Business Gift Practices

When is the last time you received a business gift? It wouldn’t be surprising if you answer was–“not recently” or “never”. That actually is the most compelling reason for your business to think about giving gifts–you will stand out from your competition. While there is plenty of studies and data to support business gift giving, but for now let’s just use plain sense.  If you received a cool box in the mail or by parcel delivery aren’t you going to be just a bit intrigued and maybe excited to see what is in the package? If you were honest, everyone reading this question would answer Yes! Who doesn’t like a surprise gift?

So the next question to ask yourself is who should I send out these gifts to. The answer to this is going to vary by business, business industry, business size and your budget. We haven’t yet discussed what you are sending, just that sending out gifts is a great idea! Based on our experience companies that like this idea will typically send gifts to clients, employees, referral partners and vendors. They may start with just one or two of these categories often will expand to all four groups.

When should I send out gifts? That’s easy, there are so many opportunities to send out gifts, you just have to select the ones that make the most sense for your business and budget. Some examples of gift giving opportunities for customers/clients/employees include:

• New client gifts
• New employee gifts
• Client anniversary gifts (1 yr, 5 yr, 10 yr etc)
• Employee anniversaries (90 days, 6 months, 1 year, etc. depending on employee turnover and company culture)
• 5 star review gifts (when you get a 5 star review)
• Big order gift
• Great idea gifts (when an employee comes up with a great idea for your business)
• Referrals
• Holidays/birthdays
• Just because (sometimes these are the most effective because they didn’t do anything identifiable and it shows your appreciation)

What gifts should I send?  There isn’t a simple answer to this question because every business is different. A gift a law firm might give to a client would be very different from a gift a carpet cleaner might give to their client. The gift should be appropriate for the occasion and be meaningful to the receiver. For some businesses a $2-$5 gift for a 5 star review might be appropriate. For other businesses that could be a $25+ gift. There are literally 1,000,000 different items that you can brand with your logo, so there are plenty of options for you–at virtually every price point.

Delivery matters! One last thought, how you deliver the gift matters a lot. A hand written note included in the box is a must in most every instance. And using a cool branded box is a great delivery mechanism as it will peak their interest once the box arrives so we strongly suggest that as well. While delivering your gift is person is a great touch, it isn’t usually very practical unless you were already planning on meeting with gift recipient anyway. For employees, there are pros and cons about giving the gift at work, but also some strong benefits of sending it to their home and having the whole family participate in the gift opening experience.

And as promised, here are some gift giving facts for those who like facts and figures.

-According to research studies about 80% of businesses engage in giving business gifts. Senior level management was responsible for deciding to give gifts over half the time, then sales and other departments the rest.

-What is a business gift? The study found that users and recipients define gifts the same way pver 90% of the time: a branded personal use item given to establish good relationships and high retention rates with clients and employees.

-Why give gifts? The most common response in studies was “to thank customers” But the list below shows that gifts are used in a variety of ways:

To thank customers- 70%

To build goodwill- 65.9%

To develop business- 49.6%

To recognize employee performance/longevity- 49.6%

To generate referrals- 31.3%

To influence purchasing decisions- 21.6%

-Is giving gifts worth it? At least three quarters of the study participants said they believe business gift giving is at least “somewhat effective” in achieving the goals that motivate the initial purchase of the gift.  However, the number shoots up higher when you review the category of buyers who actually measured their business gift giving results. 

So should your business be giving gifts? We think so! Our team at Catch Fire Marketing is ready to help you design and implement your gift giving program.