Corporate gift programs have the power to take both internal and external business operations to the next level. A well executed plan for engaging leads, clients or employees with meaningful swag could lead to huge increases in retention, closed deals and repeat business.
So what does it look like?
What is a corporate gift program?
Simply put, a corporate gift program is a well-thought out strategy to incorporate the sending of meaningful gifts to employees, customers and leads. Each of these use cases will employ slightly different strategies, but the fundamental elements of a corporate gift program are the same no matter what:
- An audience (who the gifts are for)
- A goal (why the gifts are being sent)
- A regular schedule
- Thoughtful gifts
Breaking down these programs into these key components is helpful to reverse engineer a program that will work for you!
How to build a corporate gift program
Putting together a corporate gift program for your business can be achieved in a few simple steps. Let’s break it down:
1. Choose an audience
To build a successful corporate gift program the first thing you’ll need to do is think about what you want to achieve. Pick out who your gifts are for, and decide what your overarching goals are.
Are you looking to gift your employees as a token of appreciation throughout the year? Do you want to break through to leads with charming gifts that can help you close deals? These different groups will call for different gifts and cadences.
2. Pick the right cadence
Depending on who your gifts are for, and what you hope to achieve, choosing the right timing for sending your gifts will be crucial.
For example, when it comes to gifts for employee appreciation, it’s tough to overdue the gifting. People love branded gear and other fun gifts all year round. Multiple gifts per quarter would make sense in order to keep employee morale high.
But for gifting items to leads, adopting the same strategy might be overkill. Sending one high-end gift at a predetermined point in the sales cycle makes more sense in that case.
3. Choose gifts
Now comes the fun part!
Choosing gifts is where knowing your audience, goals, and cadence all comes together. Since we have over 1,000 customizable gifts, it helps to narrow things down by budget, gift type or even minimum amount. Luckily, our search filters can help you with all of that and more, effectively helping you locate the absolute perfect gift for your program.
Likely, you will need more than one gift, especially if the goals of your program extend over the course of a single round of gifting. More on gift inspiration below!
4. Put together a distribution plan and send!
Once you have your gifts, audience, and cadence decided, you need to find a good way to get your gifts to your targets at the right time. There are several ways you can achieve this.
The first way is to order all of the gifts to one address, and give them out yourself. This is a good option for folks who have a physical office, with space to spare, and are likely to come in contact with their gift recipients in person often.
Another option is to use our swag distribution and warehousing platform. Using this platform you can order all your custom gifts at one time, and we will hold them in our warehouse until you want to send them. When you do, simply add the address for your recipient, or recipients, and we will send the gifts wherever you need! This is the option we recommend for folks working with remote teams, or trying to reach an audience spread out across multiple different locations.
Inspiration for great corporate gifts
If you’re looking for a little bit more inspiration on what gifts might work best for different audiences, we’ve got some great links and recommendations below. Check out our different recs based on who you’re sending to:
For employees
For employees, we recommend custom apparel as gifts. Employees love demonstrating company pride with wearable gifts. Things like custom hoodies, shirts, hats and even socks will go a long way to making team members feel valued.
Read more: 25 Amazing Gifts for Employees and Why They Rock
For clients
To retain clients, we recommend gifts that are useful— things like custom tech are appreciated, and remind your existing customers of your continued value to them. Consider items like headphones, wireless chargers, or speakers.
Read more: 13 Business Gifts Your Clients and Employees are Going to Love
For leads
Winning over leads is a delicate process of which gifting is but a single element. Depending on the size of the deal, the right gifting approach can vary wildly. Sometimes a smaller, more subtle option like a custom wineglass is the way to go. Other times it makes sense to go all out with a custom pair of Apple Airpods.
Read more: Sales Gifts Ideas to Engage Leads and Prospects
Are you interested in setting up a corporate gift program for your business? We’re happy to help by chatting about what options make sense for you. Please fill out the form below, and one of our expert swag representatives will be in touch shortly.
