Your holiday plans may look slightly different this year than in past years,

but I am looking to find new ways to celebrate the season with my friends and family. It has never been more important to connect with one another, whether that’s over virtual dinners, happy hours, and gift-giving exchanges or shared virtual cultural experiences like annual holiday concerts, tree-lighting ceremonies, plays, and ballets.

More than 70% of our TNEW members are now offering some kind of virtual offering, from live streamed concerts, recorded holiday favorites, to virtual tours. This season, you can bring your wonderful experiences right into the homes of customers and offer them the ability to give the gift of your organization. Encourage your customers to share their favorite cultural experiences with friends and family by offering gift certificates.

Encourage your customers to share their favorite cultural experiences with friends and family via gift certificates.

TN Express Web (TNEW) can make your planning even easier. You can create multiple TNEW pages with specific focus on the holidays that offer gift certificate products priced exactly towards your experiences, be they virtual or in person. There are several important considerations to make as you plan your holiday offerings:

Plan the gift

How will you sell gift certificates online? Keep in mind the key details about the gift giver and recipient — will you collect a special message along with the recipient’s name and email address? Once you have decided, set up the appropriate payment method(s) in Tessitura and format the pages using the Product Editor.

Determine the pricing

Take the guesswork out of the equation for your customers by pre-pricing your gift certificate offerings to directly align with your products. Are you offering a live stream of The Nutcracker (one of my favorites!) for $20? Perhaps consider a specifically branded page for a $20 gift certificate.

Are you offering a live stream of The Nutcracker for $20? Consider a specifically branded page for a $20 gift certificate.

Deliver

Use email to deliver a receipt for the giver and the certificate to the recipient. Be sure to add content to communicate any policies or how gift certificates will be delivered. I have seen so many great examples of organizations using one of our ecosystem email partners to deliver fantastic gift certificate emails directly to recipients. Take a look at this example from Abbey Theatre:

In the TNEW email confirmation, you can add content specific to using the LTR_TNEW_EMAIL_SETTINGS system table.

Follow Up

If your gift certificate is tied to a date-based experience, be sure to follow up with the recipient to remind them to redeem it online on your payment page when the time is near. Remember that these new constituents are at a critical point of entry into your organization, and with a positive experience may end up returning the gift-giving favor with a donation to your organization.

While plans can always change, virtual experiences and gift certificates can last much longer than freshly baked cookies. But it is always a great time to consider offering gift giving experiences — even outside of the holiday season.

Are you ready to get started? There are only a few simple steps to build your experience on TNEW today.

Top photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash