What is Corporate Gifting? Best Practices and Top Ideas
by Peter Deitz
Whether it’s a birthday, a holiday, or another special occasion, giving and receiving gifts is a tradition that helps people bond and appreciate each other. However, gift-giving doesn’t have to be restricted to friends and family—you can replicate these valuable connections at work by celebrating your employees and customers, too. That’s where corporate gifting comes in.
The prospect of finding the right gift for everyone at your business can be daunting, but corporate gifting doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, with the right tools and gift-giving expertise, you can deliver personalized gifts at any scale. In this guide, we’ll explore how to do just that and set you up for long-term corporate gifting success.
Corporate gifting is a business practice that involves acknowledging employees, partners, and clients by sending them gifts. Through these programs, businesses can give recipients experiences, services, goods, items, and even donations to nonprofits (we’ll review more ideas later). Additionally, corporate gifting offers countless advantages to businesses and recipients alike, which we’ll explore in more detail.
Does corporate gifting work?
To understand the impact of corporate gifting in practice, let’s take a look at Talley, an association management company. They wanted an easy way to personalize employee appreciation at scale by offering birthday gifts. The goal of this initiative was to improve employee loyalty and engagement with a reliable, customized gifting experience.
After working with Unwrapit to power their corporate gifting program, Talley:
Empowered employees to contribute to social good initiatives by offering gifts like 25 planted trees and a Charity on Top GIVE Card.
Boosted employee engagement with a 91% claim rate.
Showed employees they care at scale with gifts distributed automatically on the day of each employee’s birthday.
Remained organized and efficient by offering a consistent and user-friendly digital gifting experience.
Reduced environmental impact by avoiding physical products and focusing on digital gifts.
This program helps Talley celebrate important life milestones with their employees and enrich their lives outside of work, leading to improved company culture and employee relationships. Today, Talley still powers their birthday gifting program with Unwrapit and continues to see claim rates of over 90%.
There are multiple important groups that can be impacted by a strong corporate gifting program. Here are the most substantial benefits of corporate gifting to consider:
Increased employee engagement, productivity, and loyalty. Put yourself in your employees’ shoes—would you be more motivated to do your best work in a tangibly rewarding and positive environment, or a negative one? Corporate gifting allows employers to show appreciation in a tangible way, which contributes to employees’ wellbeing, connection to their work, and retention.
Boosted brand identity and reputation. According to Double the Donation, 77% of customers want to patronize companies with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. By empowering employees to support nonprofits through corporate gifting, you show your dedication to the community, bolster your brand’s reputation, and secure new customers.
Strengthened customer and partner relationships. Participating in corporate gifting can open new business opportunities and help fortify existing connections. For instance, a company that provides a gift to a nonprofit through their corporate gifting initiative can forge a more permanent, mutually beneficial connection based on shared values. Also, companies can send existing customers and partners a token of gratitude for their loyalty via corporate gifting.
Improved recruitment outcomes. In the current state of recruitment, high-quality talent is prioritizing benefits outside financial compensation—in fact, 80% of employees would choose additional benefits over a pay raise. Showing appreciation to employees via corporate gifting is not only a reward for hard work, but an additional compensation incentive that you can use to boost recruitment outcomes.
What are perceived challenges of corporate gifting?
Just like with any new program, corporate gifting can present some difficulties for businesses during the planning and implementation process. You might perceive challenges in the following areas:
Logistical bandwidth. Launching a corporate gifting program is one thing, but managing it well is another altogether—which is crucial for achieving a favorable return on your investment (ROI). Some businesses might struggle to juggle this responsibility along with other business-critical priorities.
Budget. At face value, it might be difficult to justify spending extra money and time on developing corporate gifting programs, especially if running them interferes with achieving other revenue-driving objectives.
Personalization versus scalability. While a small business might have no problem manually customizing gifts for its small employee base, larger companies might run into issues providing a custom experience while remaining efficient. However, generic corporate gifting experiences make it harder to engage employees and boost claim rates.
Measuring ROI. Unlike with closed deals or conversion rates, measuring corporate gifting ROI requires more nuance and reporting data that you might not get from manually gifting. For instance, if you hand out gift cards during the holiday season, how do you know if it was used or if it contributed to employee engagement?
Gift appeal. To boost your corporate gifting program’s ROI, you need to offer gifts your recipients are actually excited about. Appealing to the diverse preferences of your employees can be challenging, especially when it comes to sourcing unique and fairly priced gifts.
What’s the best solution to these challenges?
The good news is, it’s easy to surmount these barriers by investing in a great corporate gifting strategy from the start. We highly recommend working with a corporate gifting company to help you work smarter, not harder, while launching your program.
Just take a look at the benefits of working with the top corporate gifting provider, Unwrapit:
Offer a cohesive branded experience for recipients. Never worry about the logistics—we shape your corporate gifting program from top to bottom, ensuring a personalized and efficient gifting experience that doesn’t take up management’s time.
Achieve a positive environmental impact. At Unwrapit, we believe in offering fully digital gift experiences, which has helped us reduce 130 tons worth of CO2 through our work.
Give meaningful gifts that the recipients will truly value. We offer many gifts across numerous categories, from nonprofit donations to Airbnb packages to streaming service subscriptions, meaning all of your recipients can find something they’ll love.
Develop a positive CSR impact from providing a nonprofit donation option. Power your employees’ passions and connect with socially responsible partners by offering nonprofit donations as gifts.
Leverage a flexible, convenient digital format. We’ll design a digital platform from which you can deliver gifts and track your program’s metrics easily.
With corporate gifting companies acting as your liaison to new brands and experiences, you can offer a wide variety of options for your recipients. For instance, you can access these gifts (and more) by using Unwrapit:
Vacation packages, such as Airbnb gift cards and hotel vouchers
Dining-related certificates to restaurants, specialty subscription services, and delivery apps
Access to experiences such as TopGolf or local cinemas
Event tickets to sports games, concerts, and more
Digital subscriptions and downloads, like Spotify, MasterClass, or Hulu
Notice a common thread between these ideas? They’re not physical, which supports our core approach of providing gifts that won’t end up in a landfill, like 60% of physical corporate gifts. By strategically prioritizing digital gifts, you can provide more memorable gifts to your recipients and boost ROI without worrying about waste.
Corporate Gifting Do’s and Don’ts
Now that you understand the power of corporate gifting, you might be eager to get started with your own program. Before you jump in, keep these tips in mind.
Do:
Add your branding. If you use a modern gifting platform, you can add your company’s unique brand identity to provide a consistent feel for your site.
Personalize the gift. Add personal details to each gift invitation, such as the recipient’s name and information about the occasion for the gift. You could also personalize the gifts so they align with the occasion—for instance, you could offer a vacation package to an employee who’s retiring and will have more free time for travel.
Choose quality over quantity. Instead of low-grade, dime-a-dozen gifts, prioritize meaningful gifts that show your genuine appreciation—it’ll pay off in the end when you leave a lasting impression on the recipient.
Work with a corporate gifting company. This one’s a no-brainer for managing a nuanced program without compromising gift quality or consistency!
Simplify the selection and delivery processes. It’s best to stick to one platform for gift delivery, acceptance, and selection. That way, no data falls through the cracks and your recipients walk away satisfied with the experience.
Don’t:
Overlook presentation. Presenting a well-wrapped gift can build excitement for the surprise inside, making the entire experience more meaningful. Whether you send physical or digital gifts, make sure they are packaged appealingly to promote a sense of professionalism and anticipation.
Compromise company values. Your gifts should serve as an extension of your company’s principles. For instance, a corporation committed to sustainability should stay away from offering wasteful physical items.
Neglect community impact. When choosing the gifts you’ll offer through your program, be sure to consider how they might impact the community around you. A company headquartered in a small town, for example, could consider providing gifts that benefit local organizations to support the community as a whole.
Forget to collect data. Facts and figures are the best tools you have to gauge success and areas for improvement. Track claim rate, employee satisfaction feedback, and ideas for future offerings.
Manage your program alone. Corporate gifting doesn’t have to be a hassle. In fact, with the right corporate gifting company by your side, you can reap all of the benefits without any logistical headaches.
How to Start a Corporate Gifting Program
Now that you have some context about corporate gifting best practices, let’s go over the big picture steps your company can take to establish its own program.
1. Set objectives and goals
As with any new corporate initiative, you’ll need a solid roadmap to set the foundation for your corporate gifting program. That means setting actionable goals (big picture outcomes) and objectives (small, specific activities to achieve goals) that give your program structure and direction. Here are some details you should hammer out with leadership in the early stages:
Budget
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
Target audience
Timeline
Gift selection criteria
Roles and responsibilities
Ultimately, you should be able to use these details to create nuanced goals and objectives that chart the course of your program rollout. A good way to ensure your goals are comprehensive enough is to use the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) framework. A SMART goal for a company starting a corporate gifting program might look like this:
“Within the next year, establish a corporate gifting program that yields a 25% increase in employee satisfaction scores. The program will be fully launched by the end of Q2 and feature gifts that benefit the local community as well as well-known brands. This program will support our overarching goal of improving company culture and employee engagement.”
2. Collaborate with a corporate gifting company
While we’ve already made clear what our favorite corporate gifting company is, you should still do your due diligence and research all options on the market to find one that’s best for your needs. Here are some tips for searching for and determining the best fit for your business:
Ask colleagues who represent businesses of a similar size and set of principles for their recommendations.
Read case studies and impartial third-party reviews for each company.
Request demos, quotes, and other sales resources from company representatives.
Ultimately, ideal corporate gifting providers should understand your vision, cater to your needs, and offer a myriad of meaningful gifts for you to choose from.
3. Promote the program
To derive value from your corporate gifting program, your recipients need to know it exists and how to leverage it. Leading up to and during the rollout, announce the following information about your program:
The purpose of the program
How to access gifts/the corporate gift management platform
The benefits of participating in the program
Previews of available items
Timeline for gift distribution
Who to ask if additional questions arise
Also, you should package these details in a visually engaging way. Use your branding and other principles of content marketing to spread awareness of your program across multiple channels. Simplify the process of learning more by centralizing important details on a page on your website and making sure recipients know where to find them.
4. Measure outcomes
Once your corporate gifting initiative is up and running, your work isn’t done yet. In fact, this is one of the most important steps of the process—to gather actionable insights that help you continually improve your program.
After a specific time benchmark has passed (such as a year), implement strategies for gathering both qualitative and quantitative corporate gifting data. You might collect each type of data from:
Qualitative data: recipient satisfaction surveys, interviews, and touchpoints with middle managers about feedback expressed by their direct reports
Quantitative data: corporate gifting software, employee engagement software, and human resources data
Ensure that you’re equipped with the tools you need to properly track, report, and act on the KPIs you set in step one. Then, analyze your data and use the insights you glean to improve your next iteration of the program.
Next Steps
As we wrap up this guide, let’s review some immediate next steps your team can take to start your corporate gifting initiatives on the right foot.
Get buy-in from important decision-makers, such as your C-suite.
Listen to what your recipients want most (after all, their participation is what determines your success).
Your corporate gifting strategy won’t come together overnight. However, you can make major headway and stay on track while doing it using the tips in this guide. Happy gifting!
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