By Jonathan Price, CEO, Virtual Incentives
This holiday season, look no further than a gift card for your lucky recipients. It’s a race to find out what people are thinking about when it comes to the holiday, discovering what items they are likely to purchase and how to appeal best to the Christmas shopper. Studies are examining everything from reactions to Christmas Creep (getting less creepy) to which toys (drones) will sell out early in the coming months.
But it’s probable that your audience is well past the need for a DreamWorks troll doll or Pokémon Z-Ring Set. A recent study that we conducted with several hundred U.S. respondents explored consumer preferences when it comes to rewards and incentives programs – spanning everything from online cards to points programs and more. What we found out can help advise giving this holiday season, whether it be a chance to create a touchpoint with target audiences for your business or to find something perfect for that hard-to-buy-for teenage nephew.
Our new incentive research showed the most significant amount of respondents preferred a virtual gift card. The study unveiled that approximately one-third of both men (30%) and women (37%) prefer to receive a digital gift card that can be used anywhere, such as Visa® and MasterCard®. And this growing preference for digital cards shows the growing acceptance of the virtual giftcard technology and reliance on various digital delivery, such as mobile. While this type of incentive was the most preferred choice, gift cards for specific brands came in a close second. With audiences that often need multiple interactions to stay engaged, these branded cards can be a good choice for companies to create ongoing communications.
Giving a virtual gift card doesn’t need to feel impersonal or automated. It can actually create an instant connection on many levels through the skillful use of personalization. Depending on the makeup of your audience, you can hone in messaging to resonate and create a thoughtful gift with targeted personalization. In our study, 62% of respondents with higher income and education levels said that their opinion of a company would improve if they received a personalized reward or incentive. Across all demographic groups, 57% said that brand consideration and affinity improved with personalization. In addition, it is important to note that 80% of purchase decisions are still made by women and, especially among women, personalized incentives increase perceptions that a company is ambitious, cool, caring, and informative.
When you are considering the holidays as a time to create a magnetic, memorable moment with your consumer audience, you want to give them their preferred gift. A whopping 82% of our respondents said a brand offering them their preferred incentive would make them want to purchase from that brand in the future. This is important behavior to take advantage of during both the competitive holiday shopping season and beyond. In fact, 50 percent of respondents change their purchase behavior because they received the right rewards. Buying more items, trying new brands, and making a larger purchase – making the holidays even merrier!
Author bio: Jonathan Price is a pioneer in the incentive and reward industry, and has led Virtual Incentives to develop an industry leading incentive platform that enables businesses to reward in a way that is simple, cost-effective, secure, reliable, green and, most importantly, instant. @JPrice_CEO https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanmarcprice
