Graduation season is quickly approaching! Young adults everywhere are reaching some pretty major milestones—heading off to school, taking a gap year, or starting new jobs. And their friends and family are there to celebrate with gifts in hand.

For most gifters, the gift of choice is cash to help grads make the transition to the “real world” a little easier. However, not everyone will want to give their grads cash, instead opting to give them something a bit more tangible and long lasting. We’ve compiled some campaigns to help you take advantage of the season and bring in some extra revenue.

Emails for Gift Givers

Make Shopping Easy

We’re huge advocates of helping your customers make a purchase by giving them product recommendations. A lot of time, gifters opt for cash because they’re lost on what else the grad might enjoy. Creating product recommendations or gift guides for grads will not only make your gifter’s life easier, it can have some major payoff.

Put That Cash In Your Pocket

If all else fails, and you offer gift cards, make sure you’re customers know about your gift card options. While gift cards may seem like a copout, it’s more personalized than cash. Promoting your gift cards is a great strategy for reaching last-minute customers, since a lot of companies can provide an electronic gift card. Dunkin’ Donuts uses some fun wordplay to bring in those gift card purchases.  

Emails for the Graduate

Appeal to the Graduate

As grads prepare for the next phase of their life, they’ll be taking stock of what they have—and what they don’t. Many grads will need to do things like furnish an apartment, update their wardrobe, buy new electronics, etc. Use targeted campaigns to help these new grads spend their graduation cash with you!

Ann Taylor does just that by equating graduating from school as graduating from a sweatpants and t-shirt wardrobe.

One Last Thing…

Don’t Forget the Little Guys

For most of us, graduation season evokes notions of students going through major transitions to college or the “real world.” But there’s a huge opportunity to reach the younger crowd that may be moving between grades and getting ready for summer vacation. Even if you don’t carry products for young adults, think about the opportunities you have to reach customers who may want to give a gift in recognition of another year of hard work to their tiny scholars.

Graduation is a great time to target gift givers and graduates alike. If you need help putting together a marketing strategy for the graduation season, just reach out, our team is happy to help.

Note: this article was first published by Laura Fasolak on May 5, 2016, it was re-written and re-published by Polly Flinch on March 8, 2019.