Does Corporate Gifting Work?

Gourmet Basket July 4, 2019

For businesses, corporate gifting is a way to show your appreciation to customers, reward employees, and build your brand in the most positive way.

We explore why corporate gifting works by looking at some of the most important ways a corporate gifting program can support your organisation’s overarching goals.

1. Strengthen relationships

Your corporate gift program is an opportunity to build stronger relationships with customers, employees, and business partners. Your gifts can be used to show how much you appreciate your employees’ work or customer’s business. Your corporate gifting program can make use of popular items – such as delicious artisan products, wine/champagne, quality spirits, pampering products, company branded items, and more – to build goodwill and increase customer loyalty.

“[Gourmet Basket] set us up [with] corporate and personalised branding, which has made such a difference to our client gifts we send out.

Everyone has loved [our corporate gifts], especially now that we have the corporate branding!”

Review by a customer

Corporate gifting can be highly personalised, meaningful, and individualised depending on your choice of gift, the message, and the presentation. Research suggests that giving promotional products could be associated with high brand recognition rates and high likeliness to do business again.

Consider corporate gifting as a bridge reinforcing your internal and external relationships, generating goodwill, affirming the relationship, and keeping your business top of mind. With customers, corporate gifting can also showyou care about the customer because you made a special effort to reach out.

“Gifts are given to new residents of a retirement village and they are (without exception) overwhelmed.”

Review by a customer

You can maximise this impact by complementing the gift with a personalised message using the recipient’s first name, and by choosing gifts based on interests. Giving to customers, employees, or other partners is a way to establish a shared story or journey. Seasonal gifts or birthday gifts can also give you a chance to get back in touch, celebrate special milestones, subtly remind customers of your business, and build goodwill on holiday or birthday good cheer.

For employees, corporate gifting could enhance loyalty, morale, and team spirit. It’s a way to acknowledge their hard work and recognise their value to your organisation. In turn, it could reduce turnover (and its associated high costs) and keep your staff with you for longer.

And for partner relationships, it could make all the difference. Your service providers, suppliers, and contractors are vital business partners whohelp make your company great, so maintaining positive relationships with them benefits your business.

Including your B2B partners in your corporate-gifting program can bolster the underlying personal relationships, such as those between your procurement team and your supplier’s accounts management people. Ultimately, it could even support things like better deals or pricing, smooth negotiations, timely service, and other things that your business relies on.

2. Builds a stronger brand

Your organisation’s brand and reputation only truly exists in the minds of your customers, so corporate gifting can have a direct impact on brand awareness and value.

Our own surveys have revealed that 100% of our corporate customers say sending gifts had a positive impact on their business, and they would continue sending them in the future. Our corporate-gifting customers particularly value the option to have personalised, corporate branding on their gifts to customers and other parties.

Whether it’s a corporate ribbon featuring your logo, a gift tag, box band, logo-enhanced gift cards or all of the above, customised corporate branding helps your corporate gifts make a stronger impression. These personalised touches helps your business stands out and builds brand awareness, which could in turn translate to more repeat business, higher sales, and profit growth.

3. Make new customers feel welcomed

A gift to welcome a first-time customer is an opportunity to connect and deepen your bond with new customers. With the right corporate gift, you can make a great “first impression” while making new customers feel welcomed and appreciated. Gifting can build trust in the early stages of your customer relationships.

“Amazing hampers and great variety to choose from which have a unique offering to [other] hampers available. Great options for both personal and corporate gifts.

Lizzie Dovile, Facebook

4. Encourages repeat business and referrals

Your existing customers can be one of the best sources of new leads, so corporate gifting could lead to new leads and more referrals. The happier your customers, the more likely they’ll recommend you to someone else.

By building stronger relationships and ensuring your business stands out, your organisation could see more returning customers who become proactive brand advocates for you – in part because you built goodwill through corporate gifting.

Using corporate gifting services

Maintaining a corporate-gifting program might seem complicated, but the entire process can be outsourced. The best corporate-gifting companies can offer a range of gifting options and appealing product offerings, bulk orders, customised branding, and delivery to make it seamless and convenient for you.

At Gourmet Basket, our own survey feedback shows our happy customers highly value this streamlined order-to-delivery service.

“Most gorgeous gift box ever. I ordered one for my managers birthday as a gift from our team as picking a gift can be so tedious and it was just perfect! Quick and friendly service, I am local to the pick up area so I did click and collect and it was ready the same day! I forgot about my parcel and they even followed up to make sure everything was okay and I picked it up the following day. Great customer service and a great package. I will definitely shop here in the future!”

Ellie Weber, Facebook

Corporate gifting can be a highly effective way to strengthen customer, employee, and partner relationships. With a personalised message and custom branding, you can make a strong impression while showing your appreciation. Corporate gifting could drive customer and employee loyalty, increase referrals and repeat business, and help grow sales and profit.

Gourmet Basket has been creating the most delicious artisanal gourmet baskets for more than 20 years. We offer a streamlined online ordering system to make your corporate gifting effortless. Why not make a lasting impression by giving a gourmet basket as your next corporate gift? Find out more about how you can gift a beautifully presented hampers here.

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Here at Gourmet Basket our vision is simple. We exist to warm people's hearts and make them feel valued and connected. And we think people deserve more of life luxuries. That's why we do what we do. As passionate foodies we know that gourmet food inspires connection. Everyone loves good food - it brings us together. That is why we dedicate ourselves to sourcing the finest, most extraordinary food and wine from Australia's top producers.

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