Corporate Gift Pros

Corporate Holiday Gifting

So what do you spend on corporate holiday gifts?  That’s a tough question in a tough economic climate.  Providing you haven’t just laid off a bunch of employees and times are tough but your company is pluggin along, I hope you are still gifting your clients this year.  I have mentioned in past posts that you should at least send a holiday card.  They are inexpensive and they go alot further than not acknowledging your customers at all.

The reason I did this post is Monday I got an email from a new customer asking for gift ideas under $3.00.  My first thought, was “Holy Crap gifts under $3.00?”  But then rationale clicked in and I realized that every company has a budget and at least they were giving something, which is far better than giving nothing.  Now this customer had no ideas of what they wanted to give.  She only had a budget.  I was given no direction, but needed to brainstorm ideas.  Now keeping in mind that I have 800,000 products to choose from…where was I to start.  She gave me quite a challenge, but I did manage to come up with quite a few ideas for her.  I was fairly proud of myself when all was said and done.  It’s not hard to find a marketing piece in that price range, but something that is considered a gift…well that was a bit harder.

So that left me to wonder - how much do you spend on your corporate holiday gifts?  Does every customer get a gift?  Do you have tiers, where customer that spend x amount with you get this gift and customers that spend y amount get that gift?  Do you base spending on a percent of what they spend with you?  Every company has a different method. 

When all is said and done, holiday gifts can be very high end or very inexpensive…the main idea is to build relationships with your current customer base, build goodwill and show appreciation.  It doesn’t really matter the amount you spend, just spend…the economy will thank you and in the end the repeat business will make it all worthwhile.

Gifting corporate gifts, corporate holiday gifting, customer appreciation, Holiday Gifts

What the heck does marketing commodities vs programs mean?  A commodity would be a product.  For example I sell promotional products.  Actually that reminds me of a little story.  I was at a networking/chamber event and I was introducing myself.  When I mentioned that I own a promotional products company, the person responded “Oh you sell trash and trinkets”.  At first, being not a very confrontational person I was apt to say yeah, that’s what I do, figuring that the person could relate to that.  But in all honesty I never thought of myself as a trash and trinkets sales person.  I have always thought of myself as a brand builder a marketing partner for companies.  The products I sell, better yet the programs I sell are far from trash and trinkets, they are advertising that works 24/7/365 days per year.

On that day I realized that I don’t market products or commodities.  I market programs: incentive programs, customer loyalty programs, brand building programs, employee appreciation programs, client retention programs etc… The vehicle I use is promotional products.

What sets you apart from your competition?  Is it the product you sell?  I don’t think so.  If so you are very replaceable.  You must sell ideas, your creativity, programs.  When you can do that, it doesn’t matter what product is that vehicle.  Your ideas and creativity are what make you indispensable.  It is what sets you apart from the competition.

No matter what company you work for you will always have competition.  To put yourself out in front of the competition you must rethink what you do and offer.  Are you a product pusher or a person who solves problems using a particular product?  Rethink, Reinvent!

Marketing Ideas customer retention, employee incentives, incentive programs, marketing, selling