From Ordinary to Extraordinary:
Elevate Your Brand with Custom Corporate Gifts
Imagine your employees’ excitement when they receive a gift out of the blue. No doubt, it can instantly brighten their day. But did you know that a well-thought-out corporate gift can do so much more than just bring a smile? It can elevate positive feelings toward your company, leading to engagement and loyalty. Not just that, but it can put your brand in the spotlight boosting recognition and reputation.
According to a study conducted by Coresight, the rise in remote work has caused an increase in spending on corporate gifting. This means that understanding and investing in gifting is now more important than ever for brands like yours.
Gifts have a remarkable ability to create and sustain relationships. In the corporate setup, they can go beyond the transactional nature of the business to connect with people on a personal level. When you make an effort to nurture relationships with employees, clients, partners, etc., it sparks authenticity and loyalty in return.
Corporate gifting need not be a daunting task. In fact, with the correct information from research, an understanding of the target audience, and a partnership with a good provider, you can leverage gifting to elevate your brand to new heights.
In this blog, we will look at the power of branding for your business, the benefits of customization, ideas to personalize your gifts, effectively implementing the gifting strategy, and measuring the success to help you confidently dive into the world of appreciations, celebrations, acknowledgments, and gratitude through corporate gifts.
📌 Relevant read: Best corporate gifting companies and websites
Understanding the Power of Corporate Branding
Let’s begin with what a ‘brand’ is. A brand is the perceived image of your product or service in the minds of the target audience, which could be your consumers or employees. And ‘branding’ is the strategy you lay out to create that image. So, to further explain in Shopify’s words, “Branding is the process of creating a distinct identity for your business in the minds of your target audience.” This happens through physical aspects like name, logo, and colors and through identifying, experiencing, and connecting with the brand.
Corporate branding is vital to building and maintaining the reputation of your business, which plays a crucial role in attracting, engaging, and retaining talent, thus giving you a competitive advantage over your business rivals.
As powerful marketing tools, corporate gifts act as billboards when worn/used by your employees. It might help someone start a conversation, recognize your brand from the T-shirt your employee wore to the gym, and even spark curiosity among visitors at home about your company. These can leave a lasting impression in the minds and improve brand recognition and recall tremendously.
Custom Corporate Gifts: Making a Lasting Impression
While it may be easy to buy a specific product as a gift for your employees and distribute it company-wide, it might not be well-received because there’s a lack of connection with the brand. So, customizing it per your brand can help employees feel valued.
📌 Relevant read: Find 30+ useful corporate gift ideas on a budget
Personalization goes one step further by making the gift more personal by including the recipient’s name or initials to send out a message that the gift was picked up exclusively for them. This helps connect on a much deeper level and stirs feelings of loyalty.
Types of Custom Corporate Gifts
Recent trends show the top 3 custom corporate gift types below.
- Branded Merchandise – includes apparel and accessories, tech gadgets and electronics, and office supplies and stationery
- Promotional Products – include pens, mugs, daily-use items, and eco-friendly products.
- Luxury Gifts and Premium Items – includes high-end gifts for executives, business partners, personalized gift sets, and hampers.
Choosing the Right Custom Corporate Gifts for Your Brand
Gift-giving is caring. But what you give and how you give matter as much as your desire to give gifts. So, here are two things to keep in mind when you brainstorm corporate gifting.
1. Aligning gifts with brand values and target audience
Your gifts need to align with your brand’s personality and values. For example, gifting stress balls inadvertently implies that your work environment is stressful. That’s a clear no-no! And if you sense that your employees care about the environment, giving them eco-friendly products can help strike the right chord.
Considerations for budget and scalability- look into your budget for corporate gifts and the expected ROI regarding increased engagement, retention, and employee satisfaction.
2. Researching trends and understanding recipient preferences
Looking into the existing corporate gifting trends is always a good idea. For example, you could give experiences as gifts if you have the budget and capacity, as it’s well-received by corporate employees.
Designing Custom Corporate Gifts That Stand Out
Corporate gifting is more a norm than a strategy with the new working realities in place. With almost all companies investing heavily in gifting their employees and partners, you can see company swags everywhere you turn. If you still want to stand out, you must approach corporate gifting with a good strategy.
1. Incorporating Brand Elements
Aim to place your logo on a visible and eye-catching spot so it helps brand recall. But don’t make it scream your brand, as it may seem like ads. Also, note that you must maintain the color palette and stay consistent across gift items for maximum branding effect in your favor.
2. Creativity and Innovation
Giving the typical gift items is easier, and there’s no harm. But if you want to stand out, go for creative and unique gifts that are still practical. Some examples include tech gifts like noise-cancellation headphones that reduce noise and help employees be productive. Another area where you can be creative is using creative packaging that is also compostable and recyclable, thus helping your employees be environmentally conscious consumers too.
3. Practicality and Functionality
The best gifts can be used repeatedly daily. While quality should be at the heart of any gift you send, aim for the practicality and functionality of the gifts. After all, nobody wants an expensive gift sitting inside the cupboard.
4. Implementing an Effective Corporate Gifting Strategy
An excellent corporate gifting strategy will have clear goals, know the target audience, and know when to gift— for maximum benefit.
- Setting clear goals and objectives
Ask questions like why they are being given now and what you aim to achieve through the corporate gifting initiative. These can help get your basics right.
- Defining target recipients and occasions
Next, define your target recipients and the occasion on which the gifts will be given; it also helps to answer the recipients’ preferences and if they align with the event of gifting.
- Timing and personalization for maximum impact
As much as gifting is essential, timing the initiative is crucial. For example, you don’t want to give out gifts to employees when you’ve just had an emergency crisis that left your employees disappointed because you didn’t handle the issue well from their perspective.
Measuring the Success of Custom Corporate Gifts
While there are a lot of metrics to measure the success of your gifting campaigns, the key performance indicators that can tell you a lot about the reception are the increase in employee engagement, employee referrals, retention, and candidate pipeline. To further the effort channeled into corporate gifting, you could also gather feedback about the gifts they received.
Case Studies: Successful Custom Corporate Gift Campaigns
Some of our successful and long-term clients are Myntra, Flipkart, Samsung, TechMahindra, L & T, Lowe’s, and Infosys, who’ve seen tremendous increases in their employee engagement and retention rates with their corporate gifting initiatives.
Clients Tally, Csg, RLE, Lenovo, and Infosys have gone a step further to open brand merchandise stores, so gift-giving becomes merrier for the recipients as they choose what they like to take as gifts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- What is the best time to give corporate gifts?
Festive occasions, holidays, company milestones, onboarding, events, conferences, anniversaries, and post-annual performance reviews.
- How can I ensure my custom gifts are of high quality?
Ask your gifting partner for a free sample and demo to ensure you have a good experience before ordering in bulk. Remember, quality > product. So, invest in a good quality gift and not cheap trinkets.
- Can custom corporate gifts be used for internal employee recognition?
Indeed, you can give out branded merchandise, gift cards, trophies, certificate frames, and pretty much anything of your choice. If you own a merch store, you can also implement reward systems for employees to choose their gifts.
Conclusion
Businesses constantly seek attention, engagement, and retention from employees and partners. In a time like today, when remote work has widened the distance between employees and employers, it becomes essential to narrow the gap– not just from the engagement POV but also from the corporate branding angle.
Branding is an exciting and effective marketing strategy influencing the target audience’s behavior. Corporate gifting is a fantastic branding tool that helps you go beyond the transactional nature of the business to connect with employees on a personal level which helps in engaging better and retaining them.
In a time when face-to-face interactions are slowly declining, sending customized and personalized gifts can show that you genuinely care about your employees. It’s a tangible reminder that they are not just another name on the screen but an integral part of your organization.
So, if you want to elevate your brand, leverage corporate gifting to position yourself as a brand that acknowledges, cares for, appreciates, and pampers its employees.
To know more about how OffiNeeds can help you in your corporate gifting journey, check out here. And click here for incredible gift options totaling 4000 unique and practical products you can offer your employees, clients, partners, and others.