Guide to Running a Successful Gift with Purchase (GWP) Campaign

Gift-with-purchase campaigns can be an excellent way to increase sales and customer loyalty. Offering a free promotional product with a purchase can incentivise customers to make a purchase and increase the perceived value of the products you are selling. In this blog post, we will discuss how to run a successful gift-with-purchase campaign using promotional products.

It is a tried-and-tested strategy that has been around for years. But will it be effective for any brand, including yours? Just like with any sales and marketing campaign, it requires good planning and implementation to achieve success. Here are ways to organise a successful GWP campaign for your business.

What is a Gift with Purchase (GWP) Campaign?

Simply put, a GWP campaign incentivises consumers to purchase from you with a promise of a gift. Typically, the freebie is of equal or lesser value to the item to increase the brand’s value.

This strategy is usually employed by beauty brands. It was pioneered by Estée Lauder in the ‘40s to increase the sales of their products in Saks Fifth Avenue (a major department store in the US) by offering a free sky blue powder compact with every purchase. Their inventory sold out in just two days.

These days, GWP campaigns are still being run by many companies with many of them beyond the beauty industry. Most campaigns either offer gifts of a free item, branded merchandise, or a service or experience of some kind. Here are recent examples of GWP campaigns from various industries.

The GWP campaign for both InStyle and Vogue magazines also involved a price increase due to the value of the premium gifts, such as a full makeup kit and designer nail polish, respectively. However, this did not affect the sales of the magazines and instead was viewed as an incentive to buy the magazine.

Benefits of a Successful Gift with Purchase (GWP) Campaign

1. Boosts average order value

If your gift with purchase requires a customer to reach a certain spending target, then this will entice them to buy more items than they typically do to hit the target. A perfect example of this is the following:

2. Improves customer loyalty

According to research by Harris Interactive, 90% of consumers believe a gift with purchase increases brand loyalty.

Gifts and freebies are seen as goodwill gestures that make the customers feel appreciated by the brand. This in turn leaves a good impression on the customers, making them more likely to be loyal to your brand.

3. Retains and improves brand perception

Discounts and markdowns lower the customers’ perception of your brand. Since the prices of the products have been reduced, it makes your brand and product value appear diminished. This is particularly true with luxury brands.

With GWP campaigns, you get to retain the price and value of your brand while also enticing more customers to buy and spend more on your products.

4. Draw in repeat customers

Some businesses use GWP campaigns to introduce a new or slow-moving item to the public. This is prevalent in the health and beauty industry where they give away sample sizes of their regular items so that the customers can try them. If the customers like the sample, then it is more likely that they will come back to buy the full-sized version.

5. Retain and improve profit margins

GWP campaigns are less costly than other promotions, such as discounts and “buy one, get ones” (BOGOs). The latter promotions will drastically reduce the prices of your items which translates to a loss of profit.

Meanwhile, GWP campaigns maintain the original cost of the item while spending a small amount for the gift.

Tips for a successful Gift with Purchase Campaign

1. Set your objectives

Just like with any marketing campaign, companies should know their objectives for their GWP campaign. Here are some questions to help you determine your objectives:

• What are you hoping to achieve with this campaign?
• Is it to improve customer loyalty?
• To set yourself apart from the competition?
• To boost sales?
• Will your budget be enough for the campaign?

Determining the objective will help you find out if a GWP campaign is the right promotion for you. While a GWP campaign is a good sales tool, not every brand should do it. If you find that it’s not the right fit for your brand’s needs, there are plenty of other promotional tools you can explore. Book a free call with us to help you find the best promotional campaign.

2. Get to know your customers

An essential part of creating a successful GWP campaign is finding out who your customers are and what they want. Go back to your customer profiles and learn about them. What is an item that they will need alongside your items or services? For example, if you sell beers or wines, then an engraved beer glass or custom wine bag will be gifts that your customers will find useful.

3. Determine your budget

Setting the budget is one of the most important parts of any campaign as how can you implement it without money? The budget determines a lot about the campaign, such as the qualifying purchase amount, the gift, and the participating items in the promotion.

To determine how much your qualifying purchase amount should be, find out the transaction amount and the number of items ordered in the average order.

If the typical average order per transaction is $75, you should add 10 – 20% as the minimum qualifying purchase amount. The reason for this is that GWP campaigns should encourage customers to buy more than they usually would.

As for determining your gift budget, take the total budget and divide it by the number of units you need. If you have a budget of $10,000 and you need 200 gifts, you need to find an item that’s worth $50 each.

4. Set your campaign time frame

The timeframe of a GWP campaign is crucial to its success. When do you want the GWP campaign to run? How long? These are the questions you should ask yourself.

Busy seasons such as holidays are a good time to run a gift-with-purchase campaign as it can help you set your brand apart from the competition. On the flip side, running a GWP campaign during slower seasons can help entice more people to buy from you.

Whatever season you choose, make sure that the campaign is a limited-time offer to convey
urgency.

5. Design your Branded Merchandise

Once you have selected your branded products, you need to design them effectively. The design should be consistent with your brand, visually appealing, and memorable to ensure that the customer associates the product with your brand. Personalisation is an effective way to create a memorable customer experience. Adding the customer’s name or initials to the product can help increase the perceived value of the gift and encourage customer loyalty.

Running a successful Gift With Purchase campaign is easy with Brandconnect!

In conclusion, gift-with-purchase campaigns using custom products can be an effective way to increase sales and customer loyalty. By selecting the right product, designing and personalising it effectively, and tracking and analysing the results, you can run a successful campaign that benefits both your business and your customers.

Let us handle your promotional gift and branded merchandise needs! As a promotional products supplier with more than 20 years of experience, we have helped countless brands with their corporate gifting and promotional campaigns. To get started, give us a call at 1300 567 565 or email sales@brandconnect.com.au as we would love to help you.