What Is The Purpose Of Corporate Gifts?
By Meredith Gossland, Sat Dec 10th

Corporate gift giving is a form of marketing, branding, customerservice, and employee recognition that is time honored and cancertainly help to create loyalty.

But, although it feels good to get a really great present! Itcan feel terrible to get a present that shows a lack of concernor consideration. This feeling is not followed by loyalty butinstead, anger and resentment.

Corporate gift giving, more so than personal gift giving needsto be done with great care and with the recipent in mind. Who isgetting the gift and what are they likely to think about thegift. It can make or break a client relationship, create a loyalemployee or a disgruntled one. It can become an annual joke atyour company at the comapnies expense. So what is the key togift giving?

Personalization.

In a small company this can be fairly easy but as a companygrows in size the tendancy is to give the same gift to all. Thiscan actually undermine the power of gift giving and undermineyour purpose.

How can a larger company manage personalization of gift givingto optimize the effects of giving and increase the value ofcustomers and employees? What needs to be considered when givinga gift?

First and most obvious is the economic level of the recipent.

A$25 bottle of wine is not what a cash strapped father of 2 mightneed at Christmas time when he has to buy toys for his kids, apresent for his wife, and needs to pay the electric bill. Woulda gift card from Target be put to better use than the bottle ofwine? If your client has spent $20,000 this past year at yourcompany that bottle of wine is a slap in the face.

The second is the health of the recipent. Do you think yourdiabetic customer is going to rave about the basket of candy?Giving a bottle of wine to an alchoholic can be fatal, do youknow the situation of all the recipents of these kinds ofconsumable gifts.

If you are giving a gift for marketing purposes and you want toremind the customer of your business consumable items areusually gone in a week or less and the memory is gone too!Giving gifts that are long lasting such as picture frames orannual passes to sporting events will increase the chance ofyour client remembering your kindness long after the gift isgiven.

Careful attention to your data base and client and employeeinformation can give you an edge when planning gift giving.Companies like Lasting Impressions 2 will keep and maintainclient and employee lists with information about hobbies andinterests, family size and past gifts given, to make each year amemorable one. Increasing your client and employee loyalty.

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