How to Gear Up for Holiday Gift Card Sales

Ah, October. There’s a chill in the air. The leaves are changing into the rustic autumnal colors we anticipate from fall. The only thing on your mind while sipping a pumpkin spiced latte is your upcoming Halloween costume. You’re not even thinking about the huge money making opportunities of November and December holidays. You’re probably thinking we’re rushing the fall season, and that you can’t think about winter just yet. The fact of the matter is, though, that if you fail to plan for those important November and December gift giving holidays, you and your spa are going to lose out on a lot of money.

Making sure that you have a game plan for selling your hottest spa item—the gift card—must be your top priority this October. Planning out November and December will help you grow your business and give you a strong leg up for the next year. Here are a few tips to help you develop your wintertime game plan. 


NOVEMBER

Usually when someone mentions November, images of roast turkey, Pilgrims, and binge eating at family gatherings come to mind. If you’re in business, however, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday should be in your mind, too.

Black Friday Starts It All

Make sure you are ready with a plan to sell products, services, and gift cards across these three days. Black Friday (Friday, November 29, this year) used to be a great day for all businesses, but over the past decade it’s been given to the big box stores. You can have fun with a special promotion, but it’s important to also have realistic expectations. If you don't meet your Black Friday goal, it's important to step up your Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday promotional efforts.

Small Business Saturday Is For Events

Small Business Saturday (Saturday, November 30, this year) is a great day to offer an event promotion in your facility. Focus on getting people into your spa with treatment deals, special gifts with purchase, raffle prizes, and more. American Express’s Small Business Saturday campaign has helped to make this an effective day for small businesses. The brand website even offers tools to help small businesses create content to promote their Small Business Saturday events. 

Cyber Monday Is For Gift Cards

Cyber Monday (Monday, December 2, this year) is the day when you can truly make a strong impact on your bottom line. October is the time to make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row so you can sell gift cards online when the time comes. It’s vital to make sure you come up with a promotion for Cyber Monday and to create all of your marketing materials so that you’re ready to start promoting your Cyber Monday Specials about two weeks prior to Thanksgiving.


DECEMBER

December is your final opportunity to push for a better fiscal year, and it’s also when you can truly improve your las-minute sales. It’s full-on holiday shopping for everyone and anyone, regardless of the holiday is being celebrated. Make sure you’re putting links to your online gift card store in all of your digital activity.  

Social Media 

Facebook is the easiest platform to promote a direct link. You can even boost the promotional post to your Facebook fans in your local community. This is an easy and effective strategy to improve your gift card sales. Be sure to put a link to your online gift card store in your Instagram profile, as well. Then, when you post anything on Instagram, you can direct all of your posts to your “Link In Bio”. This will help your followers to shop with you too.

Email Campaigns

Embedding a link to your online gift card store in your email campaigns will help your online community to keep your spa at the forefront of their minds for all of their gift giving needs. There’s nothing more convenient for your clients that to be able to shop for their loved ones via two simple taps on their smartphone.

Gifts For Everyone

Your clients love you and the services that you provide. To support you and say thanks, they might be interested in giving gift cards to your spa or salon as gifts to their friends and family this holiday season. Remind them that gift cards are the perfect gifts for:

  • Family
  • Friends
  • Teachers
  • Neighbors
  • Babysitters
  • House Keepers
  • Coworkers and colleagues

Your spa can be the featured gift to all of the important people in your clients lives—if you help them shop by making it easy for them. Stay relevant by sending emails and making social media posts. Make shopping easy by embedding links to your online store in those posts and emails. You’ll be on your way to huge revenue this holiday season!
 

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