Christmas Corporate Gifting Just Got A Little Easier
Personalised and thoughtful Christmas Corporate Gifts are a vital marketing and business development strategy and in these tough economic times, they are even more important for nurturing and retaining relationships with clients and referrers.
Corporate gifting is a great way to express appreciation for past business but also to keep your company front of mind for future business opportunities. As is often cited, acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer. Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.
The hard work associated with strategic and personalised gifting often relegates it to a rushed tick box exercise with little thought given to what kind of gifts will enable your business to stand out and make an impact. This then leads many businesses to question why their gifting efforts are not paying off. If your gift isn’t memorable, your business won’t be either. When it comes to corporate gifting that delivers an ROI, failing to plan is planning to fail – and wastes money in the process.
If you have a large and diverse set of clients to buy for, gifting that is personalised and enables your business to stand out requires the kind of time, creative expertise and strategic thought that you may not have. This is where a gifting concierge like Gourmet Luxe can partner with you to take the hard work out of the process and support longer term business growth goals.
We’ve published a brief blueprint for those that would like their Christmas corporate gifts to stand out, more impactful and will take some of the hard work and guess work out of the process.
1. Get Organised
The first place to start is an organised gift list of all your recipients. At this stage you don’t need to collect addresses and contact details but it does help to know the gender of the recipients and whether the gifts are being delivered within the UK or need more time to be sent overseas. This is often a collaborative process and you will need to work with sales directors, marketing directors, key account managers and possibly your Managing Director or CEO to get the information you need.
Email us at info@gourmet-luxe.com to request a copy of our Christmas gift planning spreadsheet.
2. Set A Budget
Before you start researching ideas or working with a company like ours that specialises in corporate gifting ideation and sourcing, it’s always best to set a budget and have it signed off. Remember to factor in any branding and delivery charges too. If you would like to discuss realistic budgets, branding options, or delivery times, feel free to get in touch and a member of our team will be happy to help!
3. Make Personalisation Notes In Your Spreadsheet
A cookie cutter approach rarely delivers corporate gifting ROI. The aim of corporate gifting is to build strong relationships. Each recipient is unique and their gift has to be mindful and appropriate of their preferences, so it helps to make personalisation notes in your planning spreadsheet.
A few parameters to keep in mind are whether or not they drink alcohol, what kind of alcoholic drinks they enjoy, whether they are vegetarian, vegan or have any dietary preferences, whether there are any cultural or religious preferences or hobbies and interests that you need to factor in.
4. Get Brainstorming. Keep The Recipient In Mind
Many companies often think about what they want to gift rather than what the recipient would like to receive. Corporate gifting is no different to personal gifting – the gift needs to delight the recipient to achieve its’ desired aim.
Thinking about the recipient can help to decide on a gifting theme which can then be customised to each recipients individual preferences. For example:
a. When gifting to overseas recipients, you might want to choose a “best of British” theme, gifting items that are unique and which they wouldn’t get in their country.
b. If you know that your clients aren’t planning an office party this year, you might want to make your gifting theme more indulgent – a gin tasting experience, a cocktail making set or a trio of wines?
c. If you know that your client has recently completed a very stressful and time-consuming deal or has been going through difficult personal circumstances you might want to send a gift that focusses on pampering and nurturing.
Working with a gifting concierge like ourselves allows you to outsource the strategy and creative ideation process. We take your recipient data, extract key insights from you, about your company and your recipients and propose ideas that are so thoughtful they show each recipient how much you value the relationship with them
Rather than trawling a myriad of gifting options on the Internet, many of which are repetitions of a theme, Gourmet Luxe gives you access to a selection of unique gifting themes and can source items from hard to find artisan suppliers with wonderfully unique and innovative products that will make your gifts stand out.
5. Branding & Messaging Options
The visual presentation of your gifts is as important as a touchpoint in the gifting journey as the gift itself. We can assist with advice on packaging options and colours, hampers and gift boxes that bear your branding and our in house designers and copy writers can assist with the creation and content of branded Christmas cards – and personalised messages are a great way to impress clients.
We hope you found this article helpful and it’s inspired you to send meaningful Christmas corporate gifts.
If you're looking for Christmas gifting inspiration, browse our 2022 Christmas Gift Catalogue here or schedule in a call with us to discuss how we can take the hard work and leg work out of Christmas gifting.