The season of giving is just around the corner and that means that there’s perhaps no better time than now to align your marketing campaigns with an eGift program. But to truly optimize your program during the critical holiday season, you’ll need an informed strategy.
This article examines best practices for unleashing the power of your eGift program all season long.
The holidays may be the season of wonder and magic, but, for many, it’s also the season of stress. From holiday parties to family gatherings to pageants and parades, there’s a lot to do. And that doesn’t even factor in the often momentous task of gift-giving.
Enter eGifting. With an eGift card, holiday gift-givers not only save valuable time by avoiding the holiday crowds, but they also enjoy the peace of mind of knowing they’re giving the perfect gift on time, every time. eGifters give their recipients the gift of choice, and in the process, they avoid the guesswork and the anxiety that comes with the hunt for the “perfect” gift.
Best of all, today’s eGift programs enable buyers to personalize their eGift, choosing customized designs and composing unique messages for each individual recipient. This means that eGifting offers all the convenience and cost and time efficiency of a gift card while retaining the thoughtful, personal touch of a traditional holiday gift.
The benefits of eGifting during the holidays may be obvious to retailers, but not all customers have bought into the idea of digital gift cards. This is why crafting targeted campaigns that promote the benefits of digital gift giving with eGift programs is so important.
Fortunately, with a bit of advanced planning and some know-how, the task is fairly simple. First, you need to gather your market data to ensure that you’re capitalizing on emerging consumer trends.
Customer engagement data will be critical to this endeavor. If you’re going to align your holiday campaigns and your eGift program effectively, you need to understand not only who your customer is but also what they do and how they feel. Customer engagement data can help merchants assess customer behavior, buying patterns and preferences. It can measure how customers react to promotions, products, and services and provide the insights on what promotions work well and what fails.
Armed with such information, you can craft pinpointed eGift promotions that leverage consumer sentiment and maximize their experience. If, for instance, your customers are complaining about a product’s battery life, your eGift-aligned campaign may offer discounts on portable battery chargers with the purchase of an e-Card.
Similarly, if your target customer base is lamenting the fatigue of the holiday chaos, you might offer eGift cards for self-care products and services, from spa treatments to hotel bookings. The key is to understand the unique needs of your customer base during the holiday season and to address them through your eGift program.
Once you’ve gathered customer sentiment data to inform what type of eGift marketing campaign you’re going to run, it’s time to make it happen. You need a platform like Ackroo that enables you to leverage data quickly, easily, and effectively. Through our gift card program, you can build your campaign by doing the following:
Sync Customer Data with the Platform:
You don’t want to manually plug away at using data to make personalized promotions. Instead, automatically migrate data to the platform where you’ll use it for campaigns and get reports and feedback from your database
Multi-Channel Outreach: Individual customers have unique channel preferences — one might prefer email, the other social media, the other text messages. You can leverage your digital and social platforms to seamless drive traffic to your website for eGift cards.
Automate Campaigns: You can create personalized campaigns based directly on customer preferences and the program will run campaigns automatically, as per your instructions.
Centralized Campaign Dashboard: This enables to you watch results as they come in; you’ll know what’s working and what isn’t.
Remarket Based on Results: Through automation and data insights, you’ll be able to
offer eGift card promotions based on past purchases.
Do It All At the Right Time: eGift cards are big for birthdays and holidays, so the program
can automate campaigns based on those dates.
This last point is a very important one when it comes eGift card campaigns.
To be sure, the possibilities for eGifting during the holiday season are seemingly endless. And that means your holiday campaigns are likely to come in myriad forms, but that does not mean it is wise or even feasible to attempt to be all things to all consumers.
If you want to get the most bang for your bank, prudence and timeliness are key. This is where the enormous marketing potential of social media comes into play. Social media enables a market reach that was once simply unimaginable, and it offers a level of immediacy that simply cannot be matched through other channels.
What that means is that if you want your target audience to know about and act on your eGift campaigns promptly, social media is often far and away the best medium. You might, for example, offer limited-time-only promotions via pop-up ads for customers looking to take advantage of online deals. Because these ads can be readily aligned with prospects’ search history and social media activity, you’re more likely to elicit a response and, ultimately, to secure a paying customer.
Social media is also ideal for connecting with your target audience in real time through community forums and live-streaming events. You might, for example, host a virtual product launch with the opportunity for online attendees to win eGift cards in varying denominations. The result is increased consumer awareness and interest during a season when competition between retailers is at its apex.
The holiday season is here and savvy entrepreneurs are already preparing to take advantage of all the season has to offer. In an era of rising inflation and continuing economic uncertainty, business leaders must capitalize on every opportunity to boost revenues and build the bottom line. Fortunately, eGift cards offer flexibility so merchants can stay within customers’ gift-giving budget.
eGift programs provide an extraordinary venue for driving sales, boosting customer acquisition, and reducing costs. The key lies in understanding the unique needs, wants, and goals of holiday shoppers and designing eGift program campaigns accordingly.
Set up an eGift program that enables customers to personalize their eGift cards, so they’re giving a heartfelt gift.
Use customer engagement and sentiment data to craft your eGift marketing campaigns appropriately.
Leverage this data on a platform that enables automation, real-time insights, remarketing, and timed campaigns.
Use social media to target promotions based on customer profiles and preferences
Lastly, use social media to connect with customers during campaigns.
To learn more about our eGift program, contact us!