B2B Corporate Gifting
Corporate gifting isn’t exactly a new part of commerce. Gifting has been a long-standing facet of business for decades. But, with the economy shifting further online and with more workers moving to remote positions amid not only the pandemic but an emerging remote work culture that has ensued afterward, gifting has seen a renewed interest in business, especially among B2B businesses.
Having meetings mostly online, talking to people either on the phone or through an app, and never meeting them makes it extremely difficult for people to build real relationships and true partnerships. That’s why sending each other gifts becomes a terrific way to showcase appreciation.
Corporate gifting is a novel approach to building strong connections in business and keeps a needed human touch in business relationships, whether they be between employers and employees, teams and clients or customers, or marketing teams and prospective customers.
In the good old days, when we spent time with each other in the office, we would buy a cup of coffee for a colleague or a piece of chocolate. Now that’s not possible in many cases, and showing your gratefulness to someone or your appreciation becomes a slightly more daunting task. After all, sending virtual messages and spending some time on video calls just doesn’t quite have the same impact as making in-person connections.
B2B corporate gifting has become a highly important part of doing business in an increasingly online and remote business world, where companies can use corporate gifting as a way to strengthen human connections among employees, customers, and clients. Corporate gifting can bridge gaps left by a more online world where we don’t always meet face-to-face as much as was common at one time in business.
Many companies have taken advantage of the ways gifting can strengthen relationships even in the absence of in-person interaction. As a result, an entire industry has emerged to fulfill the needs of businesses that use gifting as a way to strengthen relationships and build connections at every level.
B2B corporate gifting has become a central component of many companies' efforts in outreach, marketing, and internal relationship building. Corporate gifts for employees have emerged as one of the most effective ways to boost employee loyalty and drive productivity and happiness, and executive corporate gifts have become a mainstay of marketing teams’ toolboxes.
Corporate gifting can range in the B2B world from simple considerations to high-end corporate swag, and it can take the form of anything from virtual gifts to locally sourced goods that show recipients that they’re well regarded and remembered personally. Having said that, in order for this process to be as optimized and effective as possible, it’s vital for your company to have a corporate gifting strategy. This gives you an idea of who you want to send gifts to, when you want to send them throughout the year, and what kind of gifts you might send. That way, the gifting company you choose to work with can more easily help you improve efficiency and gifting effectiveness.
B2B Gifting Platform
As gifting has emerged as a crucial part of many businesses' strategies in B2B, technology has evolved the corporate gifting industry to keep pace with changing needs that have emerged, and the introduction of gifting platforms is one of the most important. B2B gifting platforms offer businesses a streamlined approach to their gifting strategy that enables not only a more hands-off experience for senders while retaining personalization and customization options but also saves time for companies and enables them to scale their gifting to meet their needs.
The way gifting platforms do this is by automating and consolidating management. From one place, team members responsible for gifting can easily manage, track, and automate the process of gifting, even at a large scale.
Gifting platforms can be aimed at various uses, and some gifting platforms specialize in external connections, such as client and prospect gifting, while others are focused on internal gifting efforts, such as employee gifting.
Client gifting services that client gifting platforms provide access to can offer companies ways to easily scale their marketing efforts, while employee gifting platforms offer employers a way to easily manage employee gifting each year which can be scaled as the company grows. Gifting companies in the USA have evolved significantly in both cases to meet the ever-changing needs of businesses that use gifting as part of their revenue or productivity strategies.
Sending gifts to your employees, business partners, and clients is a terrific way to maintain relationships. When reading about it, you may consider why you didn’t start sooner, but you may also come to the conclusion that though gifting is an excellent strategy, executing it can be challenging.
Maintaining a gifting strategy can be extremely time-consuming and will likely require at least one person to be fully dedicated to it. That’s something most small, and middle-sized companies can’t afford. This is where corporate gifting platforms come to save the day by minimizing the effort required from your end and enabling you to design and send corporate promotional gifts to your most valuable business partners or customers.
If you already know exactly what kind of merchandise you want to create, the process will be even smoother and faster. Even if you don’t, the top corporate gifting platforms will offer to help you with choosing and designing the items you send out.
Corporate Gifting Industry
Thanks to the pandemic, the corporate gifting industry saw a rapid rise during the last few years. The lack of physical contact, the fact that many employees work remotely, and that you start partnerships without ever meeting your partners in the flesh have dramatically increased the need for a way to show people how you feel about them in a “real” way.
When someone lives across the country or—in some cases—across the world from where you are, the best way to showcase your recognition and appreciation is through gifts. That’s where corporate promotion gifts become useful and even an integral part of a business’s marketing and sales strategy. For example, explore the corporate gifting email templates that sales teams are using to secure time with decision makers within key accounts and accelerate deal velocity.
That has led to many small and large companies turning their attention to fulfillment services and corporate gifting platforms that help take some of the burdens off of them. After all, having a corporate gifting strategy is a lot simpler when you’re not responsible for designing, manufacturing, and shipping out every product with your brand’s logo or name on it. Of course, you still need to actively participate throughout much of the process, at least to start. With this said, the time and effort that you have to put in are significantly lower compared to completing everything in-house.
As companies have increasingly embraced gifting in recent years, the industry of gifting seems poised to grow significantly. And many people believe firmly in the power of gifting. That becomes clear when we look at gift industry trends. 2021 saw gifting become more important as the pandemic continued and more businesses elected to go increasingly online. According to a 2021 Gifting industry report from Coresight showed, the gifting industry is expected to reach $242 billion just by the end of that year and estimated that the industry will continue growing at a rate of 8.1% CAGR through 2024.
But the move can be seen even before then, looking at corporate gifting trends. 2021 wasn’t the first year this was noticed. In 2019 and 2020, another report from Knack showed that many businesses were already eyeing gifting as an important way to create important connections in business. That report showed that 89% of executives believed that business gifts bring people to close together.
Corporate gifting statistics from that report also pointed to 40% of executives responding that they planned to give more gifts in 2019 than in 2018. Indeed, the corporate gifting market size seems to be still growing as more companies opt to move to remote workforces for reasons ranging from pandemic safety to cost-effectiveness and employee preference.
As we can see, this new way of remote and hybrid work is not going away any time soon. In fact, it’s quickly turning into the new normal, as most employees see flexible work as a must for their daily lives. By knowing that, we can be certain that the need for corporate gifting will only go up, and the success of the entire industry will only continue to climb.
Corporate Gifting Companies
Corporate gifting companies aren’t a new idea that has emerged now because of the pandemic. The reality is they have been around for a long time, as sending gifts and creating merchandise is something that American businesses have been doing for decades. However, due to the pandemic, remote work increased the need for such companies and made their jobs a lot harder.
Nowadays, most organizations want to be able to order all kinds of items from more luxurious ones—suitable for business partners and clients—to more everyday items that can be offered as small employee incentives or brought to large events. With that said, finding one company that can source everything from a branded umbrella to a leather wallet is a challenging task, to say the least.
Along with that, some businesses are interested in creating custom gifts for special occasions and for the holidays, which requires even more flexibility from corporate gifting companies. That’s how the need for corporate gifting platforms emerged. They now provide business owners with the opportunity to work with several manufacturers while managing the entire process from one place.
Corporate gifting companies have indeed become more important as the industry has evolved, and many of them have become mainstays for businesses wanting to keep up with or engage gifting strategies to do everything from driving growth and engagement to keeping their teams close together even when workers are working remotely. And as important as gifting companies in the USA have become, many businesses have a wide range of user needs that one gifting company might not be able to fulfill.
This has led to the emergence of gifting platforms. Distinct from a standard gifting company, gifting platforms allow companies to send gifts from many businesses, small and large, that can range from simple handwritten notes and favors to elaborate custom corporate gifts.
Gifting platforms often use gifting companies as vendors within their ecosystem and offer businesses a way to use more than one gifting company while still being able to manage all their gifting needs in one place. They work with large companies and even small businesses that can be locally sourced. This has streamlined the process significantly for many businesses and allowed teams to find the right corporate gifting ideas easily, and ensure that their gifting isn’t just scaled to meet their needs but it’s efficient as well.
Top Corporate Gifting Companies
Top corporate gifting companies aim to offer memorable experiences, which can be vital for driving the effectiveness of gifting in the first place. More memorable gifts leave a bigger impression, and that’s where these companies come in. By offering higher value VIP corporate gifts, these companies enable businesses to create more impactful experiences, which in turn drive better results from gifting. Corporate gifting companies in the USA that offer higher-value gifting experiences are useful for businesses that hope to strike meaningful connections with high-profile customers and clients. For high-value recipients, it can be important not just to send a gift—but to send a truly meaningful and memorable gift.
And it isn’t just limited to national recipients. Many companies do business overseas or in other countries, and top gifting companies in the world offer international shipping and high-value gifting experiences that can be used even with customers and clients on the other side of the world. For larger companies that do a lot of business internationally, this can be vitally important for their marketing and client retention strategy.
Effective gift-giving can help businesses overcome international cultural barriers by expressing appreciation and interest through gifting—a somewhat universal gesture. Top corporate gifting companies in the world offer ways for businesses to drive these kinds of experiences even despite national boundaries.
The best corporate gifting business doesn’t just send people a packet with a hoodie and maybe a nice note. Instead, they try to create a truly memorable experience for the person who is receiving the gift. After all, even if you order an expensive gift, if it arrives in some clumpy packaging that looks like it's seen its best days, the impression you will make on the recipient won’t be good.
That’s why, when considering which corporate gifting platform to work with, you need to ask them not only about what items they can make but also what experience they’re willing and able to deliver. Often that includes things like special packaging, personal handwritten notes, and other small details that are there to make the recipient feel appreciated and thought of. When it comes to sending gifts, some businesses even want their packaging to have a specific smell and design.
Luxury Corporate Gifting Companies
Few companies would try to claim that they give the same presents to the CEO of a company as they do to their employees on their first day. A gift is a symbol of the relationship in one way or another, and when it comes to business, on some occasions, you need to spend a little bit more money and get a more luxurious present.
For example, when you’re signing a big, new deal or when you’re renewing a long-term partnership, sending your partners some branded pens, a mug, and a tote bag may make a bad impression on them, especially if you are making a high-value deal. For such cases, you need to be able to deliver a present that’s not only luxurious and expensive but that also has a personal touch and shows that you know a thing or two about the person receiving it.
For truly important recipients, luxury corporate gifting companies offer truly high-end gifting solutions. These stand out immediately as truly high-value gifts, and they’re used by companies that wish to truly underscore their appreciation in ways that aren't easy to overlook. Luxury corporate gifts can take a range of approaches, and they might be premium virtual gifts or even high-end in-person experiences, but they aim to not only please but impress as well. Whether they be highly sought-after electronic devices, premium foods, and drinks, or even premium subscriptions or event experiences, luxury corporate gifts are designed to be unforgettable and drive palpable results. These are gifts for truly high-priority recipients—very important clients or prospects, and even employees who employers wish to reward for all their hard work and dedication.
Luxury corporate gifting companies offer gifts that are often used internally to drive happiness, like expensive employee appreciation gifts and high-end corporate holiday gifts that remind employees that they’re important to the team and that their time and work are highly valued. These types of gifts can be quite effective at driving productivity and reducing employee turnover by showing team members how much they mean to the team. For driving internal relationships, luxury corporate gifting companies can be a huge asset to employers.
Luxury gifts come in all forms—they can be expensive dinners, rare bottles of alcohol, high-quality leather products, high-tech gadgets, and more. It all depends on who the recipient is and what they will most enjoy receiving. With that said, another important factor is the way the gift is presented. You don’t want to provide a cherished business partner or valuable client with a standard package from DHL in their cardboard box.
Instead, you want to create a luxurious experience. The best corporate gifting companies can make that happen by guiding you as you create your gift or box, choose colors and other design details, and make decisions regarding strategy. That way, when someone opens their present from your company, they will immediately feel cherished and certain that you’ve put effort into your gift. And after all, when it comes to business, that’s the kind of impression you want to leave on people.
Corporate Gifting Platform
As you know by now, giving gifts to B2B clients, business partners, and even prospective partners, is a must in a world that seems to be growing ever more distant. Gifting is a fantastic way to form a real connection with the people most important to your business. For employees, it’s a way to make them feel a part of the company, welcomed and immersed in the culture.
For clients, it's merchandise that they can use to show their loyalty to your brand and to spread awareness amongst their close circle or a high-value gift that leaves a lasting impression. And when it comes to business partners, it’s a way to show appreciation and solidify relationships that make your business grow.
With that said, having to come up with gift ideas, source them, and deliver so many different kinds of gifts is a difficult task even for big corporations, let alone small businesses. Getting help from a third party can take care of the more difficult and time-consuming parts of the process so your team can focus more on the creative and strategic side of things. This kind of all-in-one platform can be a lifesaver for companies that only want to give their stakeholders the very best but that don’t have a lot of time to spare.
When it comes to execution, corporate gifting platforms give teams everything they need to ensure that their gifting strategy is efficient, effective, and easy to manage. Corporate gifting platforms like Postal offer users a way to manage their gifting strategy at scale, pick from a wide range of gifting companies and vendors, and ensure that gifts are effective and relevant to recipients, on some occasions even branded. With a corporate gifting platform, team members can easily send customized corporate gifts, whether they be unique executive gifts or expensive employee gifts.
Corporate gifting platforms can even offer users ways to track how effective their gifts are and provide insights like ROI and acceptance rates, which help inform future gifting and underscore the importance of gifting when it comes to driving meaningful business relationships. Corporate gifting platforms are often cloud-deployed, enabling users to manage their swag all from one place without having to keep up with multiple platforms or download cumbersome software suites and streamline the entire process so that it can easily be scaled to meet any needs.
For businesses that need to scale their gifting, save time and effort and wide access ranges of gift options, and ensure that their gifting efforts are effective, companies like Postal offer everything they need to create meaningful experiences at scale and quickly. To learn more, you can request a demo with Postal and explore a marketplace with vast options of vendors, small and large, that provide memorable experiences and effective results.
