Whether you’re looking to build awareness for your brand or simply looking to thank your customers, partners and employees for their support, corporate gift boxes can be a valuable tool to support your marketing and PR efforts.
But what to put inside? Here’s our top tips for selecting the best corporate gifts for your business.
The ideal corporate gift box should be….
Useful
A lot of companies use corporate gifts as an excuse to slap their brand across a bunch of generic merchandise which don’t really offer any practical value to the people receiving them. Either they don’t have a use for the gift, or they already own the item in question.
The result? Your gift – and by extension, your brand – gets forgotten.
To make a lasting impact on your recipients, you really have to give something that they’ll use often. It’s also a good idea to pick out consumable items; that way, even if they already own their own copy of the item, they’ll keep yours around and use it once their own one has run out.
A prime example is a branded notebook. Everyone needs a space to jot things down, and it’ll remain useful even if your recipients already have a notebook or two; they can just pick up yours once their others have been filled, or delegate yours to one purpose (eg work notes) while keeping the others for different purposes (eg life planning and personal notes).
Relevant
There’s another problem with pasting your brand all over any old merch – brand relevance.
Unless your gift is strongly associated with the service you offer, it won’t really serve to remind recipients of your brand when they use it. They may grow familiar with your logo and visual branding through your gift, but they won’t remember what you can actually do for them – which means they won’t seek you out when they need you.
For gifts that translate into future business, be sure to choose items which reflect your company’s offering. Here’s a few examples:
- If you’re a fitness brand, you might consider offering a branded water bottle or a gym towel.
- If you’re a travel agency or tourism brand, a branded bottle of sunscreen or a travel pillow might be ideal choices for gifts.
- If you’re a consumer technology company, you could offer a branded power bank, a charging cable or a USB drive.
Affordable
You don’t have to break the bank to offer useful, highly relevant gifts. In fact, it’s better to stick to lower-priced items – otherwise your gift recipients might assume you’re trying to bribe their business!
By setting a budget and sticking to it, you’ll avoid wasting your investment on overblown gifts which won’t lead to increased business down the line.
Personalised
Giving each and every recipient a completely unique gift might be going a little overboard, but there are a few cost-effective ways to add a personalised touch.
For starters, you can use variable data printing to add the names of your recipient to eah gift box; but you can go further by selecting a gift with a range of variants and asking recipients to choose their preferred option.
For example, you could gift branded clothing in a range of sizes; food or drinks in a range of flavours and dietary/allergy-safe options; or phone accessories tailored to each recipient’s make and model.
To help you manage the costs of producing your gifts, it’s best to ask your recipients for their preferences before you order in. This might spoil the surprise a little, but ultimately your recipients will appreciate the thoughtfulness!
Environmentally-friendly
Let’s face it; we’ve all got enough clutter in our lives, and nobody wants the guilt of sending perfectly good items to landfill.
If your gift recipients decide they’d rather not keep your gift, the option to recycle it (or the reassurance that it’ll safely biodegrade) can give them peace of mind. Plus, it paints your organisation as a considerate, responsible brand.
Legally sound
No, we’re not warning against giving your recipients illegal items; that goes without saying!
Instead, we’re advocating that you take a look over the Bribery Act 2010, which sets out the rules and regulations for avoiding corporate bribery. A bit of innocent gift-giving may seem harmless enough; but if it’s misinterpreted as bribery tactics, it can have serious ramifications for your business.
The Bribery Act does not outlaw giving gifts, but be sure to read and adhere to the regulations to keep your gifting generosity above the law.
Beautiful
A little touch of presentation goes a long way to making your gift box feel special.
Here’s where box sleeves come in; offering a quick, flexible and cost-effective way to customise blank boxes with your own artwork and branding. A4 and A3 box sleeve sizes can even be individually customised via the aforementioned variable data printing, so you can add recipients’ names and personal messages to each sleeve in your print run.
Looking for box sleeves for your corporate gifts? Get in touch with our team on 02380 878030 or email Sales@BoxSleevePrinting.co.ukto discuss your print needs today!