In the world of corporate gifts there is never a bad time to award a gift. Whether it’s to enforce your brand or improve your reputation, corporate gifts play an important role in sending out the right message and are an important marketing tool.
This is especially true at Christmas. Christmas is of course the main gift giving occasion of the year and in the corporate world that means gifts for staff and customers, but where do you start when it comes to choosing the right Christmas corporate gifts? Should they be used as a marketing tool or simply as a reward? And who should receive a Christmas corporate gift?
This guide will aim to answer all of your questions.
Who To Buy Gifts For?
One of the biggest questions faced by companies every Christmas is who to buy gifts for, and the first in line for Christmas corporate gifts should be regular customers and staff.
Giving Christmas corporate gifts to regular customers is a vital way of showing your gratitude for their business and is an essential way of building and maintaining a strong working relationship. It is an important way of showing a client that their business is valued and can encourage them to stay with a particular company rather than take their business elsewhere.
It is also important from a marketing perspective. Branded corporate gifts can provide you with a chance of getting your logo seen by your customer on a regular basis, providing a strong reminder of your presence. Desk items and calendars are particularly effective at this as it provides your brand with greater visibility, being placed in a prominent position and providing a permanent reminder of your brand.
It isn’t just existing customers who should be receiving these types of gifts. Occasional customers and strong prospects should also be targeted in this way as Christmas gifts provide a strong opportunity to get your brand seen in a unique way. The positive feeling of receiving a gift is the same whether you are at work or at home, so it provides a very effective way of starting a business relationship.
Things are slightly different when shopping for staff as the motives for buying gifts change. Rather than having marketing and promotional motives, Christmas gifts for staff should be to thank and reward them for their efforts during the year. How you go about this is entirely up to you. Christmas corporate gifts could be distributed on an incentive basis so that they are given more as awards to the highest achievers across the departments. They can also be given to people attached to various projects to reward the success of a particular team. And of course they can be given to all employees to celebrate the festive season.
The approach you take will depend on your budget and the size of the company, but there is no doubting the positive effect on morale and motivation that rewarding staff can have. Rewarded staff will always be more motivated to succeed for the company, so efforts should be taken to include the majority of staff in any Christmas corporate gifts. This way it will avoid any potential ill feeling towards people who have been given gifts.
What Christmas Corporate Gifts To Buy?
Again there is a difference between Christmas corporate gifts for staff and Christmas corporate gifts for customers. When there is a marketing and promotional angle to your gifts, practicality is the key. A practical branded gift that will be widely used will provide you with more opportunities for your brand to be seen and noticed. Anything that will sit on a desk or be used frequently at work will fulfil this purpose and when it is displaying your brand it will improve your visibility to the people that matter. Desk items such as calendars, pens and desk toys are all effective in this role.
When shopping for employees there is much more freedom with regards to what is suitable. It can be something that is relevant to the company or to the recipient and as there is no promotional motive there is no necessity for it to be something practical. A gift with a high perceived value that is well presented will make an effective gift to enhance morale and motivation, and by using corporate gifts over a bottle of wine or vouchers will show that thought has gone into the gift. As with all gifts, it is the thought that counts.
When To Start Shopping?
Every year Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier, so when is a good time to start your corporate Christmas shopping? If you are the type of person who leaves their Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve then it might be worth improving your forward planning! There is much more pressure to get it right when buying corporate Christmas gifts so an early start is advisable. Corporate Gifts Companies will start their Christmas season from October so there will be plenty of options open for the early bird. There will also be plenty of offers out there to entice the early shoppers so you might well save money by planning ahead. The busiest time for Christmas corporate gifts is in November so if you know what you want then it makes sense to buy early to make sure stock doesn’t run out. If you leave it until December it will certainly be a test of nerve, but short lead times are available for those who leave it to the last minute.
Despite the economy recovering slowly, times are still hard for many businesses. So can you justify shopping for Christmas corporate gifts this year? With the potential benefits to your working relationship with customers and the improvements to staff morale that can arise as a result of using Christmas corporate gifts, the benefits will certainly justify the expense.
