How to Sell Gift Certificates on Your Website

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Selling gift certificates or vouchers are a great way to indirectly find new students. Instead of trying to directly sell your lessons to students, you can promote the vouchers to friends or family of the student. Those people are highly likely to buy the vouchers and once you get that student in for a few lessons, you have a great opportunity to convince them to stay as a student. Let's look at how you can sell vouchers on your website.

The easy way

The quickest and easiest way is to simply mention that lesson vouchers are available and all the person needs to do is contact you and you will organize a voucher.

Any contact methods (eg: phone, email) will work because the idea is that you manually collect payment (online or offline) then manually create and send out a voucher after you have discussed the voucher with the person.

There a many ways you can design your gift certificate. The following websites provide quick and easy to use templates you can customize and print or email to the person after payment:

A quick Google search reveals many more websites like the above if you don't find any suitable designs.

Benefits to this approach:

  • The person can ask you questions before deciding to purchase the voucher
  • If a person is unsure whether to buy it or not, they can contact you to discuss it
  • Quick and easy for you to add to your website
  • It gives you the opportunity to talk to the person and convince them that it's a good idea
  • You can customize the voucher to the person's exact needs (eg: they may want to book in a specific number of lessons or include a special message on the voucher)

Limitations to this approach:

  • You need to manually collect payment and create the voucher
  • Some people might want to instantly receive a voucher (eg: last minute gift shoppers) so this approach may put them off
  • If you're not prompt in your response, it sets a poor first impression

For many guitar teachers this is an easy way to start offering vouchers.

Automatic system

The alternative is to have an inbuilt system in place to collect payment and issue the voucher all on your website without any effort required on your part. This takes more effort to set up, but can provide an excellent first impression with the person buying the voucher.

There are many different plugins or software that can give your website this functionality. Here are a few WordPress plugins you might want to look into and compare:

Update: some of the plugins above state that PayPal no longer allow you to collect payments for gift cards. This guide will be updated shortly when alternatives are available that still allow you to automate the process.

Benefits to this approach:

  • You don't need to manually collect payment or create the vouchers
  • Very convenient for the person buying the voucher
  • Some people may be more likely to buy the voucher if they can do it instantly without having to contact you first
  • Able to offer multiple options with vouchers (eg: choose between 2, 5 or 10 lessons)

Limitations to this approach:

  • This method relies on software so making sure it is working properly and stays up to date is an ongoing responsibility
  • Some people may want to contact you first (simply provide a contact link for people who have questions to overcome this limitation)
  • Some plugins will cost money for the features you want

If you don't have a WordPress based website, your options will be limited so the best option may be to manually collect payment and create the vouchers.

Gift Vouchers Best Practices

Here are a few tips and best practices to sell more gift vouchers:

  • Plan ahead for common gift giving occasions. Christmas and Valentine's Day are great opportunities for selling gift vouchers. Don't leave it to the last minute, plan these events at least a month in advance and promote yourself.
  • Use Facebook Ads to target people. Facebook Ads lets you target spouses with upcoming anniversaries, friends or family members of a person with an upcoming birthday or any other major milestone. It's an incredibly effective way to sell your vouchers because those people will be looking for gift ideas. Check out BMK-24 for more advice.
  • Offer multiple options from a low cost option all the way to a very expensive option. Some people may be willing to buy only one or two lessons as a gift while some people may be willing to book in up to a year's worth of lessons. Give people options to spend what suits them.
  • Give excellent service to the person buying the voucher. Be super prompt in replying to any emails and give the person a great buying experience. First impressions count and you want the person to be excited about buying the voucher. Taking too long to reply to an email or not sounding enthusiastic over the phone can easily lose you a new student.

If you're not already selling vouchers on your website, make it a priority to start selling them. When done properly, they can be an excellent source of new students.