Business Gifts - Perfect For a Raft of Scenarios

By Imogen Brown

There are various reasons why company executives utilise promotional products. The major one, though, is to enhance or solidify a customer relationship. If you have business dealings with a client that extends over many years, you gift corporate branded business gifts to say thanks to that customer for their loyalty to your business. You might also want to give a business gift when a brand new customer begins to spend money with you. You might also want to distribute a promotional business gift to show your appreciation. In fact, you may even think about passing out promotional business gifts to your staff.

Informing people, including your colleagues, know that you value them and their custom is a major part of the relationship process. It is human nature to want to feel appreciated and it is not really that tough to make someone a long standing customer or employee, just by handing them a token of your appreciation.

So when do you decide to hand out these corporate business gifts? Is there a rule of thumb to help you to determine when you purchase corporate business gifts and distribute them? The answer to these questions is yes, there are some key times when corporate gifting is appropriate. Set out below is a good guide you can use. Promotional gifts are a good idea when:

1. You need to kick off some competition and challenge employees to stretch to make a quarterly or monthly target so you arrange what is universally known as an Incentive Program. Incentive Programs, when perfectly put together create a healthy sense of competition and frequently improve moral. If you peek into Incentive Programs you will find there are in effect two types:
1) you purchase a business promotional gift or reward and it is won by the first employee who meets the target you put before them, and
2) you start a program where each and every employee who meets the target is rewarded the business gift.

The choice of promotional gift(s) you buy depends on how many you are intending on distribute. If you are gifting only a single product you can purchase a proportionally more costly corporate gift; for instance a three - day excursion somewhere or tickets to a concert etc. If you are intending to provide numerous people with the corporate gift, you may need to go for those that are not as costly.

2. An alternative time, when promotional gifts might be appropriate, is during various holidays. You need to do this carefully as it would be culturally insane to offer Xmas promotional business gifts if you have members of staff or clients who are not Christian.

3. Thanking clients and employee birthdays is another time when business gifts can be handed out. If you are handing out a business gift for a birthday to a member of staff, you must make sure that you do the same for all employees. Nothing will lower moral faster than treating one member of staff different than the others. If you are handing out client's corporate gifts on their birthdays, you could consider vouchers for a reduction off of their next purchase.

4. We all like to thank members of staff who are retiring and a corporate retirement product is an excellent way to say goodbye and thanks. If you have a sizable company, you may start up a variety of different types of retirement promotional for various numbers of years served. It would be unprofessional to give someone who had been with the company for 25 years the same keychain that the retiree who has been with the organisation 2 years receives.

Without a shadow of a doubt, there really are no absolute, written in stone, times when promotional gifts should be distributed. It is a matter of what suits what organisation best.

Imogen Brown is the marketing manager for Clickpromogifts one of the UK's premier suppliers of promotional keyrings and promotional keyrings.