Corporate Gifts for Clients: The Beginner’s Guide

Corporate gifts are the gifts you receive from companies as thanks for doing business with them. Those gifts are given with the intention of promoting brand awareness among clients and their employees.

The most generic corporate gift is the branded pen. Chances are, you have received a branded pen at least once in your lifetime. Some say that giving a pen as corporate gift is a good choice since it’s cheap, practical, and useful in the day-to-day life of a person.

I completely agree with them, however, there are more unique and creative corporate gifts out there. Let’s look into them later.

Your gift should be simple, convenient and creative. Give something your clients won’t stash in a old drawer or worse, throw into the nearest trashcan. Make them feel appreciated and cared about.

As a business owner your goal is to get clients to hang on to the promotional items you give, hoping that they would remember you and one day would come to buy your products or services. But at the same time you don’t want to see your business at a loss while trying to keep the clients happy.

The tips below will help you create effective and affordable corporate gifts and make them stand out from the crowd.

• Give something useful

You could give clients something that they will never use or give them something more personal and practical like a pen, water bottle, blanket or umbrella which they can use in their day-to-day lives.

They may already have pens, blankets and etc but if your gift is beautiful and of high-quality, the gesture will be much appreciated.

For example, during one of my marketing consultancy sessions I noticed that my client’s employees were using poor-quality pencils for sketching. So what I did was I bought some high quality pencils, branded them and gave them away to the entire staff.

This made my client happy and made him feel that I truly care.

• The more simple the better

Your gift doesn’t have to be expensive or valuable, in fact, if it is, customers may think that you are trying to bribe them. Keep a fine balance between quality and price. A $3 pen shows the same amount of gratitude as a $10 umbrella.

• Keep the design relevant

You could be giving away promotional items during Christmas, Valentines, or some other event. The designs you imprint on gifts should contain your company logo and should match with the overall theme of the event.

For example, if you are giving away scarves for Christmas, make sure their design match up with the Christmas theme. That way, clients will know that you went the extra mile on customizing the gifts.

If it’s for an event, a cool idea would be to imprint the map location of the event on the gifts. Keep the design simple yet relevant to the moment.

• Sell the gift

When you hand over the gifts to customers, be sure to explain why you selected the gift you did and why you thought they would appreciate it. Let them know that you were being very thoughtful in the gift selection process as it will emphasize how much you care about your customers. This would make them trust your business even more.

• Limit branding

Although it depends on which item you are gifting, going overboard with branding is usually not good. It can negatively affect the appeal of the gift and clients may not be tempted to use it very often.

Items like water bottles and caps have no issue with over-branding. In fact, they look cool with all the logos and stuff. However, items like tote-bags and blankets need to contain minimal branding.

No one wants to carry around or hang on a wall an item filled with brand messages and logos.

• Offer gift variations

Not everyone likes one particular design or color. Each of us has our own preferences. One way to get creative in your promotional giveaway is to offer gifts in different colors and designs.

• Think out of the box

You are certainly not the only business around doing promotional giveaways. Almost every established business does it. So how do you stand out from the crowd?

The answer is to take your clients by surprise. Since most businesses send out corporate gifts during Christmas, you could send yours during Valentines day or Easter. In fact, we once did that and it turned out to be heavily successful.

We sent a large box of chocolate to each of our best clients during Easter and they were pleasantly surprised and grateful. The employees were so happy as well and some of them even contacted and thanked us.

Hopefully, you now understand how much of a impact you can make by being flexible and trying out new things. No one likes the same old.

• Focus on your budget

Before deciding which item to gift to your clients, you must calculate the quantity of item required. When you know the quantity required, it’s easy to decide which item to go for.

Let’s say your budget is $1000 and you want to send gifts to 100 clients. So you are spending $10 for each of your clients. Now choose something that you can buy and re-brand for that amount. That’s how you efficiently manage your budget.

Also, keep in mind that your budget will limit the creativity of the design imprints.

• Know the law

Consult a lawyer regarding the gifting of promotional items since there may be local, state or federal laws that restrict corporate gift-giving in your industry or your client’s. Some laws may only restrict certain types of corporate gifts.

Low cost corporate gifts

These gifts usually cost around $5 or less. Some low cost corporate gifts are pens, magnets, coffee mugs, and calendars. The key is to think outside the box.

For example, if you are gifting coffee mugs, make them stand out by imprinting a colorful design with the business logo in the middle. The price doesn’t matter, only the way you present it matters.

Medium cost corporate gifts

If you have a higher budget, go for corporate gifts under $25. In that price-point, you could gift apparel, umbrellas, blankets, pillows, scarves and other useful items to your clients.

High cost corporate gifts

In the event of a very special occasion you may need to step up the game even further by gifting items under $100. The best example of a high cost corporate gift would be a limited edition print.

You could also hire a skilled artist to draw a beautiful piece of branded artwork. For more authenticity, include the signature of the artist on the side.

Conclusion

Corporate gifts showcase gratitude towards clients and their employees for doing business with us. The best gifts are the ones they can use in their day-to-day lives so choose something simple yet useful like a pen or highlighter.

Avoid over-branding items since it may reduce their overall appeal. Just put the company logo somewhere within the design and then mention the name of your company in small but noticeable letters. One way to compensate for this minimal branding is to send a brochure along with the gifts.

Follow the above tips and learn how to create affordable yet effective corporate gifts. It’s not about how expensive the gift is, it’s about the way you market it so make sure you pick a beautiful and relevant design.

What did you gift to your clients and what did you do to make your gift stand out from the crowd? Let us know in the comments section below.