How many of you give away gift certificates as door prizes at Chamber of Commerce functions, networking functions, etc?

Over the past 6+ years we have given away hundreds of gifts certificates to different organizations, charities trying to raise money, etc. We have only gotten back two in 6 years. For a long time our minimum was $75.00 and so I would give away a $75.00 gift certificate anytime I could. Our minimum now is $125.00 and so I am giving away $125.00 gift certificates.

What prompted me to ask was a conversation I had with a very successful hotel owner in our area. He told me that he gives away about 2000 gift certificates a year for a free one night stay in his hotel and tracks how many he gets back. He said that .76% comes back. That is less than 1%. I figure my return rate is about the same even though I have not counted how many I have given away. He views this as great advertising. He gets his name out and it does not cost him a lot.

We look at it the same. We will always donate a lot of gift certificates to silent auctions and people buy them and never use them.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Does anyone else have similar experiences?

I would like to hear some other great marketing ideas you guys have.

Kevin Pearson

We do the samething, we give them to school auctions and other fundraisers. And we get almost all of them back. But I only give a few out a year.

But we did a Home Show one year and at our booth people signed up to win a whole house carpet cleaning. And a lot of people signed up and at the end of the show we drew a card out of the box. I called the person to tell him he won. He said great that he will call me in a couple months when he wants them done. Well, that has been 6 years ago he never called.

That guy hasn't called you yet cause he's waiting for your Butler to get the CRI Gold Seal.