Who doesn’t like to receive a gift. Especially when it’s a mindfully chosen and useful item? Offering customised corporate gifts is common in the business world because this practice is a wonderful way to interact and show appreciation to people who are important to your company: employees, customers, prospecting clients, and partners.
Just like with any other marketing technique, some businesses can totally suck at choosing corporate gift items. Some companies spend their money on items such as poor-quality grocery bags, the same boring mugs, gifts with slightly insulting messages, redundant desk accessories, and flimsy pens and stationery.
However, when chosen correctly, corporate gifts can become the absolutely best way to show your appreciation to business stakeholders and set yourself apart from the crowd. These are the most important benefits of unique corporate gifts branded with your logo and company message.
Building and strengthening relationships
Have you ever noticed that you feel sad and betrayed when a loved one forgets to get you a present for your anniversary?
The psychology of gift-giving shows us that people feel valued when they receive a present. Getting an unexpected surprise or gift results in the endowment effect – you assign that item with more than its intrinsic value and you experience feelings of reciprocity and trust. When offered as corporate gift items, presents can motivate prospects to take a desired action, will increase the lifetime value of clients, and foster a sense of belonging and connection to the team for employees.
Suitable moments to offer business promotional gifts or corporate gifts for employees include: personal milestones, completion of certificates or degree programs, personal achievements, completing industry-specific training, or simply rewarding an employee after going the extra mile to support a business goal.
Creating opportunities for communication
Offering a present such as customised corporate gifts is a great way to start a healthy discussion. Even at networking and industry events, you need a pretext to start a meaningful conversation with clients and partners. And insights from stakeholders and feedback are vital for the success of any organisation. By approaching people with a present, you earn their goodwill and encourage them to speak openly.
When it comes to corporate gifts for employees, a corporate gifting culture creates trust between managers and employees and determine staff to feel loyal towards the organisation.
Expressing gratitude towards loyal customers
Corporate gift items strengthen your relationship with the recipient, and this is important because relationship is one of the key factors that determine people to keep doing business with you. Don’t expect a good relationship with a client if they only hear from you on invoice days, but try to maintain an open communication channel at all times.
Offering gifts, even small ones, transmits to current clients that their business is greatly appreciated, and helps to create a positive association with your company.
Offering to current clients the best corporate gifts helps to strengthen the business relationship between the consumer and the company. A happy client who feels appreciated is more likely to keep doing business with your company, and even recommend you to their friends and family. Cultivating your relationship with existing clients is cost-effective because attracting new customers comes with a considerable associated cost. Selling to a satisfied customer, on the other hand, is a lot easier and requires fewer resources.
Standing out from competitors
Today’s business environment is a highly-competitive one, with a new company popping up every day. This makes it even more important to maintain a competitive edge in your industry. When there is someone out there providing a better product or a better experience, it is only a matter of time until your clients consider switching to a different seller or service provider.
One effective way to set your brand apart from the competition is offering customised corporate gifts. By using this tested and proven marketing method, you show you are a brand that genuinely cares about its customers and is willing to go above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction. Creating a competitive edge will only spread the word, bringing more and more clients to enjoy your product.
Recognising value in your company and boosting organisation morale
Your top employees will never know you appreciate them unless you actually let them know!
Clients and prospects are not the only parties to focus on as many times, the secret to excellent customer service is much closer to home. Even a simple gesture as a letter sent by mail makes employees feel more appreciated, while high-quality and personalised gifts generate a sense of belonging and connection to the team. These positive feelings have an impact on how workers do their jobs and on the level of service they provide to customers.
Recognising employee value creates a positive work culture, where employees look forward to coming to work and delivering value. Oppositely, undervalued employees are less happy and less productive in the workplace.
Strengthening company reputation
Unexpected gifts will boost your reputation among professionals, which in turn will help you attract the best experts in the field and high-value customers. In order to build a strong reputation, you will need to select and source high-quality, unique corporate gifts that can be truly enjoyed and remembered instead of being shoved in a closet and discarded during the next clean-up. Offering customised corporate gifts helps you show your recipients that you pay attention to details and that you put the positive feelings of clients and partners first. All the positive reputation will attract more sales from customer referrals, repeat business, increased motivation and all the good things your business needs to advance.
Reducing advertising costs
Advertising is one of the most expensive promotion techniques because advertising space in popular media costs a good deal of $$$. Branded merchandise, even customised corporate gifts, has a higher ROI and enables you to obtain repeat exposure at a low cost per impression. There are several mechanisms that contribute to a large number of impressions per promotional product:
- Promotional products that are deemed valuable are used for months if not for years, and the recipient sees your corporate message every day;
- When someone does not need a promotional product they pass it to someone else who will come in contact with that particular brand;
- Offering branded products that are used at the office makes your brand visible to more people than the recipient.
Even if most of the marketing is conducted online these days, you should never ignore the importance of gift-giving in the corporate culture. Make sure you have prepared presents for different occasions to show your business connections that you care. In a digital world, there is nothing like a palpable gift that stays with the recipient, helping them with specific needs or offering a pleasant experience. At the same time, this places your brand before their very eyes every time they use the item.
VMA Promo can help you with a wide range of customised corporate gifts – we have more than 1000 products on our website and being a division of Visual Marketing Australia, experienced digital marketing agency, we know how to integrate promotional products with various marketing strategies. Read more here about the main reasons to choose us!
