GiftCard Partners Blog

Canadian small businesses are choosing people over profits, as consumers face the rising prices of everything from food, to gas, and even insurance.  Business owners are saying that they would rather absorb those costs through their businesses, than pass the financial burden on to their employees.  According to the American Express Small Business Monitor small businesses react to uncertain economic times by favoring long term employee and customer loyalty over short term economic gain.  Businesses see their employees as the most important asset to the company, over monetary revenue. Do you think this attitude could or does translate to small business behavior in the United States? Do you feel that the economic climate in Canada is different enough from the United States that small businesses can afford to make a larger investment in their employees? The GCP team found this article particularly intriguing, and are interested in your opinions on this issue, feel free to leave us a comment or tweet us @giftcardpartner.  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!   For more information check out this
Financial Post article

Here’s a corporate health and wellness case study that we think has some great new ideas peppered into it. Xceed Financial Credit Union’s in-house event and promotion team research wellness programs from across industries and designed their own program, which includes:

Who doesn’t love a great historical overview of the payments industry? OK, perhaps it’s not a favorite read, but how about in the form of an infographic? Check out this depiction of transactions from 9,000 BC, continuing throughout the history of personal and business transactions. Cattle, cowries, wampum beads, gold…right up to preset day technology.  We’re surprised that gift cards aren’t displayed here, since they are a gifted form of payment, or
in the case of Scrip – simply a retailer-specific form of payment…but perhaps that’s too detailed for such a graphic. Let us know what you think…is the future, implants? Source:
http://www.flowtown.com/blog/

Flowtown - Social Media Marketing Application

Designed to keep our clients informed of the evolving B2B gift card landscape The fourth quarter of last year included an exciting and prosperous holiday season that exceeded many of our expectations. Also surpassing our expectations was the response from our very own, GiftCard Partners 2011 Gift Card Usage Survey, which includes real life cases from companies using gift cards as employee incentives and an outlook for 2012 B2B gift card sales.

It is no secret that social media use is on the rise.  More people are using it, more businesses are using it, and we take it with us wherever we go on our phones all day, every day. Adult social media use is up from 61% in 2010 to 65% this year, and up from 5% in 2005, according to LinkedIn.  43% of American adults say they visit a social media site at lease once a day. As a marketing tool social media is also growing.  If there is this large of a captive audience in the social media arena, and since the costs are so low, social media seems like a logical choice. 86% of B2B firms say they use social media as a marketing tool, compared to just 82% of B2C firms, according to socialmediab2b.com.  Initially when social media blew onto the marketing scene the popular conclusion was that B2C was the only effective way to use social media communication.  But as businesses increase their social media presence B2B communication through social media is increasing.   How does your business use social media? If it doesn't, what is holding you back?   References:
Adult Use of Social Media Soars
28 Awesome B2B Social Media Statistics