VIP Gift Cards

For many years, we have had a program in place to send out VIP Gift Cards to customers right after the Half Off Sale in July. The amounts of these gift cards are based on 2% of the gross profit from the sales made to each customer in the past year from May 1 of the previous year through April 30 of the current year. We round each person’s 2% value down to the nearest gift card value. For example, if 2% of a customer’s total profit is $386, you’d give them a gift card for $350.

1. The values of the gift cards are as follows: $50, $75, $100, $150, $200, $250, $300, $350, $400, $450, $500, and whatever random higher ones Maggie/Robin/Leo wants to do.
2. Anyone who qualifies for a $25 to $49, we send a $50 card.
3. Give Robin a list of anyone whose 2% comes out more than $500 and Maggie/Robin/Leo will decide how much to give them.

There is a hat in the Marketing folder named VIP Mailing that contains all the details of how the mailing list is pulled. Marketing will arrange for the envelopes to be hand-addressed. Salespeople and assistants do not spend their time at work addressing envelopes. Marketing will give each salesperson the gift cards from their customer list to sign.

It is mandatory for all salespeople to personally write 2-3 lines inside the card as well as signing it. That way, all the gift cards can be counted as Contacts on the week that they are mailed out. Assistants should not write the notes, notes should be written by the salesperson.

The cards are signed/noted and given to Marketing. Marketing will match up the envlopes with the cards, seal and stamp them. Marketing may enlist the help of Shipping for this task. The cards will be mailed out on the Tuesday following the Half Off Sale. So Marketing must follow up with the salespeople to ensure they are getting their cards signed in time to send out on the Tuesday following the Half Off Sale.

We get a small number of blank cards printed in case a card gets messed up somehow and has to be redone, like when signing and writing in notes to the customers. We don’t use blank write-in cards to change the amount that the customer gets, or to add anyone who didn’t get on the list because they made a purchase after the list was pulled. They will get on the list next year for that purchase, and if we do it this year too, they’ll get rewarded twice. Maggie/the COO is given the blank cards and salespeople will ask her for a blank one as needed. Leftover blank cards are shredded as soon as the completed cards are mailed.

Marketing gives IT the Excel list of all the cards being mailed out. IT runs a program to enter a “Sent GC” log in the customer file on BM that a gift card was mailed out and the amount.