Last updated on November 23rd, 2021
Businesses are exploring gift certificates as an effective marketing tactic to drive people’s attention. Most companies offer gift cards on festive occasions so that customers can buy products in exchange. But these cards need to be unique and impressive to make an impact of your brand on a target audience. In this article, we’ve shared what is a gift certificate and how to create it using a gift certificate template.
When a festive season is around, gift certificates are one of the common gifts that we see companies offering to customers frequently. Even individuals buy these cards for their friends or family members as a gift on birthdays or other occasions.
People can buy products from specific stores at a big discount using them from companies. So, a gift certificate is a way to entice customers to visit a store and making them loyal to brands. We can say that these certificates work like a proxy credit card to avail of some gift or discount for a limited period.
Since it is not possible to know everyone’s specific gift requirements, companies prefer giving gift certificates. The receiver then buys a product of choice and gets discounts on it by showing up the certificate to the store.
What Is The Difference Between Gift Certificates and Gift Cards?
There is a slight difference between these two. A gift certificate is traditionally printed on paper or a slightly thicker cardstock which is susceptible to significant wear and tear. Whereas, gift cards are printed on a plastic surface which is significantly more durable.
While some gift certificates are meant for one-time use, others can be explored for multiple times. So, you can buy these certificates and offer them as gifts on someone’s birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Boxing Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Cyber Monday, etc. and other occasions.
The sales of gift certificates or cards are increasing tremendously everywhere. This is because the certificates allow the receivers to buy their choice of products for free within the set limited amount of money.
According to some surveys, in the U.S, gift card sales have skyrocketed to $160 billion in 2018 from $91 billion in 2010. As a direct consequence of it, plenty of gift certificate templates have mushroomed online to create these gifts.
What Is A Gift Certificate Template?
A gift certificate template is your quick way of creating as many certificates as you want quickly without starting from scratch. Such templates are also a hassle-free way to do the design without wasting your time much. Moreover, you do not need to be a professional graphic designer to create a gift certificate.
Just use the drop and drag feature of the software to create your certificates. For example, if you want to create Christmas card using Christmas card template.
We can can say that these templates are the program created using program template, especially to create multiple certificates using the set features.
Because you can produce multiple copies of gift certificates, the templates are considered best for rewarding a company’s employees, clients, members, or friends and family.
Why Are Gift Certificate Templates Significant?
An overwhelming number of consumers in the U.S are either purchasing or receiving gift certificates every year. Most of these certificates are commercial as businesses are exploring their power to win the loyalty of the customers.
Here Are Some Of The Major Reasons Why Gift Certificate Templates Matter
i. Cost-Effective Advertising
A Gift certificate template is surely amongst the most used way to reach out to masses at a minimum cost. All you need to do is to pick a template and create the certificate and just bring out multiple copies. Most templates are accessible free of cost online, or you can create templates specifically for your use based on some themes.
ii. Create The Certificates Quickly
You do not have to be a master designer who is trained in the craft of creating unique gift cards. Instead, these templates allow anyone without professional skills to create unique cards for gifts in a few steps. You can customize the templates using a certificate maker as much as you can.
Since you use the drag and drop features, the only task left to you is to choose colors, fonts, images, etc. out of hundreds of them on the template and drop them to the design frame of the template. That is all you are supposed to do to come up with the innovative certificates.
iii. Customize To Fit Your Brand
As there is no limit today to the number of free certificate templates accessible online, it helps your brand to get recognized. You can customize these templates in the way it suits your brand. Most templates have a vast library of colors, fonts, icons, images, and graphics.
These help a lot in personalizing your certificates to make an emotional connection with your customers or family people. You can then send the customized cards for print.
How To Create A Gift Certificate Template?
After recognizing the importance of the gift certificate template, you are probably thinking about how to create a gift certificate for your business. Your new business can come out with unique gift cards for customers if the templates are specific to your requirements.
Remember that people keep gift certificates with them for a longer time until the last day to buy the product in the exchange. Until that time, the certificate with your brand colors and other elements with a slogan is with them. This helps increase your brand visibility.
So, Here Are The Crucial Tips To Follow When Creating Your Own Gift Certificate Template
01. Know Your Audience
First, you must have a clear picture of who the customer is to target through your gift certificates. Which educational, cultural, financial, and demographic backgrounds your customers come from? Do not forget that the certificate is your brand promotional tool as well.
02. Research Your Competition
Your rival businesses are also doing their best to promote their brands through gift certificates. They are targeting almost the same set of customers. Therefore, ensure that you have researched the competitors’ gift cards. Then, create something that stands out and entices your customers.
03. Have Some Inspirational Ideas
Before you set out to create a gift certificate template, have some unique inspirational design and layout ideas. It would help if you visited dozens of such design templates online to stimulate your brain for some creativity.
04. Decide On Your Theme
If you are creating the template for a particular day or festive occasion, then pick the right theme. You should then include the elements of colors etc. that reflect the spirit of the occasion.
05. Incorporate A Slogan
How about including a slogan or mission statement of your brand or company in the certificate? The slogan or quote will let people have an indication of what your brand does and how it is useful to the customer.
06. Include The Right Colors
Colors can evoke our emotions. Use this power to your advantage by picking the colors that can connect your target audience emotionally with your brand. But avoid too many colors to keep the design simple.
07. Use Custom Typography
Fonts are the elements that put a personality to any design. Your gift certificates also have some amount of text. So, use the fonts that speak directly about your business.
For example, if the gift card is for kids, then use comic fonts. If you run a brand with a formal air to it, then use fonts that show this personality of your business.
08. Choose The Right Images And Icons
Include some images in your gift certificate so that the receivers can immediately recognize your brand. There may be some images or icons specific to your business, industry, and your brand, particularly. So, do not forget to include such visuals in the certificates.
09. Make It Stand Out
Your gift certificate can also be turned into a statement of the value and quality of your brand endorses. So, create a card that is unique and never seen before. It must make the intended impression on the viewers.
10. Keep The Layout Simple
Make sure that the template helps in creating a simple gift certificate. So, the layout of the template should be neat and clean. Leave a lot of white space between the two elements in the layout as a rule of thumb to create simple but innovative gift cards.
So, these are the few crucial basics you need to pay heed to for creating your gift certificate template.
However, when creating the templates for the first time, you still need some design work to do. It may be a tedious task for you and many other people who want to create the templates on their own.
However, a better alternative is to create fresh templates is to use pre-design templates, which are your gift certificate maker, and then customize them as per your needs.
Versatile Gift Certificate Templates From Designhill
If you are looking for ready-made templates that are unique and versatile, then Designhill’s gift certificate templates are your best bet. These templates come from the leading creative marketplace. Hence, you can expect a lot of scope for creativity in the templates to create innovative gift cards.
All you are supposed to do is to visit a huge library of colors, fonts, images, icons, and other elements with the Designhill gift certificate template. Many such unique templates are accessible to businesses and individuals from the marketplace. Such a vast availability of design elements lets you customize your template to the smallest details.
To create unique gift certificates, drag the colors, fonts, icons, etc. of your choice from the library and drop them in the template’s design frame. You can also upload your image etc elements from your computer to the library to drag it to the frame. When you need to create tags that must accompany your gift certificates, then use tag template as well to create the tags.
Wrapping Up
A gift certificate template allows businesses and individuals to create gift certificates for brand promotion or family purposes. With these templates, churning out many unique pieces of the gift card ideas is easy. It helps save time and money as anyone can effortlessly use colors, fonts, icons, etc. from the library of these templates. So, you can customize the certificates to suit your brand personality and the occasion. But know our audience inside out and use your brand colors, fonts, images, etc. Keep the template layout simple.