Time: 60 minutes
Effectiveness: Long-term
Return: High
To generate cash flow now, start selling gift certificates and cards now, even at a discount*. When it’s safe to go out again, people will feel liberated and want to celebrate with activities they’ve missed – like eating out at their favourite restaurant. With gift certificates in hand, they will gladly flock back.
Many digital point-of-sale platforms already have this capability, like Square and TouchBistro, so check and see how to set it up on your system.
If you don’t use that, you can work gift certificates using these tactics:
- Go digital at GiftCards.ca
- Use delivery and pickup drivers to deliver physical cards and certificates inside order bags
- Get an offer on Groupon.ca (but don’t forget about leveraging each order)
- Go old-school and print your own gift certificates
- If you have physical gift cards, use Kijiji, Ebay and Amazon to sell and distribute them online
- Use your own website’s ordering system to create trackable gift certificates as products
* A 10-year study by First Data revealed that 72% of gift card recipients spent more than the face value of the gift card.
