GiftCard Partners Blog

People like to jump on bandwagons.  Whether its a sports bandwagon, a clothing trend, or a going along with what their co-workers are doing.  People like to do what other people are doing.  The latest corporate bangwagon happens to be a positive one.  Corporate Social Responsibility.  Every major company, public or private, releases corporate social responsibility reports annually.  Companies want the public to know they are doing things to serve their community; regardless of if that is their internal community, or the greater community in which they "live." The 3 P's are becoming corporate's "triple bottom line." Without caring for the planet, people, and profits, corporations will not survive. Whether it is companies incentivizing employees who stay healthy, by shopping at stores that promote healthy nutritional choices, without sounding insincere or forced.  Corporations are learning how to truly care for their employees, instead of sounding like they care.  You cannot sound forced, or your employees, and your public audience will feel that your efforts are forced, and fake.  Companies want to create loyal employees, and loyal public audiences.  They need to truly care about the planet, their people, AND their profits in order to truly succeed in this unstable economy.

Prepaid and gift cards sales are amplified with new activity as technology paves the way to better than expected growth. Mercator Advisory Group recently reported that all segments of closed-loop prepaid exceeded their previous forecasts for 2010. In-store gift cards were forecasted at 4% growth for 2010, but total load volume hit $84.6 billion, up 10% from $76.9 in 2009. The B2B gift card market realizes much of this growth via gift card categories like digital-content (online games and social networking credit) and prepaid mobile; gift cards received more loads for these digital-content activities. Retailers are also doing a better job of integrating their gift cards with loyalty programs and other consumer promotions, which catches the attention of potential incentive and rewards buyers. “Loads on employee and partner incentive closed-loop cards increased 10% and loads on consumer-incentive cards also grew 10%”, states Digital Transactions in their Mercator report overview:
Buoyed by Gift Cards, Closed-Loop Prepaid Grew Faster Than Expected in 2010 “On the whole, what we’re seeing is even the closed-loop market is showing some resilience in the face of the economy,” Jackson says. Consumers seem to be recognizing the true value of their gift cards, and “many retailers are doing a better job of integrating their gift cards with loyalty programs and other promotions, Jackson says. “They’re realizing that gift cards are not just a plastic version of paper gift certificates,” he says. Source:
Digital Transactions: Buoyed by Gift Cards, Closed-Loop Prepaid Grew Faster Than Expected in 2010
 

Here’s a corporate health and wellness case study that we think has some great new ideas peppered into it. Xceed Financial Credit Union’s in-house event and promotion team research wellness programs from across industries and designed their own program, which includes:

Who doesn’t love a great historical overview of the payments industry? OK, perhaps it’s not a favorite read, but how about in the form of an infographic? Check out this depiction of transactions from 9,000 BC, continuing throughout the history of personal and business transactions. Cattle, cowries, wampum beads, gold…right up to preset day technology.  We’re surprised that gift cards aren’t displayed here, since they are a gifted form of payment, or
in the case of Scrip – simply a retailer-specific form of payment…but perhaps that’s too detailed for such a graphic. Let us know what you think…is the future, implants? Source:
http://www.flowtown.com/blog/

Flowtown - Social Media Marketing Application

It is no secret that social media use is on the rise.  More people are using it, more businesses are using it, and we take it with us wherever we go on our phones all day, every day. Adult social media use is up from 61% in 2010 to 65% this year, and up from 5% in 2005, according to LinkedIn.  43% of American adults say they visit a social media site at lease once a day. As a marketing tool social media is also growing.  If there is this large of a captive audience in the social media arena, and since the costs are so low, social media seems like a logical choice. 86% of B2B firms say they use social media as a marketing tool, compared to just 82% of B2C firms, according to socialmediab2b.com.  Initially when social media blew onto the marketing scene the popular conclusion was that B2C was the only effective way to use social media communication.  But as businesses increase their social media presence B2B communication through social media is increasing.   How does your business use social media? If it doesn't, what is holding you back?   References:
Adult Use of Social Media Soars
28 Awesome B2B Social Media Statistics