Christmas Gift Card Flier
After getting feedback about the Gift Card Ministry (formerly Scrip), we decided it would be beneficial to highlight this ministry for Christmas. Here’s what it looks like:
Some thoughts on the design:
- I went simple on the design, using the motif of a Christmas tree. The explanatory text continues the image of the tree, making it appear like a larger tree.
- The catch phrase “serve others in Jesus’ Name” is accented in red. This is consistent with the next flier we’ll release in February/March.
- I intentionally focused on gifts people might give, not every card available. It seemed breaking them out by price group was the way to go for listing those options.
- The order form looks very different from the front page, but matches our regular order form. My hope is that when people see the “usual” form, it will be familiar once they get this flier.
- You’ll notice an extra line at the bottom of the order form for gift card wrappers. We’re giving away wrappers with every card valued at $10 or more. We’d lose money on cards that are $5 or less. There are currently only about 5 cards that we sell that are below that threshold.
Look for the finished product in a church mailbox near you this weekend. In case others would like to use our work, grab the originals in Illustrator (Front) and Publisher (Back).
Intersections 
Jason, I think the flier looks great! I like the name change to Gift Card Ministry too so people not familiar with the program will understand what it is just by the title.
October 29, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Can’t wait to start my Christmas shopping – looks great Jason!
October 29, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Looks and sounds great!
November 1, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Totally rocks Jason!! My family LOVES how easy it’s to check out all the Scrip cards & are looking to order more cards for gifts-especially for family out of town-
Great Job Jason-keep up the good work!! You do such an amazing job with the teens-you get them excited about the Word-Too Cool!!
November 2, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Jason–
How did your congregation get started with this ministry? We are looking into it and we aren’t sure we can “front” the money for a big order.
Any words of wisdom?
Tia Pugh, DCE
Zion Lutheran
Fairbanks, AK
November 19, 2009 at 6:55 pm
@Tia: We started small and worked out way to where we are now. The basic steps were:
1. Set up a checking account and seed it with a $5,000 loan from the church to make cash flow a little easier. This allowed us to speed up the purchases by not having to wait 2 days for checks to clear before purchasing the gift cards. If the money was needed by the church, there was a maximum delay of a day or two.
2. After we made about $2,000 in total profit (about 9-10 months in for us), we reinvested that profit into on-hand inventory for grocery stores and fast-selling items to date. This allowed us to increase sales as people could get the most popular cards immediately.
3. As we made more money, we continued to up our inventory levels to allow more people to get their cards immediately. We expanded selection (more vendors on hand) and we upped the number of the most popular cards.
4. As we continued to make money, we started to pay down the original loan to the church.
When we first started the program, we took orders from members for two weeks and then placed an order for cards with the Scrip Company (GLScrip.com). This helped us save on shipping costs early on. We’d make orders every week in November/December for Christmas as got lots of orders then.
Now we place orders almost every week and have started experimenting with new promos and giveaways to get people shopping more frequently.
If you’d like to chat about it, I’d be happy to do that. You can call the church office (716.835.2220) and we can talk.
November 19, 2009 at 9:53 pm