Whitepaper: The Power Of Automated Gifting

Introduction

Corporate gifting continues to gain prominence as a preferred marketing, sales and retention tool across the globe – to such an extent that an entire industry focussing solely on corporate gifting has emerged. Having turned in about $242 billion in 2021, the corporate gifting industry is expected to grow at an accelerated 8.1% CAGR through 2024. 

It is clear that there has been a shift in communication trends over the past 2 years, and these have resulted in consequential changes in how business relationships are built and maintained on- and offline. The introduction of corporate gifting as a relationship management tool means businesses can increase their chances of attaining and retaining the attention of their recipients. What’s more, gifting platforms such as Giftsenda, provide businesses with automated gifting tools to solve issues with address collection and gift options on an international level. The result? Increased sales funnel activity and improved ROI. 

In this whitepaper, we discuss some challenges that are often encountered when launching international corporate gifting campaigns without the right tools and take you through some core automated gifting features that make Giftsenda the ideal platform for all your corporate gifting needs.

>>The Purpose of Corporate Gifting 
>>Problems Businesses Face with International Gifting 
>>What is Automated Gifting? 
>>Shareable Gift Link Invites 
>>Email Gift Invites 
>>Gift Donation and Swap Options 
>>Conclusion

The Purpose of Corporate Gifting

When addressing the core purpose of corporate gifting, relationships remain king. The simple act of sending gifts communicates value – it is a well-known fact that monetary resources go into the sourcing, purchasing, and delivering of said gifts. Happier employees that feel a strong connection with their employer are more motivated to do their best at work. Happy customers, similarly, become loyal and more trusting to continue your business relationship.

Depending on your objectives, corporate gifts can be used to:

  • Maintain current business relationships
  • Restore and reignite former business relationships
  • Onboard new staff/clients
  • Attract new business relationships
  • Celebrate milestones, product launches, and new business partnerships
  • Appreciate staff, partners, suppliers, and associates for their input

 

Problems Businesses Face With International Gifting

Businesses, regardless of their scale of function, are sometimes deterred from using corporate gifts as a tool due to cost, logistical, and legal/moral issues. But Giftsenda can help overcome these issues with ease and enable you to send corporate gifts internationally.

Costs:

Every functional business’ primary objective is to eliminate as many overhead costs as possible and increase sales without adding more expenses to the budget, and if corporate gifting hasn’t really been adopted as a conventional sales, marketing or retention tool, businesses often misinterpret absorbing the practice to increased expenses, without analyzing a well-timed and objectively aligned corporate gifting campaign’s ROI benefits.

The Giftsenda platform enables you to track all your gifting activity, providing in depth data to determine the ROI. The automated gifting features also allow you to send gifts more strategically, enabling you to save on costs.

 

Logistics:

The business of the day is central to every business’s functions, and adding extra, non-operational layers is sometimes deemed as wasteful. If a business decides to take gifting into their own hands without the help of a gifting platform, it might take up too many resources, time and money, making it a costly activity. Sourcing, packaging and delivering gifts can be a difficult task, especially if you are looking to do this internationally and to many recipients.

The Giftsenda team does all the work for you, all you need to do is choose the gifts you want to send, provide the details (which can be an email address or delivery address), add a message if you would like to add a special personal touch, and pay. All gifts are sourced locally to ensure that they are culture-appropriate and that delivery times can be fast.

Legislation/ Moral Issues:

Though the acts of offering corporate gifts to associates, prospects, and partners are deemed innocent gestures that seek to delight and surprise recipients and strengthen relationships, some practices are prohibited in different regions and that’s sometimes due to their being a thin line between gifting and bribery in some business situations. So, to avoid this red tape altogether, some businesses completely disregard corporate gifting.

When using a corporate gifting platform, you can rest assured that the legality of gifts is kept in mind – as gifts are locally sourced to ensure best practices. We also provide recipients with the option of swapping the gifts or donating gifts to a charity to help solve this problem.

What Is Automated Gifting?

As with continuously emerging e-commerce platforms that facilitate buying and selling without the need for manual work, corporate gifting platforms enable senders to seamlessly launch, track and report on corporate gifting campaigns worldwide. 

One of the problems with international gift deliveries is the fact that addresses are not always accurate or at hand – we have therefore developed automated gifting tools that enable you to collect your recipients delivery details directly from them via shareable gift links or pre-built email templates. What’s more, for a completely personalized gifting experience, you can also let recipients choose their own gifts.

Often, corporate gifting-related problems don’t originate with the intention of a program but with the delivery methods and the gift options sent to a prospect, client, or employee. Many companies give up on programs too easily, finding it difficult to gain traction and cumbersome to deliver. Gifting platforms eliminate this problem.

Shareable Gift Invite Links

If you would like to send gifts to many people in various countries with minimal effort and details at hand, our shareable gift link invites are perfect for you.

Using shareable gift links, you can send gift offers that allow your recipients to accept a specific gift, or choose their own gifts from a selection of gifts based on your budget or pre-curated gift collection. You can share the link with recipients on the platform with which you prefer to communicate. They just have to click on the link to redeem the gift and provide their delivery details. For extra security, you will only be charged after the gift has been accepted by the recipient and approved by you. All you have to do is:

  1. Select a gift item/collection from our catalog
  2. Create the shareable gift link
  3. Copy and paste the link to a platform of your choice and send it along with your message.
  4. The recipient will then be able to access the link to redeem the gift from the selection, provide their delivery details and choose a date for delivery.
  5. You will be notified of the gift redemption and be prompted to accept it – this is to prevent unauthorized gift claims.
  6. You will then be charged for the gift and the package will be prepared to be delivered.
  7. All the gift link activity can be tracked on your Giftsenda dashboard or integrated CRM.

Email Gift Invites

If you would like to send gifts to many people in various countries in a branded format without having to provide delivery details, our email gift invites are perfect for you – all you need is a name and email address.

Our platform enables you to build beautifully branded emails that contain a button leading them to a landing page on which they can redeem their gift and provide the delivery details. Recipients can redeem a specific gift that you have selected, or choose from a range of gifts curated according to your budget or a pre-curated gift collection. By using email gift invites you can send your recipients a gift in an innovative way and break through the noise. All you have to do is:

  1. Select a gift item/collection from our catalog
  2. Choose the email gift invite method
  3. Create your email by adding a message and logo.
  4. Provide the email addresses and names of the contacts that you wish to send the gift invite to by manually adding them, and uploading them via CSV or a CRM.
  5.  You will generally have to pay for gifts once the email invite has been sent, but in some cases you can choose to pay after the gift has been redeemed by the recipient.
  6. The recipient will then be able to access the link in the email to redeem the gift from the selection, provide their delivery details and choose a date for delivery.
  7. All the email gift invite activity can be tracked on your Giftsenda dashboard or integrated CRM.

Gift Donate and Swap Options

While the act of gifting is primarily focused on strengthening relationships, forging new ones, and displaying value to your business’s most prized assets, some businesses place a certain degree of red tape to curb issues that may arise from gifting as a decision-incentive. For this reason, we’ve created a ‘give back’ avenue for your restricted recipients.

When a gift invite is received, our platform allows your recipients to choose to donate the proceeds of or the gifts themselves to any one of our listed charitable organizations. In such instances, your recipients are cognisant of your efforts to delight and surprise and will appreciate the gesture.

On the other hand, should your recipients be delighted to accept a gift offer, they can swap pre-selected gift items for different items of the same value or within the same collection pool. This comes at absolutely no extra cost to the giver and gives the lucky recipient an opportunity to browse through hundreds of gifts.

 

Conclusion

When adding gifting to your business processes, the gift item is not the highlight of the experience, but your gesture is. It is in human nature to be moved by gifts, 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 on an international level.

Contact us to find out how you can capitalize on our automated gifting tools, and allow us to help you connect with your clients, prospects, leads and staff across the globe with gifts.