Branding is an essential element of effective business growth for increasing awareness of your company and its products.
This is usually associated with advertising, web design, product packaging, public relations and other promotional tactics. However, companies can now take advantage of custom prepaid cards and take their branding one step further by tying their logos and designs to a payment product.
Companies creating custom corporate prepaid cards want to:
- Reward or recognize employees with a prestigious and valued gift
- Disburse compensation or expenses quickly and efficiently through a reloadable payment card
- Increase walletshare with branded loyalty programs
- Bolster sales with a highly valued rebate/promotional vehicle
- Have their brand visible at the point of redemption, and gain wallet-share
What is a Custom Prepaid Card?
Custom designed prepaid Visa cards have a wide variety of uses due to their flexibility and ease of use. Companies can choose to use them for one particular purpose or a range of applications to suit their needs, including:
- Replacing cheques and petty cash for business expenses
- Rewarding employees and incentivizing sales teams with SPIFFs loaded directly onto reloadable prepaid cards
- Instant issuance of health benefits or insurance claims
- Distributing rebates more cost-effectively than issuing cheques
- Disbursing class action settlements and customer goodwill payments
- Attracting survey respondents and clinical research participants
How Do Companies Create Their Own Custom Card?
Simply put, it is a prepaid Visa card that includes the colours, designs, or logo of a business.
Cards can be custom designed to suit the individual needs of each business, with the addition of as little or as much of their corporate image to the card as they see fit for their purpose. For example, if the card is going to be used purely for company business, adding the logo adds to the professionalism of the transaction. However, if the cards are used for a wider range of purposes, more detail makes the business more recognizable and heightens awareness of the company.
The custom design doesn't just stop at the card. Nissan uses prepaid cards for rewards, incentives, giveaways, rebates, and more. The company integrates its logo and branding into every aspect of the card and its carrier.
The Possibilities of a Prepaid Card
Creating and designing a custom prepaid card is a simple, well-supported process that begins with the company deciding on the purpose of their card and the number of cards that are needed. Decisions that businesses need to make at this stage include:
- Whether the custom prepaid card will be reloadable or not
- Whether the holder will be able to use it at an ATM
- How regularly the card is likely to be reloaded
- The number of individuals requiring cards or access to the cards
- Who will be responsible for administering funds, managing participants, and loading funds
Once these decisions have been made, it will make choosing the design of the card more straight forward. Cards are generally designed in one of the two ways, either they are co-branded or completely custom.
A co-branded card will have the company's logo on the top left corner of the card. The rest of the card is then of a stock design. A fully customized card contains the company logo and the company's colours and any further branding that fits on the background of the card. In addition to customizing the card itself, the paper carrier that the card is provided on can also be customized (See Nissan carrier above).
A customized paper carrier emphasizes the relationship between the card, the company and the card user. It can also be used to add additional information or promotional messages for the card user. This is exceptionally useful where the card is being sent or presented as a thank you or a reward.
It also ensures that the end user is fully aware of how the card can and cannot be used and any expectations that have been placed on the end user.
