It’s long been determined that offering a gift equates to reverence and respect, and in recent times an entire industry focussing solely on corporate gifting has emerged as businesses continue to recognize gifting as an integral part of their CX, Sales, and Account-Based Marketing strategies.
While launching effective gifting campaigns may seem straightforward, the process requires much more than the click of a button. The who, why, when, and how need to be addressed before your corporate gifting carts are filled. This article will highlight what you need to know about corporate gifting platforms and how gifting effectively may propel your business towards its ROI goals.
Corporate Gifting: Manual vs. Platform-Based
From sourcing, comparing between suppliers, ordering, receiving, messaging, and wrapping, to shipping corporate gifts, the manual process isn’t only time-consuming, but leaves room for error. When opting to utilize a corporate gifting platform, a lot of the above steps are omitted, making the process faster and more effective. In addition to reduced manual work, enlisting a platform gives businesses access to gifting campaign data (such as the number of gifts accepted/rejected), CRM integrations, more gift options for recipients, and an overall lead generation-centered experience.
Business Communication for Success
Businesses are built on relationships and rely heavily on the maintenance of these relationships to keep profit margins at their highest. A mere two years ago, business meetings were held in well-lit boardrooms with sidecar refreshments, and firm handshakes and eye contact sealed deals and determined longevity. Decision-makers took the liberty to travel far and wide to cement profitable relationships and deliver gift tokens, and ‘business over meals’ were the order of the day. Currently, however, corporations are run in the absence of the human element, and deals are closed virtually. Emails have replaced conversations, and thanks to the large volume of these, most get lost in translation.
There’s a clear shift in communication trends, and these have resulted in consequential changes in how business relationships are built and maintained. The introduction of corporate gifting as a marketing and relationship management tool means businesses can swim away from the email prospecting ‘read me’ queue that sits at an astonishing 124.5 billion daily, and get and retain the attention of their recipients. The result? Increased sales funnel activity and potentially increased ROI.
What Is The Purpose of Corporate Gifting?
Again, when addressing the core purpose of corporate gifting, relationships remain king. The simple act of sending your associates and prospects gifts communicates value. It is a well-known fact that monetary resources go into the sourcing, purchasing, and delivering of said gifts. Depending on your objectives, corporate gifts can be used to:
- Maintain current business relationships
- Restore former business relationships
- Attract new business relationships
- Celebrate milestones, product launches, and new business partnerships
- Appreciate staff, partners, suppliers, and associates for their input
Why is Corporate Gifting Here to Stay?
Just as sales and marketing efforts are continuous, it is advisable for corporate gifting to be recognized as a tool that enhances these efforts. As mentioned previously, the business climate has shifted and is adapting to the current ‘less contact, more communication’ environment. As such, more and more decision-makers find themselves making boardroom decisions in the comfort of their homes, and judging by work-life balance recommendations, this is unlikely to change. Therefore, continuing to launch KPI-backed corporate gifting campaigns will not only nurture your business relationships, but will also help increase brand loyalty, reach, and new business opportunities.
Ways that Gifting is Regulated
Businesses are on a continuous lookout for practices that not only enhance their operations but also help them retain their ethical statutes. While corporate gifting is merely a tool used to improve, create and maintain relationships, it is in the best interest of industries to regulate this by:
- Determining what gift items staff and members can and cannot receive
- Adding a cap to the value of gifts sent/received
- Restricting individuals occupying positions of influence from accepting gifts that may influence financial and deal decisions (bribery as defined by Unites States Crimes And Criminal Procedure)
- Restricting the act altogether, as guided by regional political and religious laws and guidelines
There are numerous other ways in which corporate gifting is regulated, but this should not be discouraging. Instead of omitting corporate gifting from your general sales and marketing strategy due to regulation, use a corporate gifting platform like Giftsenda that will enable you to navigate restrictions by offering tailored options that are region-specific while hitting those prospecting targets.
How to Use Corporate Gifting Platforms
Launching successful corporate gifting campaigns depends largely on your industry, target prospects, and objectives. Before even considering how much you’re willing to invest in your corporate gifting campaigns, the ‘who, why, when, how’ need to be addressed. Use the below multi-step process to help you better forecast this:
i. Input (Internal): The first step is to categorize potential recipients (staff, current clients, cold leads, prospects, or even customers who have logged support tickets), identify and state the reasons behind wanting to send these recipients gifts (reward, appreciate, rekindle, entice, celebrate or even apologize), and align your contacts accordingly. Fortunately, when using a corporate gifting platform to launch your campaigns, there is no need to have your recipients’ addresses on hand as the platform should facilitate address-less gifting. Ask us how!
ii. Process: Now that the recipients have been ‘tiered’ and the objectives defined, it’s time to put your dollar where your target is. Decide on and allocate a budget for each recipient tier, and spread the budget across your fiscal. Allocate amounts for core events, ABM campaigns, holiday-dependant tactical campaigns, commemoration events, and floating holidays.
iii. Output: This is when you launch your campaigns on your corporate gifting platform of choice. On Giftsenda, your recipients are given an option to either receive, reject, swap, or donate their gift items. Additionally, you can monitor the performance of your campaigns. Moreover, the user-friendly dashboard allows you to pull reports in order to reassess your approach and redefine your KPIs.
When adding gifting to your sales and marketing pipelines, the gift item is not the highlight of the experience, but your gesture is. It is in human nature to be moved by gift offers, and similarly, it is the nature of the business to capitalize on the effects gifts have on recipients to forge lucrative relationships. By using a corporate gifting platform you can save time by automating various aspects of gifting and enjoy the benefits of a gift-first approach.
