A favorite local tex mex place has started giving out wooden nickels everytime you purchase a meal. After ten "woodys", you can trade them in for free meal. Kind of a novel idea when you would think the old hole punch or hand stamp would be more cost effective. Just a neat thing I thought I would share with the group. Joe
A more tactile experience than a reward card, and probably a lower cash-in rate due to loss/collecting. Smart tactic.
When I was a kid there were many businesses that issued wooden nickels, or so it seemed. Some were redeemable and some were just advertising. I like the idea the restaurant had.
The drawback with the hole punch is that hole punches can be bought online for less than $50. At today's prices, that's probably only 5 free meals and the punch pays for itself. Now with wooden nickels or tokens, there's an initial cost to get them, whether it's 1 or 1000 which is probably more than the low threshhold of $50 for the punch. In addition, you would need to have the original proof artwork to get a truely exact replica. The drawback though is who wants to carry 10 of these around with them until they decide to go back to that restaurant.
or you can do what my brother did when he worked at DQ and punch the holes while at work and use them yourself
A store by me used to use a punch card type system where when full you could get a dollar off your next purchase. Naturally they had to stop due to so many people just punching the holes them selves. There used to be, and may well still be, places around here for kids where when you played certain games they gave you either tickets or coins. The coins had the name of the place on them and could be used in the machines or traded for silly kid stuff. By the time my son got to old for those places we had a large pile of those coins. Like a dummy I gave them all away.
