Providing your customers, sales prospects & employees with quality gifts that make an impact (improve relationships, convert prospects into customers & motivate employees) has never been more important. As businesses increasingly search for cost-effective ways to build and maintain relationships in the absence of face-to-face meetings, corporate gifting frequency has increased. That’s because corporate gifting helps with customer retention, which drives profitability, and plays a key role in sales prospecting as well. Research indicates that distributing a small business gift at the start of negotiations can help sales representatives generate more than twice as much revenue.
To achieve a better ROI from your company’s gifting program, try utilizing some of these rising corporate gifting trends in 2022:
5.) Kitted Gifts & Custom Corporate Gift Boxes
Demand for bundled gift packages like custom corporate gift baskets, branded gift boxes, and swag packs increased in 2021. With distributed teams, remote work, and virtual sales meetings becoming commonplace, this trend shows no sign of slowing down. Embroidery, direct-to-garment printing, and screen printing as well as kitting and custom packaging services can help your company provide the type of personalized business gifts that leave a lasting impression on sales prospects, clients, and your hardworking employees.
4.) Eco-Friendly Packaging and Gifts
Sustainability in corporate gift giving is a fast-growing trend that is here to stay. U.S. consumers increasingly value sustainable products and eco-friendly brands. The 2020 ASI Global Ad Impressions Study found that 46% of consumers have a more favorable opinion of an advertiser if the promotional product gift they received was environmentally friendly. Luckily, your company can reduce your carbon footprint, cut costs, and still provide your clients, sales prospects, and employees with great gifts. A few simple ways to make your corporate gifting program more eco-friendly in 2022 include:
- Purchasing fewer, higher quality business gifts that will be kept longer.
- Utilizing compostable, biodegradable & recycled packaging materials – e.g. Kraft paper, recycled corrugated cardboard.
- Gifting items made from more sustainable and environmentally friendly materials like bamboo and recycled cotton.
- Utilizing gift cards in your corporate gifting strategy.
3.) Choice-Based Gifting
Thanks to technology, impactful and cost-effective corporate gifting has never been easier. Companies are increasingly turning to corporate gifting platforms like an online company store to streamline the corporate gifting process – including sourcing, packaging, and delivery – and offer choice-based gifting to clients, sales prospects, and employees. Allowing your gift recipients to choose their own gifts from an online company store helps reduce unnecessary spending and environmental waste.
With choice-based gifting via an online company store your company can:
- Use email or text, QR codes and NFC tags, or printed cards to distribute promo codes to sales prospects so they can choose exactly what they want from your online store – instead of making them lug around heavy gifts at a sales meeting, conference, or trade show.
- Let employees select their own holiday and work anniversary gifts.
- Offer a wider selection of customer loyalty rewards, including custom branded apparel, to turn devoted customers into de facto brand ambassadors.
2.) Made in the USA and Artisan Gifts
Gifting handcrafted specialty food items and products that were manufactured in the United States is an easy way to leave a positive impression on sales prospects, customers, and employees. Both artisan, handmade goods and USA-made products are fast-growing consumer trends. Locally sourced, organic, and artisanal food gifts are increasingly popular with younger consumers like millennials and Gen Z. Items manufactured in the USA are also preferred, especially by baby boomers, women, and consumers living in the South, West, and Midwest regions. 57% of consumers have a more favorable opinion of an advertiser if gifted a promotional product that was made in the USA. Some of the USA-made and artisan products we’re proud to include in our custom corporate gift boxes include:
- Lush Wine Mix – organic mulled wine mixes from a woman-owned company.
- Bella+Canvas – American-made shirt collections; largest dyer & cutter of apparel in the U.S.
- Hammond’s Candies ➤ – handmade in Denver, CO since 1920.
- 88 Acres ➤ – small batch seed bars baked in Boston, MA by a family-owned small business.
- Titleist – iconic Made in USA golf balls.
- Taza Chocolate – organic stone ground chocolates manufactured in Somerville, MA.
1.) Digital Corporate Gifts
Digital gifts including electronic gift cards, digital journals, eBooks, personalized video messages, and even corporate NFTs are growing in popularity. Social distancing during the pandemic increased interest in online gifting amongst consumers and drove eGift card sales. A recent study of 300 corporate gift givers found that digital gift cards are purchased more frequently than any other type of gift – excluding physical gift cards.
Beyond gift cards, consumers are increasingly interested in born-digital content like NFTs. In 2021, Taco Bell generated publicity and boosted brand engagement by selling taco-themed digital images in a NFT marketplace to raise money for their charitable foundation. According to Forbes, “Brands can use NFT technology to provide personalized gifts, vouchers or more to their customers.”
A corporate gifting platform like an online company store makes it easy to provide access to digital gift cards and other digital corporate gifts for customers, clients, and sales prospects. An online company store also lets your company outsource and automate much of the corporate gifting process – after an authorized user places a stocking order, we’ll receive it, customize and/or store it for you, and ship it out from our warehouse anytime an order is placed. Access to rich data and analytics also helps your business make more informed purchasing decisions.
Identify Corporate Gifting Trends
To make the most of your corporate gift giving budget in 2022, we suggest:
- choosing cost-effective, on-trend gifts.
- customizing business gifts to leave a lasting impression on recipients.
- outsourcing and automating much of the corporate gifting process to reduce unnecessary expenditures and save valuable staff time.
Metron Branding can help make your corporate gifting program more efficient with our custom gift services and online company stores tailored to your specifications. To maximize the ROI of your corporate gifting budget in 2022, contact us to set up a consultation today.