Today's post is all about one industry: cinemas – where selling gift cards online makes perfect sense, yet far too few do it.
An example:
You have an aunt who gives you a cinema gift card every Christmas. Last year, however, this tradition was broken and you got a different present. The reason is simple: you and your aunt no longer live in the same town, and in the hectic run-up to Christmas she didn't get round to visiting your local cinema to buy one.
So your aunt wanted to order a cinema gift card for you online, but was disappointed to find that your cinema doesn't offer this option. She would have had to email the cinema to order the gift card, then transfer the money and finally wait for the cinema to send the gift card to her home. “The cinema gift card wouldn't have arrived before Christmas,” she apologizes.
Unfortunately, this happens all the time. Cinema gift cards are hugely popular, yet only a few cinemas – mostly chains – sell them online, even though cinemas are practically made for it. So in this post, we show how cinemas can get the most out of gift card sales.
The website is already there – all that's missing is your own gift card shop
Every cinema needs a website – it's where customers check what's on and often book their tickets. So the perfect place to sell cinema gift cards already exists. Customers know the website and will be pleased to find a gift card shop there as well.
With gurado, you can integrate a gift card shop in your own design that fits the cinema's website perfectly.
Looks matter – designing cinema gift cards the right way
Design matters when selling gift cards online – including the gift card layout. Not only does the shop need to look attractive – the gift cards themselves need to look good too. They're gifts, after all, and nobody wants to give a plain piece of paper that says “gift card”. We recently explained how to design your gift cards the right way.
With gurado, customers can choose between PDF gift cards to print right away (Print@Home) or quality printed gift cards sent by our print partner. With PDF gift cards in particular, an appealing design turns a plain A4 page into a unique gift – which is why gurado has a design editor that lets you add images, personal messages, logos and text.
From gift cards to all-inclusive packages: different gift card types
Whatever types of gift cards you offer, the design should reflect what's on offer. Besides classic gift cards, which can also be partly redeemed, gurado supports many other gift card types.
Your cinema surely also sells popcorn and drinks. So how about an all-inclusive package that can be redeemed for a film, a bag of popcorn and a drink of your choice? Special offers like this make great gifts and give your customers additional value.
Another type – actually a ticket type – that's ideal for cinemas is the ten-visit card, which lets the holder see ten films. It's especially attractive with a discount, so ten screenings cost, say, €90 instead of €100.
Facebook discounts & self-activator gift cards: how gift card marketing works
Beyond discounted ten-visit cards, it's worth running other campaigns in your online gift card shop too. We recently wrote about the self-activator gift card: customers get a blank gift card in person and load it with an amount of their choice at home in the online shop. It's a model that works really well for cinemas.
Facebook is also great for selling gift cards. Our cinema customers in particular often have lots of Facebook fans, so selling gift cards via a plugin on the Facebook page reaches many people at once. It works the other way round too: why not give customers a discount on a gift card if they like your Facebook page?
Fast availability of gift cards is essential – automatic gift card delivery
As our aunt's story shows, fast delivery matters. But if every step up to mailing the gift card is done by hand, that's hardly possible. That's why everything runs automatically with gurado: customers get their PDF gift card by email minutes after ordering, thanks to integrated online payments such as PayPal, Sofort bank transfer or credit card.
Gift cards at the POS: how to integrate online gift cards
Many cinemas already sell gift cards at the box office. Ideally, both online and in-person sales run through gurado – but keeping them separate is no problem either. You decide how online sales fit in with what you have today. And if you don't sell gift cards at all yet, gurado can handle that too. You can find out more in the blog post on creating gift cards
However you combine online and in-person sales, you'll probably wonder first how gift cards sold online are redeemed securely at the box office. There are several options – from integrating gurado with your POS system to redeeming in the browser or on the go with the gurado app. The gift card system adapts to your existing hardware.
Different uses: choosing the right gift card plan
Depending on how you want to use the gift card system, different gurado features will matter to you. There are three plans: Starter for selling gift cards, Standard for unlimited gift card types and tickets, and Max with every gift card type plus a loyalty solution. Pick the one that suits you best.
All plans have one thing in common: you pay a fixed price, with no commission or transaction fees – so costs stay predictable for you and for us. Our prices cover the cost of providing the online shop and running the system. We see ourselves as a software provider, giving you a system you can use however you like.
