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Digital gift card platforms have not only gained increasing popularity in recent years but have also become the new normal in the world of gifting. The conventional – often manual method – of rewarding, which involved heavy administration, delays, and limited options, is now considered outdated and cumbersome in comparison.
A true all-in-one digital gift card platform offers a convenient and versatile alternative to the traditional gift-giving method while providing businesses with an efficient and streamlined way to motivate and reward their employees, customers, or partners.
But that's not all they can do. The benefits that businesses can reap by integrating a gift card platform like Giftbit into their systems go far beyond what meets the eye. Truly the rise of digital gift card platforms has provided a multitude of benefits for everyone: B2B, B2C, and their consumers.
As we dive into this subject, we'll explore the advantages of digital gift cards for businesses in terms of convenience, cost-efficiency, branding, and customer service.
What are the key reasons to integrate a digital gift card platform into your tech stack?
It's evident that consumer purchasing behavior has undergone a significant transformation, both in B2B and B2C markets. A compelling testament to this change is the surge in digital gift card sales. This shift highlights the evolving landscape of consumer preferences and buying patterns.
Digital gift card sales have seen remarkable growth, with a 200% annual increase over the past five years, according to industry data from the National Retail Federation (NRF). In 2022, sales reached a staggering $15 billion.
As businesses evolve their consumer marketing, they should consider integrating a digital gift card platform into their tech stack for compelling reasons. Below, we outline the key objectives and corresponding benefits of implementing an incentive and rewards platform into a consumer marketing strategy.
By understanding the market and customer expectations, businesses can tailor their offerings to meet evolving demands. Here are the top 7 reasons why market research is important for your business:
1. Drive customer loyalty and boost brand awareness
One of the three pillars of successful rewards is customization. It allows you to delight customers with personalized offers, that build lasting relationships with your brand and increase profitability. Additionally, this aspect can also initiate a valuable referral or advocacy program, adding another revenue stream to your portfolio.
2. Streamline compliance, add security, and reduce fraud
With most gift card platforms, you can rest assured that data remains safe and secure during gift card transactions. And, if you choose a SOC 2 compliant rewards partner like Giftbit, you add an enhanced layer of security and compliance for your recipients, plus safeguard yourself from expenses resulting from reward-claiming fraud. As a result, you foster strong and trusting relationships with your valued customers, mitigate risks, and streamline compliance effortlessly
3. Enhance process efficiencies with API integration and automation
Leveraging gift card APIs, enables businesses of all types to effortlessly send gift cards while streamlining automation, bolstering security, and driving growth. When considering what type of digital gift card platform to integrate with, look for those that offer more ways than one to integrate into your system. For example, Giftbit’s RESTful API offers 3 ways to integrate to cater to your specific needs and streamline functionality for you!
4. Increase engagement and redemption rates, with recipient choice
Believe it or not, incentivizing consumers with desired rewards matters. Consumers often seek choice, and gift cards provide just that. Gift card platforms like Giftbit offer recipients hundreds of brands to choose from, giving them total control over their rewards. And when you give recipients choice engagement rates start to increase in your rewards programs, along with redemption rates.
5. Run programs 24/7, driving immediate gratification
With 24/7 rewarding options, recipients can receive digital gift cards anytime, day or night, ensuring your marketing strategy works around the clock. Additionally, digital gift card solutions offer instant delivery and fulfillment, providing recipients with instant gratification and strengthening their connection with your brand.
6. Seamlessly track actionable metrics and performance results
One of the most strategic advantages of digital gift card software is the ability to manage your program's goals and success seamlessly. By integrating using a gift card API, your visibility into the monitoring of transactions, including gift card redemptions and the brands users choose is. Analyzing essential metrics from your results generates valuable insights, empowering you to take actionable learnings and closely measure campaign ROI.
Adding a digital gift card platform to your tech stack has the added benefit of an Omnichannel approach. This offers recipient choice for redeeming rewards, whether in-store or online, adding convenience and utility. Additionally, it renders physical gift cards obsolete, reducing the risk of lost rewards.
How to maximize the potential of your digital gift card platform
By embracing digital gift card platforms, businesses can enhance the effectiveness of their reward and incentive programs, increase engagement, and create a positive experience for recipients.
So how do merry a digital gift card platform to your consumer marketing objectives, to ensure optimal results and maximize the potential of your investment?
First and foremost, you need to define a strategy and goal!
Your marketing team should be asking what type of rewards are you looking to deliver. Are they for customer loyalty, recognition, or incentive program use cases? Are they to drive brand awareness, or improve engagement or retention? Once you have an idea of your goal, tailor the reward selection to match it.
How? That’s the next step. Know your target audience.
Understanding what type of incentives appeal to your target audience, their preferences, the best ways to deliver them, and when, will ensure that the rewards are delivered at the right time and in the most effective way – and most importantly, to the right audience.
For example, if the objective is to incentivize customer behavior: offering a variety of digital gift cards that can be used at retailers relevant to their interests will help create positive experiences and encourage repeat engagement.
In addition, it’s important to consider how your program can be tailored for different customer segments or seasonal campaigns. For example, if offering discounts on certain products during holiday seasons or special occasions is part of your plan, then you’ll want an incentive platform with flexible reward options so that customers can choose their rewards.
By choosing a digital gift card platform like Giftbit, businesses have access to hundreds of brands to choose from, giving them the power to tailor incentives for each of their customer segments.
Next, define your message, and when and how customers will receive rewards
Having the ability to better understand customer behavior and create an effective way to reward customers for their loyalty is something only a rewards and incentive platform can provide in consumer marketing.
By crafting a personalized and focused message within a loyalty or referral program, you can effortlessly enhance customer engagement and retention. When customers feel genuinely valued and can easily access meaningful rewards, their loyalty and participation are more likely to endure. Therefore, it is crucial to deliver the right message and provide immediate rewards through various channels such as email, text, direct messages on social media, or embedded in surveys. This approach holds immense value for your customers and significantly contributes to the success of your campaigns or programs.
As part of your consumer marketing strategy, consider how you can use digital incentive platforms like Giftbit to provide customers with rewards at scale. Learn why Giftbit could be in ideal fit.
Finally, leveraging API and automation is key
When determining the right digital gift card platform to add to your tech stack and maximize its potential, the most important aspect to review (and demo before investing!), is the platform’s API integrations and partners!
API offers an abundance of benefits for a rewards and incentive program, including personalization and automation of the delivery and redemption process. With Giftbit's gift card API, there are 3 ways to integrate, and the advantages to each drive a seamless customer experience, saving you time and resources, while helping strengthen your connection with customers and increase brand awareness.
And, with API comes performance tracking, like open rates and the types of rewards redeemed, so you can measure success in real time. Remember, the power of digital gifts lies in their ability to both excite current customers and cost-effectively reach potential new ones, so understanding ROI and campaign successes and failures is key to optimizing your consumer marketing.
TIP: Remember, adding a rewards partner that is SOC 2 compliant, provides a higher level of security, mitigates your risk, and builds brand trust with your recipients, who can 100% know you value their data security above all else.
Make an informed decision when selecting the right digital gift card platform.
When adding any technology solution to your business, it's crucial to align your decision with your company's objectives and needs. And, as you know now, digital gift cards offer a simple and cost-effective way to engage customers, reward loyalty, and convey your brand message. By leveraging the power of digital gift card platforms, you can track progress against loyalty goals, measure customer sentiment, and adjust rewards accordingly.
So, when selecting the right rewards and incentive platform to collaborate with, it’s not just important to consider those benefits, but also learn about their business. What are their values? What are the primary customer-focused priorities? What is their business management approach? What’s their team like? As such, discovering reviews from fellow customers is an excellent method to gain insights into these aspects of the business. Additionally, it is imperative to try out the platform before finalizing your decision!
