After looking into happiness economics, knowing that experiences make people happy, means that we are in a great position to spread the joy!
As gift voucher specialists we are so excited to introduce What I Really Wanted. This is our new consumer brand to help people give gifts that their friends and loved ones will really want, love and remember.
Our focus is luxury 4 and 5 star hotels and resorts within the UK. Each one offers a brilliant range of experiences that can be given as gifts from afternoon tea to sumptuous spa days and treatments, from Michelin standard dining to 18 holes on some of the best golf courses in the country; all in an array of prices, so there really is a gift for everyone.
We know that the gift voucher market is growing in the UK, worth around £5 billion and after carrying out our own research, we found that 71% of people surveyed would prefer a gift experience or a gift voucher to a material present for Christmas this year. So we wanted to make it easier for people to find the perfect gift experience and open their minds to hotel gift vouchers.
A little bit more about the journey
We started this project at the end of last year (2014) with our vision:
“To create a sophisticated, inspiring consumer site, offering a unique range of luxury hotel and resort gift experiences.”
We then had to decide on a name, branding, website design, what to develop, how to market it, how it would integrate with our current system and lots more decisions along the way. It has been a great personal challenge for me as project head, but was very much aligned with my personal intent (something we each have here at SK Chase) which is to enjoy, that I just knew the outcome would be something good!
Having worked at SK Chase for over 5 years it was very exciting to be working on something brand new, knowing that it would really help our clients reach out to new buyers, helping them to increase both their sales and brand awareness. It was also very challenging (in a good way :-)), as we wanted to make it as easy as possible for our clients, giving them as little work as possible. This involved a lot of system knowledge, so that we could leverage our client’s current gift vouchers and include any sales through What I Really Wanted in their current administrative area (gift manager, catalogue manger and reporting).
While I managed the project, everyone at SK Chase had very valuable input and we gathered so many ideas at our initial brainstorm and throughout the project. We definitely feel we have achieved our vision. And we have lots of ideas and a development wish list as long as my arm.
We have started to gather data through sales and analytics and will use this, along with some other aspects, to help decide which areas to develop going forward. Our aim is to continually evolve, based on the insight we gain when analysing how people are using the site. We want to keep innovating and inspire people into buying gift vouchers as gifts for their loved ones, knowing how happy it can make people.
We are also working on some exciting competitions to raise awareness of our new brand. We were thrilled to have teamed up with Boden to give away a perfect weekend (up to £500) and £200 worth of Boden credit. The competition is now closed – sorry if you missed it! We’ve also run competitions with Woman and Home, You and Your Wedding and other lifestyle magazines and fashion brands soon. Please keep your eyes peeled for these great competitions to be in with your chance of winning. They will be advertised on our What I Really Wanted social media channels.
Christmas is always the busiest time at SK Chase, so we are hoping that the coverage we’ve gained will help people discover the perfect gift – so that more people receive what they really want this year.
A few of my favourite gift vouchers available, which I’m thinking of gifting this year, are:
For my whisky loving Dad,
A special treat for my Mum
A De-Stress Spa Day for my hard working sister
and a lovely overnight stay for my husband…so I can go to!.
I just hope the people I’m buying for haven’t seen this..!
So, if you represent a hotel and are interested in featuring on What I Really Wanted please get in touch with us, or if you want to make someone happy please browse our great selection of gifts here.