Corporate gifting can be an important part of your overall business strategy. From figuring out the value of corporate gifting to coming up with new corporate gift ideas, there’s a lot to keep up with.
The following is a guide to everything you should know.
What Is Corporate Gifting?
Corporate gifting is when you send someone a gift on behalf of your business. The recipient could be a client, employee, customer, vendor, or prospect. You might also gift the families of the people listed as well.
There are instances where you might send a gift just because you feel inspired to do so.
Then, in other situations, you’re doing it for a particular reason, such as a holiday, birthday, or a personal achievement. You can also send corporate gifts to recognize a professional achievement, like getting a new qualification or promotion.
Other reasons are client appreciation, welcoming a new employee or client, or gifts to celebrate an anniversary with the company.
Corporate gifts don’t need to be expensive or big to be meaningful.
Why Is Gifting Good for Business?
From a business perspective, there are advantages to having a gifting strategy.
These advantages include:
- You get the opportunity to build relationships with your clients. You want to impress clients and build lasting business relationships with them. You can offer a great product or service, provide the best customer service, and then also add some gifts into the mix.
Clients appreciate that they’re more than a number on a spreadsheet to you. You’re treating them as if they’re special to your business, which they are. You might send a client gift in recognition of their anniversary working with you, or perhaps to congratulate them on an important achievement in their professional life. - You can encourage prospects to become customers through the sending of gifts. You can start the relationship the right way and set yourself apart as the company they should do business with.
Corporate gifts can help you stand out, especially when they’re personalized and thoughtful. Following up after a first meeting is a good time to send a gift for this reason. - Your employees are your top asset, so you can show them that you recognize and appreciate their hard work with gifts. Your employees need to feel appreciated, and this is one of the best ways you can reduce your turnover.
You might send gifts for birthdays or work anniversaries or when employees do an especially great job on a project.
The Logistics
Before you start sending out gifts to anyone, remember the following:
- It’s important to have a strategy for corporate gifting and specific policies. You want to make sure you treat everyone similarly and creating experiences that are in line with one another.
You want to have a policy outlining your approach to gifting. This policy should include the budget per gift and the types of gifts you’re going to send. You also want to highlight when you’ll send them and how you can keep your corporate gifting in line with your values.
If one of your corporate values is sustainability, for example, then you want to make sure that you’re keeping that in mind when choosing gifts. - Is it okay if your employees receive gifts from contacts at other businesses? If you’re gifting people, then your team members might get gifts too, so you have to clarify if that’s okay with you and whether they should let you know when they receive something.
- There are tax implications you have to consider. Sending corporate gifts can, at times, be tax deductible. It depends on the type of gift and its value. According to the IRS, organizations can deduct gifts of up to $25 for each individual every tax year.
That includes direct gifts, which are given to an employee, and indirect gifts given to a employee’s family or to a client. If you give gift cards, the full cost can be tax deductible because they’re classified as income, so you have to withhold taxes for these.
Keep records of any corporate gifts and details on the business reasons for sending them. - Certain clients can’t receive corporate gifts. For example, if someone is in a position of power or is a government employee, they may not be able to accept a gift. You also need to check with the company of a client before sending a high-value gift and make sure they can accept them.
Ideas For Corporate Gifts
There are so many professional and fun gift ideas out there, but some you might consider include:
- A wellness kit. Anything involving wellness is going to be a popular item among employees, clients, and their families. You can encourage them to practice self-care while showing you appreciate them and all they do.
Wellness-related gifts also highlight that you encourage people to have a balance between their work life and their personal lives. - Snack boxes. These can be a way to welcome someone to the team and show appreciation, and everyone loves a good snack.
- Theme boxes are fantastic. For example, maybe you send a coffee gift box with a combination of things that any coffee lover would be excited about, like the coffee itself, a mug or tumbler, and maybe some unique coffee flavors or creamers.
- Anytime you give something useful, it’s going to hold value for the recipient. A really good and useful gift idea right now is a massage gun. A massage gun promotes wellness and self-care, again, and can help take some of the physical stress off people at the end of the day.
Other useful and professional gift ideas include wireless earbuds, computer backpacks, or a waterproof mini-speaker.
A lot of employers are feeling the strain of a lack of employees at the moment. You want to make sure you retain the ones you have, and recognizing them with corporate gifts is one way to do that. You can also make long-term clients out of your current customers but show a similar sense of appreciation for them.
