• 3 Gift Card Promotion Ideas to Try This Holiday Season

    Kent Ashby  •  October 29, 2019

With the holiday season quickly approaching, gift card sales are likely on the shortlist of priorities. Gift card sales can make up a significant portion of a golf facility's revenue during the holidays, especially if marketed properly. These days, just about every golf course offers gift cards, so we’re going to go over a few different promotions that we’ve seen work in recent years, that can help you stand out in the crowded marketplace.

Using Gift Cards as Rewards for Purchase Amounts

(ie. Receive a $5 in credit for every $50 in gift cards your purchase)
Here at 121, we’ve seen this gift card promotion perform very well over the years. This style of promotion achieves two high-priority marketing objectives. First and foremost, it incentivizes the buyer to purchase from you, rather than the golf course down the street. Although it’s only a $5 credit per $50 spent (or whatever you decide), buyers like this because, ultimately, there’s something in it for them as well! This promotion also primes the pump for customer loyalty. Let’s say a customer comes in a purchases $100 worth of gift cards and receives a gift card with $10 of credit in return. This person is going to be likely to come back, bring a friend, buy a couple of drinks, food, etc. That $10 in credit has the potential, and likeliness, of turning into significantly more revenue extracted from that customer down the road.

Some point of sale systems allow you to apply credits to the gift card purchaser’s account. This is more ideal than simply issuing an anonymized gift card to the purchaser, simply because the credit can only be used by the purchaser. At the end of the day, it isn’t a deal-breaker if your POS can’t handle this type of input, but it’s worth looking into.

The credit that is given to the purchaser can also be set to expire on a certain date if you decide to do so (note: the actual gift card being purchased cannot expire, just the credit given to the purchaser).

Bundle Gift Cards with Other Items

(ie. $50 gift card, polo, a sleeve of balls, and 3 range buckets for $100)
People enjoy gift bundles, especially the buyer of the bundle. It allows them to get a plethora of gifts for their friend or loved one in one shot. If you think about how hectic and stressful holiday shopping can be, you’ll start to see why bundles have an appeal.

A gift card alone can be a cop-out of a gift in the eyes of some people. They believe a gift card isn’t thoughtful or is “boring”. Offering a convenient, well-packaged bundle can be exactly what a purchaser needs to find the hybrid of thoughtfulness and convenience that they’re looking for.

It’s also a good idea to have tiers of bundles going from $25 up to $200+. This gives the purchaser plenty of pricing options to fit their budget, but still provide a gift that any golfer would love to receive.

Using a Giveaway to Promote Gift Card Sales

(ie. Receive one entry to win a Titleist TS2 Driver for every $20 in gift cards purchased)
Running a giveaway can be a great way to stimulate gift card sales during the holidays. A giveaway gives you promotional power so that you’re email social media marketing efforts have more substance and intrigue. Your marketing efforts will certainly take you further with this style of promotion than the worn-out “Give the Gift of Golf” promotions that we see every year by virtually every golf course. Since purchasers are always more interested when there’s something in it for them, a giveaway can help encourage more spending and help set yourself apart from other golf courses in the area.

It may be a good idea to make the contest’s prize ambiguous to golf so that that promotion is appealing to non-golfers as well. While no one is going to be upset with winning a prize, offering something like a weekend staycation, a tech device, or shopping spree might be more appealing to the masses.

CampaignPilot for Gift Card Promotions

CampaignPilot is a new product that we developed to help make marketing your promotions quick and easy. One facet of CampaignPilot’s abilities is to create and promote gift card promotions that get distributed to Facebook, Twitter, email, mobile apps, and your website, all in one simple process. With a number of built-in gift card marketing templates, and the option to create your own, CampaignPilot gives you the freedom and ease to put together a successful promotion this holiday season. Best of all, it’s free! Sign up and give it a try - https://campaignpilot.com/

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