers engaged and are the sorts of things that create a lot of goodwill and can even go viral. Consider randomly selecting a customer on your database each month and sending them a Gift voucher. This could be used as a great way to get people to sign up to your database.
- Allow loyalty customers to buy them with points for them to give away for key gifting occasions
Allowing members to redeem their points for gift cards is not only a great way to keep your points liability in check, it’s another way to introduce new customers to your business.
Promote this as an option by targeting your members who have a high value of points.
TOP TIP: Create a filter in TalkBox that identifies your top points earners. The filter could be Points Balance = more than 1000. Need help with filters? Check our Support Centre
- Allow points to be transferred into gift cards for your selected community partners
Building on the above, perhaps you could encourage your high points earners to donate their points in the form of gift cards to local charities.
TOP TIP: Create a TalkBox Section to add into a Scheduled Communication that targets customers with a high points balance.
