Marketing need not necessarily involve cash outflow. Sometimes one can earn money, while reaching out to new customers in the process. Gift coupons, for example, offer you the double advantage of making money while reaching out to new customers. Your existing customers and well wishers can buy these, to gift as vouchers to those who may not have heard of you.

We have two such companies in Bangalore who believe in this. Active Canvas, a one of a kind art school for people of all ages, offers a variety of courses and hosts events. It now offers gift coupons. Many adults have a hard time trying to pick up gifts for children. Well, they can now be innovative and gift them a voucher for a pottery class or for a theater course or for a fun day at a carnival!

Another Bangalore based company, PeopleHealth, operating in the preventive health care space, has also been innovative in terms of reaching out to customers. It offers electronic cards that can be gifted by corporates to their employees as well as gift vouchers that individuals can purchase. In fact they have special offers around special days such as Father’s day gift vouchers, Raksha Bandhan special gift vouchers for brothers and sisters to gift each other and so on. As they put it these vouchers help their customers emotionally connect! ⊕