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Corporate Gifting 101
As a corporate leader, ensuring client satisfaction is one of your top priorities. But standing out from your competition and impressing prospects often requires going the extra mile.
The best way to demonstrate a deep commitment to your client relationships is to provide memorable and meaningful tokens of gratitude, also known as corporate gifts.
Corporate gifting isn’t just useful for client engagement, though. You can also leverage corporate gifting to engage employees, motivating them to produce high-quality work and to stay with your company in the long term. Plus, it reflects well on your business and can bring more clients to your doorstep.
However, you can only access the benefits of corporate gifting if you offer desirable gifts that resonate with different audiences and use cases. In this guide, we’ll review:
Corporate gifting is a way of recognizing employees, clients, and other stakeholders by gifting them items, experiences, and more. For example, here are some of the most common types of corporate gifts:
These are very general corporate gift ideas to give you a sense of what a typical program might offer—we’ll get into more detailed corporate gift ideas later.
Corporate gifting programs can be a significant investment, so it’s important to understand how it can pay off for your company. Here are just a few of the benefits your company can experience with corporate gifting:
We’ll be organizing these corporate gift ideas based on their form and which audience they’re best suited to. The form category is simple enough, but let’s review the audience subcategories:
Many-to-many gifts are best suited for employee engagement, so we’ll only mention them in that section. Let’s dive in!
Plants are an affordable gift that can be a lasting addition to your recipient’s home! Go to your local plant store and obtain succulents, potting soil, and decorative pots for your recipients. Not only will this gift brighten up a recipient’s home office, but it can also serve as a tasteful backdrop for video calls.
Coffee perks your employees up and gets them ready to work, so why not add a little flair to your office setup? Reward the top-performing departments or employees with a special coffee bar in their office so they have the fuel they need to continue excelling.
Chances are, you’re probably a member of numerous rewards and loyalty programs in your personal life. You can bring that same strategy to your employee engagement initiatives! For instance, you can create points systems where coworkers can award each other points based on great performance. Then, once an employee has enough points saved, they can pick a prize, like a briefcase or wireless earbuds.
Getting healthy can be costly, so why not help your employees out with a free wellness kit?. Your wellness kit could include anything from athletic clothing to yoga mats to protein powder to power-up workouts. Get them started on the right foot by providing a free training session with a professional, too.
If your company has multiple offices and hundreds of employees, it can be challenging to organize company-wide engagement efforts. However, you can leverage digital tools to help! Allow employees to pick a restaurant gift card and host a virtual dinner so people from different branches can bond.
Holiday parties are a classic way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year. In addition to catered dinner and drinks, you can incorporate a peer-to-peer gifting element with a Secret Santa event!
Professional development allows employees to explore new skills without worrying about their budget. To acknowledge your highest-performing employees, provide a free career development course in an area of their choice.
Another fun team-building activity that will even leave your employees with a delicious meal is a cooking class. You could even up the ante by making it a competition between different teams!
Everyone deserves some time off—it even improves employee satisfaction and retention. For employees who go above and beyond, thank them with a vacation voucher for a getaway of their choice on behalf of their department or company.
Getting recognized by peers can motivate others to put in their best work and engage with their employer. Involve employees further by allowing them to nominate high-performers to attend a celebratory luncheon. For instance, if a manager sees great improvement in their direct’s performance, they can invite them to this event.
Personal recognition from leadership to a team member can improve the entire workforce’s productivity. Offer an award like Employee of the Month—the winner could just receive recognition or get an additional benefit like flexible work hours for the rest of the month.
Going on a big vacation is a popular way to spend PTO, but sometimes, even just one extra day can make a big difference. Reward a team or department for stellar work by providing an extra day of paid time off.
If your company is large, there’s a good chance your C-suite doesn’t interface with lower-ranked employees regularly. However, you can facilitate a valuable learning opportunity by inviting high-performing employees to a Q&A session with leadership. This not only allows employees to learn career insights from the C-suite but also shows them which employees are the most promising.
Your employees interact with each other every day, meaning they see some of their coworkers’ best work firsthand. Empower your employees to uplift and motivate each other with a Bravo Board, a public-facing forum where coworkers can congratulate each other on jobs well done. You can even up the ante with a points-based element.
The most meaningful charitable gifting initiatives allow people to donate to causes that matter most to them. Charity on Top makes this possible with a convenient charity gift card setup.
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a great way to get more attention for your cause. Host a peer-to-peer fundraiser where employees can start campaigns for charities they care about and donate to each other. As an extra incentive, consider matching whatever’s raised at the end!
Research shows that professional development opportunities can improve employee engagement. Empower your employees to learn skills like project management, finance, and Microsoft Suite with a GoSkills credit.
Promoting wellness both within and outside of the workplace is crucial for maintaining employee satisfaction. DoYogaWithMe allows employees to explore new facets of wellness and healthily unwind outside of work.
Personalizing your workspace can help clients feel more professional and connected to their workplace. To reward their loyalty, give them items like nameplates and folios.
A ping-pong table for the office helps employees get to know each other with an element of friendly competition. Gift loyal clients with a ping pong table to help them engage their own employees.
Sports games are a fun way to interact with your city, and you can elevate the experience by reserving clients a box for their employees. As a cherry on top, offer team merchandise, like a T-shirt or baseball cap.
Your clients directly determine your company’s success, so consider commemorating a few of your most impactful clients with a special ceremony. Add an extra touch by engraving their name on a “Wall of Fame.”
Hitting the town with a loved one is a fun activity all year round. Make a client’s weekend by treating them and a special guest to dinner and a theatre performance, for example.
Elevate your clients’ palettes by gifting them a group wine tasting on behalf of your company. Provide custom glassware for them to take home to commemorate the experience!
Golf is an enjoyable yet slow-paced sport that allows players to talk easily throughout the game. This makes it a great way to conduct business meetings in an inviting setting. Book a golf day for client executives on behalf of your company and treat them to a meal and free drinks from the club.
As previously mentioned, public acknowledgment of clients shows their entire network how much you appreciate them. Just make sure to get their permission beforehand, and don’t share private information on these posts.
Want a low-cost, high-action bonding event to gift clients? Organize a laid-back field day for your client’s company, complete with classic events like tug-of-war. You could even incorporate your own company to add some friendly competition.
Your company likely hosts valuable networking or educational events that clients would like to attend. Give them a VIP pass as your company’s guest and let them attend special events that interest them.
Want to influence grassroots movements and local projects worldwide? GlobalGiving allows your client bases to support the causes that they care about, even if they’re across the globe. You could make this a many-to-one gift by providing a large donation on behalf of your company to an important client point of contact.
Trees are crucial to the planet’s health, but ten million hectares of forest are cut down each year. Fortunately, reforestation offsets half of these efforts—and your clients can be part of this movement with One Tree Planted, a nonprofit dedicated to planting trees around the world.
This crowd-pleasing idea is perfect for helping your clients drive their own employee engagement initiatives. For example, you could gift them 20 streaming service gift cards, which they can then use as a peer-to-peer recognition award for great performance.
Your clients are always on the go, which makes their phones critical tools for staying connected. Allow a member of their executive team or their point of contact to expand their phone’s potential—or even just splurge on a fun mobile game—with a Google Play Store gift card.
Classic branded merchandise, such as t-shirts and hats, are easy to distribute to your event guests. However, if you have a VIP guest, you can show your immense gratitude through a higher-quality gift, such as a leather journal with the recipient’s name engraved on it.
Tumblers are a useful yet stylish gift that you can use to thank event guests for attending. Don’t forget to include your branding so your attendees have a physical memento of the event!
As much as these events are about business, they’re also a place to make friends in your sector. As a thank-you to your event guests, throw a themed mixer complete with food, drinks, dancing, and a gift basket. For instance, if you throw a mixer themed to the event’s host city, you could include merchandise related to the city’s landmarks and sports teams.
Your company conducts in-depth research before selecting a keynote speaker, so you probably have a good idea of their interests. Offer them a custom-themed experience package from your company to show your appreciation for their time. For instance, if they love art, your company could get them tickets to a behind-the-scenes gallery tour and painting class.
It’s not often that event attendees get one-on-one time with your company’s leadership. A private dinner with the CEO is a great opportunity to make valuable connections and learn tips from thought leaders in the industry.
This tried-and-true gift idea gives your recipients the freedom to choose what they want from their favorite businesses. Whether it’s a local restaurant, an event venue, or a theme park, your event attendees will love the chance to pick their prize. If you want to be socially responsible, you could even offer donations to nonprofits as gift card substitutes.
Event attendees come from far and wide to hear your keynote speaker present. Offer a guest the opportunity to participate in a meet and greet with the speaker. You could choose them based on a raffle to encourage more people to attend.
Speaking at an event helps spread your name and message to new audiences. Offer this coveted position to a valued guest as a token of your gratitude.
Do you have a certain group of attendees or special supporters who you want to recognize publicly? Shout them out by putting their name in a program, mentioning them at the opening ceremony, or including their name and photo on a poster.
Videos help your company convey complex emotions and messages to your audience. If you have clients or sponsors who made your event possible, make a video commemorating the event and their support. Include event footage and testimonials to make the message more compelling, and play it at the closing ceremony.
Chances are, your event likely uses a significant amount of energy to operate. Give back to your event attendees while offsetting your carbon footprint with a donation to SeaTrees, a nonprofit that empowers local communities to rejuvenate coastal ecosystems.
With over 50 million tons of food going to waste each year in Canada alone, food security initiatives impact every community. Second Harvest redistributes perishable food, mitigating food waste across Canada.
Your event attendees are likely inherently curious about learning about new topics. Audiobooks allow them to do so while complementing an on-the-go lifestyle. Make this a many-to-one gift by awarding a keynote speaker a year’s worth of audiobooks via Libro.fm.
Do you event attendees want short-form content over an audiobook? Goodable motivates and inspires users with short feel-good stories and mindfulness metrics every day. Thank event attendees by offering them a subscription to the platform, or use the subscription as a raffle prize to encourage signups.
Putting together a corporate gifting program can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. You can launch a corporate gifting program in just a few steps by:
As you get your program up and running, remember to always listen to feedback from your recipients. They can provide ideas for new gifts to offer and which ones should be phased out. You can collect qualitative data via surveys or interviews and analyze it alongside quantitative data to determine important insights.
Let’s craft a gifting experience that’ll really matter. Ready when you are.
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