No matter if you gave your mom a gift in person this past Sunday, sent her flowers, or just called to let her know you were thinking of her, the most important thing was that you sent her a personal message. 1-800-Flowers teamed up with celebrities and professional athletes this Mother’s Day to send personalized messages to both their moms, and potential 1-800-Flowers customers.

The celebrity Facebook posts about sending mom flowers on Mother’s Day served as ads on sponsored pages encouraging consumers to do as the celebrities did, and use 1-800-Flowers’s services, but they are also using social media in a dynamic way. Using Facebook as an advertising forum, while still staying true to the traditional form of personalized social media messages is a new trend. Chris McCann, President of 1-800-Flowers noted“Getting customers to tell stories is better than us telling the story,” and went on to comment about how Facebook is used to facilitate relationships. Those relationships can be between a retailer and a consumer, or between a mother and child.

How did you celebrate your mom this Sunday? Did you use social media to let your network know just how much Mom means to you? Leave us a comment and let us know!

For more information on unique usage of social media for mother’s day campaign check out this New York Times Media Decoder blog post.

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

GCP has a standing presence in the corporate gift card buyer, loyalty rewards, Scrip, and retailer/merchant communities, and now we are expanding into a little less corporate attitude with our Facebook page. Our new GiftCard Partners Facebook page offers non-corporate entities similar BULK gift card discounts that corporations have known about, and saved with, for years. Check out our Facebook post: The perfect gift for Teachers, PTAs, and PTOs … and it’s no apple! Teachers, PTAs, and PTOs will love this for Teacher Appreciation Week and End of Year THANK-YOU’s.

Check GCP’s Facebook page for ideas you can use to reward with gift cards, in bulk.

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

When employees are distracted, stressed, or discontent in their personal lives they often bring that negative energy into the work place. Combine outside stress with the general workplace grind and you are bound to have some unhappy employees. They feel disengaged at work, not supported by their organization’s management and begin to resent their position, their professional environment, and ultimately try to change their professional situation.

The Corporate Leadership Council shows some staggering statistics about recent employee (lack of)  organizational engagement. 60 percent of organizations report that they are experiencing a leadership crisis, which is an increase of 40 percent from just a year earlier. Weak leadership often also leads to a restless, dissatisfied workforce. Worse yet, the number of employees that are “highly disengaged” has doubled since early 2008.

So how do you combat this negative energy in the workplace? Focus your organization’s employee investment dollars on the time employees spend outside of the office. Reward employees’ desired behavior with spot rewards such as a gift card to a restaurant employees can enjoy with their family, or create a points system so employees can save their rewards points and redeem for bigger incentives, such as an extra vacation day. According to research done by the Corporate Executive Board employees who feel they have a better work-life balance tend to work 21% harder than those that don’t. So instead of investing in employees work time, invest in employees non-work time, so that when employees are at work they are mentally present, physically present, and just as invested in their job, as their employer is in them.

For more information on creating a positive workplace environment check out this Care2 article.

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

Chances are, you have European employees, customers, business partners, resellers, or affiliates in Europe. Rewarding those constituents for a job well done or recognizing that they’ve gone above and beyond is important to keep them engaged in their work, loyal in their business dealings, motivated in their camaraderie, and incented to succeed.

Maxchoice is GCP’s newest corporate incentive and loyalty program offering. With these premium international vouchers, also known as super-certificates, you can engage, motivate and reward your corporate incentive program participants – abroad and in the states.

These premium international vouchers are redeemable at more than 550 top retailers, leisure and service providers throughout Europe. Participating retailers and merchants include IKEA, Marriot, Debenhams, Amazon, and hundreds more.

Check our our recent press release announcing maxchoice. Check out our temporary maxchoice microsite for ordering information.

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

As one of our newest clients, Burlington Coat Factory is showing their strength in numbers! Burlington Coat Factory just announced the upcoming opening of their new Manhattan flagship store, and the opening of more than 20 new stores in 2012.

Although Burlington Coat Factory gift cards are purchased for some corporate rewards programs, customer loyalty programs are amongst our biggest bulk buying customers for Burlington Coat factory gift cards and more stores means more options for those program participants. And, the options inside the store are a-plenty as well…offering ladies’ dresses, suits, sportswear, juniors, accessories, menswear, family footwear and children’s clothing, as well as baby furniture and accessories, home decor and gifts. Burlington Coat Factory

Flexibility is key for shoppers, and shopping for so many kinds of items under 1 roof, at discount prices is what shoppers want.

Check out more about the Burlington Coat Factory corporate gift card program.

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

Health and wellness programs help employees engage in healthy behavior which drives down health care costs for the employer. These programs also engage employees with their co-workers and with the organization itself. Health and wellness programs convey support for employees from their employer which helps retention rates, employee productivity, and employee emotional well-being. ComPsych 2012, a newly release wellness trend study  showed the following statistics about employee well-being which further emphasizes the importance of health and wellness programs at work.

•  40% say a physical health or emotional problem has interfered with normal activities with family, friends, neighbors or groups.
• 36% say they are tense or anxious much of the time.
• 32% report being unable to stop thinking about their problems.

Dedicated employers will maintain dedicated employees. It is important to engage employees in these types of programs, and reward desired behavior to maintain interest in the programs. Providing spot rewards for achievement of goals, such as a small denomination CVS Select® Card, a selectively filtered gift card which debits only on healthy items, is a great way to keep employees engaged and avoid emotional or physical health issues that can interfere with work. Investing in your employees will ensure that they continuously invest their time and energy in their job and the organization.

For more information on employee emotional well-being and health and wellness programs and rewards check out this blog post from Huffington Post.

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

We’ve been writing a lot about how gamification is taking employee motivation and engagement programs by storm, but does the same People + Participation = Productivity[1] theory apply to customer loyalty and incentive programs? Destination CRM.com says YES: “The things that make games so compelling can equally make employees, partners, [and] customers addicted to your B2B or B2C offering.”

And we at GCP are compelled to say YES as well with case studies like this:

Samsung saw impressive boosts in their customer loyalty program via their social loyalty program, Samsung Nation. With the Badgeville gaming platform, they grew their user generated content and website traffic, but more importantly; they achieved financial results as well! “Samsung, in return, saw 66 % more users submitting 447 % more product answers on its global Web site. Even more impressive, the user-generated content prompted 34 % of users to put 224 % more items in shopping carts”, states CRM.com’s article Game On.

The reward is an important aspect of any motivation and incentive program, and since these games can be played online and anywhere in the world, the rewards should also offer international value. Gift cards are a common customer loyalty reward, but onthe international front; GCP offers maxchoice international vouchers. They act like gift cards, but with even more flexibility for international customers. Check out more information on maxchoice premium international vouchers.

For more in-depth information and case studies, check out Game On: Gamification Strategies Motivate Customer and Employee Behaviors

[1] Engagement Strategies Magazine Game Theory: People + Participation = Productivity

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

Measuring employee engagement is crucial to ensuring that your organizations’ time and money are well invested in these kinds of programs. Establishing a successful employee engagement and rewards program can be measured in just a few short steps.

2. Immersion: The frequency and quality of direct connections by leaders and managers. These connections provide a sense of support between leaders and managers and the workforce. This immersion provides a level of comfort that can stem from a variety of situations including access to senior management, professional development opportunities, career building workshops, among others.

4. Interest: The awareness, interest and knowledge in the workforce about their workplace. Engaging employees in their work leads to a more fulfilled workforce, and higher retention rates. Providing spot rewards, such as The Cheesecake Factory gift card, for desired behavior such as dedication and organizational loyalty, helps to create initial interest and boost participation in employee engagement programs.

5. Improvement: The act and actions that contribute to getting better—individually and collectively. The drive to improve is the ultimate goal of employee engagement. Constantly measuring the success of the program will ensure efficiency in reaching this goal.

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

GCP’s April eNews is here! What you will find:

• Trend Watch: A Case Study in Out-of-the-Box Thinking & Motivation
• eNews Interactive: How Do Your Management Skills Rank?
• Important Employee Recognition days
• Top Incentive Trends for 2012 from IRF
• The Perfect Workplace Social Incentive
• B2B Crossword Puzzle

And more…click to get the latest incentive and gift card news.

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

Social gaming is an emerging trend in social media, gaming, and employee engagement. Games like Farmville have engaged millions through Facebook, and that type of addictive social game experience is now being applied to health and wellness programs. Keas is a social gaming application being used to promote office exercise, team camaraderie, and lower health care costs. The application eliminates lazy, sedentary lifestyles, helping employees lose weight and minimize chronic illness, while providing a fun interactive game experience. Employees can track progress and monitor their health improvement, while also interacting with and getting to know their coworkers.

The interface, pictured above, looks very similar to popular social media sights such as Twitter and Facebook, which provides a level of comfort and familiarity to the user. To make this type of gaming even more effective, add rewards upon accomplishment of goals. Spot rewards such as gift cards can be great for these types of programs because the gift card like AutoZone, CVS, The Limited, and Charming Shoppes can be used to help the employee maintain a healthy lifestyle. Leveraging the popularity of social media can help lower your company’s healthcare costs while helping employees live a healthy lifestyle.

For more information on Social Gaming for Health and Wellness check out this Mashable article.

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.