GiftCard Partners Blog

Gift cards are a hot topic when it comes to corporate rewards, employee incentives, customer loyalty, fundraising programs and more. Still many are asking, “Are gift cards the right choice?”
The Retail Gift Card Association answers the question with the strong YES, according to the findings in their most recent survey. The survey asked over 1,000 consumers about their attitudes, behaviors and preferences when it comes to both receiving and giving gift cards. Here are a few interesting statistics that encompass the over feeling towards the plastic money gift:

As you commit to volume gift card purchases for your loyalty & rewards programs or corporate employee programs, you want to know that the public thinks highly of the brands you include.
Boston Market is ranking high on the list of fast-casual restaurants this holiday season and it’s sure to hold strong into 2013. Check out Boston Market’s recent record sales news:
Home Style Restaurant Chain Achieves History-Making Sales During Its Busiest Week of the Year and you will see not only great sales results for the company, but the value they offer to families across the U.S. In an effort to support the New York and New Jersey victims of Hurricane Sandy, Lowe’s distributed more than 22,000 FREE family meals from Boston Market, serving 136,000 people affected by the storm. This resulted in Boston Market’s single largest order in their history. GCP is proud to offer Boston Market gift cards to those buying in bulk.

Holiday marketing season is in full swing! Consumers are planning their holiday shopping, if they have not started already, and retailers are planning their big holiday marketing and promotional push. If you are looking for some innovative ways to stretch the last piece of your 2012 budget check out these 5 ways to execute a holiday marketing campaign with a limited budget.

As the workforce continues to evolve, so do employee expectations for engagement and corporate responsibility. Today's "activist employee" isn’t just looking for a paycheck—they want to align with companies that reflect their values and take meaningful actions on social and environmental issues. Recent trends suggest that effective employee engagement is increasingly tied to how companies support causes that matter to their employees, creating opportunities for deeper connections between staff and the organization.

The Citi Thank You Program is revolutionizing the use of rewards points. Imagine being able to share points with your friends to save up for a get-away weekend, or save up points with one friend for another friends' birthday present. Many people pool points for gift cards from retailers who partner with Citi to make their gift cards available through the Citi ThankYou program such as CVS/Pharmacy and Charming Shoppes stores. This allows consumers to use points for gift cards for themselves, or to use as gifts, giving the recipient of the gift a chance to choose their own gift. You could even pool points with friends and family to make a group contribution to a good cause. Well, now you can. The new Citi ThankYou Point Sharing App on Facebook allows groups of friends to pool points in order to redeem the value of the points for a bigger reward. This app is the beginning of a revolution in monetizing social media. This app is allowing users to move assets and share funds through Facebook, a social media platform. This app will soon promote itself, benefiting not just the Citi ThankYou Program, but its users and potential users as well. The more people use the Point Sharing App, the more people will post on Facebook about it, making the App and its use go viral across the platform. A rewards program that rewards itself, an incentive social media innovation.
For more information on the Citi ThankYou Points Sharing App check out the pymnts.com article.