Interesting survey from Blackhawk Network reveals that 89% of Canadians received a gift card this past holiday season and preferred it over other gifts. Read the full article here.
A recent survey conducted by Career Builder found that nearly four in ten (38%) of employers plan to cut back on various employee benefits in an effort to curb overall operating expenses (CareerBuilder.com, 2009)1. If you’re a manager who’s been told to cut budgets and try to squeeze every last penny out of your programs, then you are not alone! However, if you started with your employee incentive program, then you may want to take a minute to re-assess the value of these programs and how they can help you through the economic downturn. Now is in fact the time for incentives and the time to take steps to grow and flourish as an organization despite the bleak economic outlook. Doing so, will not only manage your current situation, but set you towards a promising future.
Sometimes it’s all in the way we look at things that determines the final outcome. In a recent interview with Incentive Magazine, Patrick Lencioni (President of The Table Group, a management consulting firm focused on improving teamwork and employee engagement) makes a great point by stating that we have to ask ourselves the fundamental question: “Do we believe things will get better?” (Lencioni, 2009)2. If the answer is no, then we’ve essentially pigeon-holed ourselves into an inevitable conclusion. However, most people would admit that in due time, the economy will rebound and we should take this time to invest in employees; the backbone of every organization.
Now is the time when employee morale can be low and employers are looking for ways to energize and restore confidence. The reasons for low morale are many: whether it’s worries about money, job security, the stress of having to take on more work as a result of company layoffs, or the general media negativity seen and heard all around, the impact of the situation can be overwhelming. As such, it is the role of organizations, and more specifically upper management and HR, to help employees feel secure and reduce their level of fear and anxiety. Employee incentives, coupled with 
positive communication and leadership, are steps in the right direction to re-engage and motivate employees towards a common organizational goal.
Now is the time when a tiny gesture of recognition through an incentive will go a long way in restoring morale. During a time of abundance, when everyone was living in a sea of prosperity, such gestures could go unnoticed. The same is no longer true and many organizations are finding that a small reward and, more importantly the recognition it carries, are doing wonders in making employees feel valued. The impact of such gestures can be amplified further if the reward is personalized through symbols that the recipient identifies with (eg. their name or project name). This can be easily accomplished through customized and personalized gift cards.
Now is the time when talent management must be considered a top priority within an organization. Current conditions in the economy can leave an organization vulnerable towards a talent sweep by the competition. Maintaining your current talent workforce will not only sustain you through the down times, but it will also ensure that your organization is ready to compete during boom times. Some industry experts suggest that this environment can lead to greater innovation and discovery of new efficient procedures (Hebert, 2009)3. An incentive for idea generation can be built into your current program to recognize the top talent in your organization.
Hbc Gift Cards has incentive solutions that can fit in with your existing program. Talk to us today about the many options that are available from standard, to personalized and customized Gift Cards. Visit www.hbc.com/b2b or call us at 1-888-461-2323 to learn more.
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1 CareerBuilder, Nearly 40 Percent of Employers Plan to Trim Benefits and Office Perks This Year, Finds New CareerBuilder.com Survey. Press Release, February 18,2009, Chicago. Retrieved from http://www.careerbuilder.com
2 Lencioni, Patrick. Leaders, Take a Ride on the “Down Economy” Bandwagon, Incentive Magazine; The Recession Survival Guide. February 20, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.managesmarter.com
3 Hebert, Paul. Now Is Your Chance…Thrive!, Incentive Magazine; The Recession Survival Guide. February 19, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.managesmarter.com
The Heart and Stroke Lottery
The Heart and Stroke Lottery has included Hbc Gift Cards in their lottery prize pool as part of their overall Grand Prize and Early Bird Packages so as to enhance the package and to provide the winner(s) with easy means to buy “cool stuff for home”. In addition they have used them as an incentive in their “Enter to Win” contests – this has been an effective tool in getting contestants to forward the contest to friends and also grow their email base.
Company’s Coming-Search for the Ultimate Host Contest
The Hbc Gift Card is currently featured as one of the great prizes up for grabs with the Company’s Coming Get Your Chef On-Search for the Ultimate Host Contest. Company’s Coming was looking for a unique and relevant prize that could be offered as part of the weekly prizes awarded to contest entrants. The Hbc Gift Card allowed them to customize the card to match the look of the contest and personalize it with the winner’s name directly on the card. Winners can use the gift card to purchase items that would make any chefs kitchen complete. For your chance to enter the Company’s Coming-Search for the Ultimate Host Contest visit www.ultimatehost.ca.
Hbc launches ECO Card for Business-to-Business Gift Card
Toronto, ON, May 1, 2008 – Hbc Gift Card, a leader in B2B Gift Card programs, proudly announces the newest offering to their family of cards: the ECO friendly gift card. In response to the growing demand for environmentally friendly products, Hbc Gift Card now offers the completely biodegradable, corn based plastic card with a 100% recycled paper carrier. The ECO friendly gift card is available for standard card orders.
The ECO friendly gift card is just one of the initiatives that Hbc has taken in a continued effort to adopt and develop new “green” programs and policies. Just last year, the Hbc head office was recognized as the first office tower in Canada to achieve the “zero waste” designation. Furthermore, Hbc introduced a line of environmentally friendly, reusable shopping bags at their family of stores for use by consumers.
“Giving back to the environment now can be rewarding and sensible,” says Dawn Abankwah, manager of the program. “We are excited to introduce this ECO friendly gift card as an alternative at the forefront of environmentally responsible gift giving.”
As an introductory offer, purchase ECO friendly gift cards in the month of June, 2008 and receive a $50 gift card in your name. Limited quantities. Just call 1-866-461-2323 or go online to www.hbc.com/b2b for more information.
What was the last corporate gift that you received? Perhaps you attended a golf tournament and received a T-shirt with the host’s name and logo on it. Maybe you were invited to a conference, and received a memo pad advertising the virtues of someone’s brand. Would that message have resonated, or made a greater impact had it been accompanied by an Hbc gift card, with your name and their logo on it?
Each year, marketers invest millions of precious dollars in promotional gifts, direct advertising and other targeted tactics hoping to:
Integrated, Frequency and Experiential marketing initiatives are being deployed more and more in an effort to achieve results.[i] What this means is that businesses are reaching consumers and corporate clients alike by rewarding ongoing desirable purchasing behavior, and delivering regular, consistent messages about their brand through multiple, innovative vehicles. “Communication that consistently reinforces a company’s message at every contact and creates a strong brand identity is the only way to build the relationships that grow a business“.[ii]
It is our theory that the marriage of these tactics is the epitome of 21st century marketing. When a brand achieves favorable awareness within its market and advertises to the right customers in the right way, success is imminent. “Good general advertising can shape a brand’s personality, but only direct marketing can build ongoing, durable relationships with consumers – and that’s where the profit is“.[iii]
The Hbc Gift Card featuring your logo and message is the ideal product to plug into this multi-level, tiered approach (which seems to be replacing traditional ‘above the line’ advertising such as TV, radio and print).[iv] Our product compliments Integrated, Frequency and Experiential marketing initiatives by:
[i] White, Martha C. Demand for Direct, Targeted Tactics
Grows 2006, Motivational Strategies, Volume 10 Issue 3, p32
[ii] Zogby, Lelia Modern Communicator, Share your Craft! Dec
Jan 2000-2001, Communication World 18:1, p29
[iii] Wunderman, Lester New Frontiers in Direct Marketing
Dec 1993, Direct Marketing 56:8, p29
[iv] White, Martha C. Demand for Direct, Targeted Tactics
Grows 2006, Motivational Strategies, Volume 10 Issue 3, p32
According to a study by research firm TowerGroup, gift card sales in 2007 reached $97 billion, a $17 billion increase from 2006. On both the consumer and B2B sides of the business, things just seem to keep moving forward. As the corporate incentives industry continues to explode, gift cards continue to play a major role in that growth.
Fueled by this persistent growth and the maturation of gift cards as a corporate incentive, we’re seeing more and more organizations looking to improve the efficacy of their corporate gift card programs by customizing solutions to meet the needs of their end-user customers.
ÜBER-TREND: CUSTOMIZATION
If there is one true über-trend in B2B Gift Card Incentives, it has to be customization. The last few years have seen the concept of customization move from simply printing a name on a card, to complete customization of the entire incentive experience from end-to-end. This process often includes customizing not only the name but the messaging, the creative and visuals, logos and co-branding, the carrier, related collateral material and many other aspects of the overall experience.
That being said, there is one major drawback to the trend toward customization – more customization adds more complexity.
A recent poll by Incentive and Potentials magazines showed that the number one reason why businesses use gift cards as incentives is ease of use. Given that, it has become imperative to move towards customization without increasing the complexity of managing the program. Added complexity might explain why, in another recent survey by Incentive magazine, only 30% of respondents actually make use of customized or co-branded cards.
Luckily for all of us, there are a number of other trends that are now making full B2B gift card customization a reality.
In keeping with this trend toward full customization of the gift card experience, we are starting to see a major move toward what is known as one-to-one fulfillment. While this trend has many facets, in it’s simplest terms it refers to the practice of shipping B2B Gift Cards directly to end-user customers. B2B customers have been asking for this feature for some time – and with good reason. One-to-one fulfillment allows for the continuation of the customized gift card experience right through to the time of receipt.
Again, referring back to ease-of-use as the number one reason companies use gift cards, one-to-one fulfillment is an obvious extension of the trend towards personalization. Producing a customized gift card, loading it – these things are only half the battle. The job is not complete until the gift card reaches its ultimate destination.
Customized Activation (or Single Card Activation, as it’s known in the industry), is another emerging trend we’re expecting to see more of in the coming months. Essentially, Single Card Activation is the ability to activate a single card, or any block of cards from a larger order.
The main benefit of Single Card Activation is security. A Gift Card that enters the mail system loaded and activated (ready to use) can be a major liability for the purchaser if it falls into the wrong hands. By contrast, an unactivated gift card has no real value and therefore, presents no security risk when shipped, stored or otherwise.
In simple terms, companies can take advantage of cost savings by bulk ordering cards while still maintaining control by activating in small batches, or even one card at a time. What’s more, by combining Single Card Activation with One-to-one Fulfillment, cards can be activated by the end-user, once they have safely reached their destination. The ultimate combination of customization, cost-savings and security.
Perhaps the most powerful of all the new developments we’re seeing in the B2B Gift Card space is the ability to Auto-Reload gift cards. Imagine…ship a gift card to the end-user once, then reload it at any time, with any amount required. This idea combines the ability to truly customize the reward or incentive (exactly the right dollar value at exactly the right moment), with the considerable cost savings of printing and shipping a single card with multiple users.
Consider a group of 1000 sales reps across the country who are rewarded for exceeding performance quotas on a monthly basis. The rewards vary based on the excess of sales ($100 for $10,000 in sales, $500 for $50,000 in sales) and each rep is measured on an individual basis.
Using the typical “one card, one use” model, it’s easy to see we have a potential to produce and ship 12,000 cards per year to this group (1000 reps x 12 months x 1 reward/month).
By using Auto-Reload, we could immediately reduce this number to 1,000 cards per year, each reloaded up to 12 times. The cost savings on card production and shipping could be staggering. What’s more, the re-loadable card provides each rep a constant, tangible reminder of the need to perform consistently. Lastly, the cost of customizing the gift cards is more palatable if less cards are produced. At $1.00 per card, the difference in savings between issuing 1,000 vs. 12,000 units is significant!
THE BOTTOM LINE: ROI
There’s no doubt that the trend toward customization in the B2B Gift Card space has been fueled largely by a search for greater ROI.
Obviously, the investment in customization is paying off for many organizations, since usage continues to grow by leaps and bounds. But improvements in top line performance are only half the ROI equation – the other half lies in the bottom line costs. The movement toward One-to-one Fulfillment, Single Card Activation, and Auto-Reloading is putting true end-to-end customization within reach of most organizations.
We are all witnessing a glimpse into the future of Corporate Gift Card Incentives – and that future is customization.
1. "2008 Incentive Gift Card Roundtable", March 06, 2008; Manage Smarter. Obtained at www.managesmarter.com
2. Incentives for Your Employees or Clients, Newsletter-December 2007. Obtained at www.giftcards.com
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SUMMARY
Canada Talk Now Members participate in a diverse range of online surveys and focus groups to share their opinions and preferences on a wide variety of topics. This information helps shape the decisions our business leaders are making.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The business was looking for a single, versatile reward which could be used to incent national Members, regardless of demographic in several ways:
1. Weekly Sweepstakes – each week every member of Canada Talk Now is entered into a sweepstake.
2. Enrollment Sweepstakes – A reward for registering with Canada Talk Now.
3. Research Participation Reward (Qualitative and Quantitative) – a means to reward Members for their time and participation in online surveys; focus groups and bulletin boards.
HOW Hbc GIFT CARDS HELPED
Canada Talk Now chose to use the Hbc Gift Card both for their Sweepstakes Programs and as a Reward for Members’ participation.
1. Achieved high participation rates ranging from 30-50%.
2. Succeeded in attracting Members from a wide range of socio-demographics to their program.
Hbc designed re-loadable, customized “Canada Talk Now” gift cards, which are distributed to Members.
1. Cards feature the Canada Talk Now logo and remind recipient that they were rewarded by Canada Talk Now for participation and or enrollment.
2. Hbc’s Incentive team designed an easy to use system for Canada Talk Now which allows them to add value to existing cards each time a Member receives a new reward.
3. This allows for quicker turn around times in issuing the reward, since the Member does not have to wait for a new card to be shipped.
4. This solution also saves costs since new custom cards only need to be printed when new members join the program.