The "Whys" and Psychology of Branded Corporate Gifts
Allocating some of your companies annual budget on branded corporate gifts is worth the investment. Why? When done right, not only they could become products that attendees get free of charge at events and conferences, they also give your clients and employees a story to tell. This means you're proactively creating more potentials to help yourself shape the brand and build positive images.
If branding doesn't matter to you, the simplest reason to send out branded corporate gifts is this: people love freebies.
As often as it’s seen, advertising products are given away to attendees during exhibitions. Strategize a gifting plan for your onsite events so you can attract your ideal customers.
The psychology behind freebies shows that giving branded corporate gifts are a great way to please gift recipients, be it clients, customers, partners, or employees.
Receiving something for free releases the 'feel good' hormone, dopamine, in our brain, which explains why sending corporate giveaways results in such satisfaction and pleasure.
Most people admitted that they would spend more on a purchase if it comes with a freebie, and on average they'll pay an extra 11% over their original budget.
With the importance of branded corporate gifts in mind, let's dive deeper into the practical values these gifts can bring to your business.
6 Benefits of Branded Corporate Gifts
Branded corporate gifts strengthen your brand awareness in several ways. If you didn't know this before reading this article, you should have known after the first paragraphs. So the actual reason you are still here... is you need to exaplin this to your boss.
Many clients who are working with Giftpack had problems struggling with convincing their managers to allocate some budget in gifting. The following sections detailing the benefits of sending branded corporate gifts should enable you to make a solid argument. Read on!
*If you're in a rush, take this guide on "How to Convince Your Team to Start Using Giftpack" with you.
1. Increase product visibility
Compared to business cards, branded corporate gifts won’t get lost in the shuffle. A cool corporate gift, such as a pen with your company logo, comes in handy on the office desk; likewise, an auto-mixing coffee cup with your brand image outside the cup stand as an unobtrusive yet daily reminder about the time customers interacted with your company product and service.
2. Bring in prospective customers and partners
Brand recognition helps businesses win. Free, branded gifts distributed to visitors at events and conferences where your company is present make attendees feel warmly towards your business, especially if this is their first time experience.
By organizing branded corporate gifts events, you have the flexibility to hand out the gifts to anyone who may seem to be in interest of your product. A common way to do it is by creating a competition where those branded gift items are served as the prize. Having people join a lottery is another pooular example.
No matter which approach you take, the gifting campaign you create will stir interest among people who might later talk about your brand, reflecting it in a positive light.
3. Support company culture
Products that corporations pick for events and conferences can become the backbone that support your business culture. For example, sportswear companies might as well be keen to promote the habits of regular exercising, so opting for sports water bottles or comfy gym towels seems to be the right choice.
4. Acquire new leads
People love receiving things for no charge. When the value of your giveaway provides is higher than the perceived value, people are willing to leave their contacts as a trade for the products - a win-win situation.
High-value branded items encourage customers to act. At trade shows or events, it will be best if you can gather data from people while offering your gifts.
5. Strengthen existing client relationships
Branded business gifts aren’t just for finding new clients. Carefully curated gifts can be used to boost customer loyalty as well.
Sending existing clients a thank-you gift for their continuous trial sign-ups makes them feel valued. Sometimes, all it takes is an extra gift or a thank-you note accompanied with their next order to make clients stay loyal to you.
By no means we're suggesting your gifts have to be luxurious and expensive, but it should be aligned to the idea of what your company is promoting. A lot of times, small and useful products are considered more heartwarming to most customers and employees.
This gifting strategy boosts customer loyalty and encourages them to continue using your product or service instead of turning to your competitors.
6. Reach out to potential brand advocates
People who got the branded items have a higher possibility to become your brand advocates. Essentially, you're not just sending a random branded gift, but delivering a story that the recipient can tell. So people around them are likely to see your branding and might start off conversations to discuss your business.
Frequently used and seen products inherently imprint the image of your company logos in peoples’ minds. Therefore, offering useful corporate gifts helps you spread your logo and contact details to those around.
With one advertising freebie, your business gets more attention. Isn’t that all we are here for?
Branded Business Gifts for Employees: A Practical Guide
Still not convinced? We get it.
Above we've covered the benefits by assuming freebies, branded corporate gifts are sent out mostly in onsite events like business exhibitions, trade shows, and conferences. But don't forget about your employees! They are your greatest assets. Successful companies all over the world know the importance of sending employees appreciation gifts to thank them for their efforts.
When just starting out experimenting, fear of failure can stop us in every step of the process. A good way to see if branded corporate gifts will do good to your business is by starting gifting campaigns for your employees.
Below we provide some ideas of how you can create a gifting campaigns where branded corporate gifts are sent to your employees, and turn your employees into brand advocates to prove the benefits of investing in gift-giving branded items.
Your employees suit the best as the brand ambassadors to advocate your products and services. A study on employee activism found that 50 percent of employees share pictures and videos on social media about their work, and a third of them are doing so without any encouragement from their employer.
Knowing this, how do you leverage their word-of-mouth without being heavy-handed?
We've come up with 3 ways to do this. By learning these tips, you'll have good understandings of how you can turn employees into brand advocates with branded corporate gifts.
Provide employee training on social media trends
Social media serves as the most direct way for employees to endorse your company products and services. Though companies can’t expect all employees to be social-media-ready in this day and age, hosting training sessions to boost their online marketing skills can be a plus. For instance, companies can hold a monthly social media workshop to highlight customer trends and encourage employees to be aware of it.
Turn employees into social media advocates. Encourage employees to share their workday or interesting experiences on social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram. This provides a sense of transparency and trust, allowing customers to have a peep into your company culture and/or on-going campaigns.
Store marketing deliverables in one single place
Create a cloud folder to keep all the published contents stored and make it accessible to your team. So when employees need information from previously published contents or have the need to repurpose a similar content, they’ll know where to find it.
Involving employees on your team during social media ambassador campaign can encourage them to provide ideas for the content. Whether it’s a meme or a catchy slogan, these ideas can be on the content list for future use in social media marketing.
Help employees build LinkedIn profile
Most of your employees are on LinkedIn, but the majority of them don’t really post anything. LinkedIn is the most popular B2B platforms to build brand awareness and maintain relationships with customers in terms of effective marketing.
As the profile of your employees grows, more people will pay attention to your business. Employees posting engaging content such as their experience with the company or stories getting branded corporate gifts are great chances to shape the public image of your brand.
Branded corporate gifts benefit your brand image, increase employees engagement, and create a top-down branding ambassador movement for your business. Allocating budgets in branded business gifts can only be a worthwhile investment.