GiftCard Partners Blog

GiftCard Partners receives prestigious When Work Works Award

It's a question many brands face.
How can I increase my company's gift card sales? Perhaps you already have a point-person in charge of gift cards, or you're looking to adopt a gift card strategy for the first time. Either way, the opportunity is grand.
Gift cards are a mainstay - more than half of U.S. households report receiving a gift card in the last 12 months, and 85% of those recipients redeem the cards within the same time frame. Without a focused effort and a sound, smart plan for spreading the word and increasing awareness of your gift card program, it can be difficult to reach the many potential customers likely to be interested in your offer. We just
published a free guide that covers
five of the key strategies we've used with our clients over the last several years. From optimizing your in-store and online presence to thinking more strategically about third-party relationships and B2B programs, this guide is sure to help spark some ideas. Let us know what you think!

Corporate wellness programs have become popular in recent years. Simply put, corporate wellness is any health initiative or program within a company that focuses on promoting good health and employee comfort, rather than dealing with poor health and low morale at a later date.
It should come as no surprise that most of the companies on the top 100 companies to work for list, year after year, offer corporate wellness programs. Companies that offer corporate wellness programs are striving, and people enjoy working for them. Not only do companies that offer such programs have happier staff, but they end up doing better financially.  Research shows that for every $1 spent on corporate wellness, a company saves $4 in sick time, health costs and overall work productivity.
Top Corporate Wellness Programs  Google is regularly on the top 100 companies to work for list. In fact, it has topped the list for several years. It makes sense then, that Google also has one of the most comprehensive wellness programs in the industry. The company offers on-site gyms, healthy eating options in the dining area, fully paid sabbaticals, volunteer opportunities, and health classes and screenings. SAS, a software developer, comes in at number two on the list. The company offers their employees on-site child care and fitness centers, a multitude of medical staff on-site, reimbursed gym memberships, healthy eating options and dietician services. With compressed workweeks, job sharing, 100% health coverage and paid sabbaticals, The Boston Consulting Group comes in at number three on the top companies to work for list. While these three companies are worlds apart in many ways, they share one common factor; solid wellness programs that ensure their staff is working to the best of their abilities.
Creating a Wellness Program  It is understandable that not all companies are going to be able to offer the same perks as Google. Google is a behemoth in the business world, with untold amounts of money to spare. Smaller companies, clearly, will be unable to procure the "campus-style" structure of Google, nor will they be able to offer the round-the-clock day care services that SAS gives to their workers, but every company can instill a wellness program that is sure to raise productivity and boost morale. To begin a wellness program a company must work to better understand their internal culture. Once the internal culture is understood, a better understanding of what the employees need out of a wellness program will arise. Before you begin a wellness program ask these questions;

If you're looking for a way to inspire your workers, motivate them, and get more out of your team, we have one big tip for you: stop thinking of them as 'employees.' Instead, start thinking of them as people. They're not interchangeable parts that you can tweak and change to get more work out of—they're living, breathing, working people with personalities, priorities, and passions.

Although we all know that gift cards are nothing new, it's also clear that they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Much of their stable market has to do with the new digital trends and shifts happening within the gift card industry. With these shifts, comes a change in consumer perception of gift cards as well. Gift cards are a way for retailers to appeal to their consumers, making loyal shoppers out of many of their customers through gift card reward programs. But gift cards have also remained popular as purchases for, well, gifts. Much of this is due to convenience, especially with the growth of digital e-cards, which make it simple to purchase and send quickly and without waiting in line. For those retailers  looking to increase their gift card sales, however, they may have to offer a little something extra along with them. According to a new survey,
17 percent of consumers won't buy a gift card until they see a promotion of some sort happening along side it, and 23 percent take promotions into consideration when deciding where to buy their gift cards between competing retailers. But as anyone in retail or the gift card industry knows, no matter how the technology or promotions change, gift cards will always give customers an incentive to visit your store, a gift that's priceless.
Statistics are courtesy of Incentive -- read the full article here.