Fall isn’t just the time for pumpkin spice. When the air turns crisp and geese consider flying south, requests for help setting up a gift card program arrive without fail in the Agile support inbox. With Black Friday around the corner and the winter holidays close behind, fall is the perfect time to give your organization a new revenue stream. If you spend a little time getting your gift programs ready to go in early fall, you can spend the rest of the holidays focusing on the last big events of the year, and your patrons can slam-dunk their Nice List early and have more time for hot cocoa with the family.
 

First things first: do you have any gift programs set up already? If you're not sure, sign in to Web Portal at portal.agiletix.com and look for these buttons in the side menu. 

If there is a Gift Card or Gift Certificate tab, click it and see if any programs appear. Otherwise, if you do not have a gift program, you can get started with our Gift Card Setup. Keep in mind that if you'd like to print cards, you need an image file worthy of promoting your organization whenever someone holds it out over a counter. A high resolution of at least 300 dots per inch is essential. Please also note that the turnaround time on gift card stock orders may vary. For the most up-to-date estimate on shipping, please reach out to our Agile support representatives.

If you fulfill your own gift cards, you'll want to keep an eye on the US Postal Service's last day to ship before Christmas. Count on having your merchandise in the mail by early to mid-December.

Want a gift program but feel uneasy about the overhead costs? Instead of gift cards, go with a Gift Certificate program. After setting up a PDF format, your team doesn’t lift a finger Patrons receive the PDF in their inbox, and then they can print or forward it to their recipients.

If you already have a gift program and just want to get the word out, consider setting up an Email Template. Instead of reinventing the wheel each year, edit your templates until they sparkle and include some choice Snippets. That way, when you set up the final email, you only need a few clicks to target your message to your what is new and now at your organization, calling them to act before the snow flurries start to fall.