Building a Gift Card Program: Card Design Tips
You’ve decided it’s time to take your marketing to the next level and add gift cards to your business — a wise choice. Now, you are ready for the next step, and choosing the right card design is an important part of the process. Here are some do’s and don’ts and common mistakes people make when designing their gift cards.
Standard or Custom Designs?
After you’ve chosen a card supplier, one of the first things they will want to discuss with you is your card design and whether you want to go with a custom design or a standard design. Custom cards are just that — they are unique to your company. They pull together your identity (your logo and artwork) to maintain your branding.
Standard designs, on the other hand, are ready-made designs that your gift card supplier has in stock. Many gift card providers have designs that cater to specific categories of business. Therefore, they do not have to be bland. These standard designs also can be personalized by adding your business name, website and telephone numbers and even a logo (but usually in a single color).
The question is deciding which option is the best for your business? There are a few items you need to take into consideration before you can make that decision. Let’s take a look at some of the pro’s and con’s of each option. Custom cards are the choice of large retailers since they are specifically designed to maintain their branding. They are attractive cards, which can increase impulse buys if promoted well at the point of purchase. Custom cards also give opportunity for uniquely shaped designs, including special die-cuts (cards in unique shapes) and even some advanced features such as cards that will play music or have additional digital info. The downside to some of this is that these cards will cost a bit more and are not as quickly produced.
For standard card designs, you can still get some special printing options such as unique die cuts, clear card stocks, and metallic inks. There will be, however, some constraints on how much the card design can be personalized. The overprint type will have some color limitations. The amount of text you can use may be more limited. And the range of standard designs is also limited. On the other hand, there are many advantages because of this. Your cost will often be lower since the supplier has pre-printed the basic designs. You also will get your cards much faster — days instead of the weeks it takes for custom cards.
Creative Considerations
With standard cards, your job is pretty easy — select your card design from your choices and determine how to personalize it. For the custom card, however, there are more choices. If you have an existing agency that handles your creative work, you will likely work with them to create your design. If not, you will work directly with the supplier. Some suppliers may even have their own in-house creative departments to help you with your design. Either way, you will need to provide the designers some direction. You may need to supply them with some of your existing artwork so that they can base their designs on your current branding. For example, if you run a restaurant, you may want to provide them with the art from your menu. Or, maybe your business has brochures or ads that use your art and would be suitable for this purpose. These materials will help tie in your current marketing to the card.
Here are some tips regarding the artwork you supply for your card design:
1. DON’T use artwork from the Internet. Graphics that are used on the web are not of adequate resolution (graphic clarity for lack of a better term) for print use.
2. DON’T provide graphic images that need to be enlarged from their existing size. This lowers the quality. As you make the image bigger, the resolution gradually decreases.
3. DON’T utilize previously printed images. Art that has been printed commercially has been converted into small “dots” that create the image. When you reprint these previously printed images, you often get a moire pattern that makes for poor quality images.
4. DO find your original computer files of these various materials and use these. These originals will likely be of high quality and will allow the designer to quickly convert the images into a good design.
5. DON’T make the design too complicated. Placing too much info into this small space often reduces the overall visual impact that the card will have. This is a fairly common error people make. Don’t make it cluttered and lose your impact in the process.
6. DO utilize your logo. Carry your branding through to your design. Your logo is recognizable to your customers, and your gift card acts as a small billboard. Take advantage of your logo.
7. DO consider customized merchandising tools to complement your card design. A custom gift card affixed to a custom-designed carrier or card hanger presents a coordinated, attractive package that has a higher perceived value that will increase card sales.
There is nothing like opening that first box of gift cards and seeing your colorful designs ready for selling. Whether you go with a full-custom design or with a standardized card (so that you can start selling in a week), get started soon. Start pulling in those additional revenues and promoting your gift cards as soon as your customers arrive at your door.
