Promoting your brand with corporate gifts is a marketing strategy that always yields good results.
If you’re not sure, don’t miss our article on the 10 ways to justify investment in promotional gifts.
Once the decision to make the investment has been taken, some doubts may arise or wrong decisions may be made that could lead to something going wrong.
To avoid this, we have prepared some tips that may be useful to you when choosing corporate gifts successfully.
1. Selection of the corporate gifts
Corporate gift catalogues feature thousands of references and thousands of different items that can be personalised.
If you’re not sure which item to purchase, making a decision can be a challenging task.
Therefore, it’s important to choose a supplier with an updated website, good usability, and an online store that allows you to calculate prices, so you can compare different items you may be interested in.
Moreover, it’s important to know if there’s a real person on the other side whom you can contact to resolve any doubts. Customer service is key when choosing a supplier.
When choosing the items, several factors should be taken into account.
- The type of person who will receive the gift: whether they are elderly people, children, businessmen, pet owners, etc.
- The time of year: giving umbrellas in summer or fans in winter sounds a bit odd.
- The sector of the brand to be promoted: especially if the brand is in adult products, such as beverages or cigarettes, it shouldn’t be promoted on items aimed at minors.
- The utility of the items: whether it’s for gifting at events, for gifting with the purchase of your product, or for internal use by employees, etc.
2. Not always choosing the cheapest item
It’s important to consider that when customizing promotional items, you’re associating your image with those particular items.
Not everyone can afford luxury corporate gifts, but it’s also not necessary to choose the cheapest item just to save a few pounds.
We recommend comparing prices of various models and selecting an item of moderate price that meets a minimum quality standard, so that it endures over time and your company’s image remains associated with quality items.
3. Adapting your design or logo to the product
Often, the client’s insistence on branding a promotional gift with specific features with their logo prevents getting the most out of the final design.
It’s important to note that certain products such as pens or custom USBs often have limited branding surfaces, and it’s often necessary to adapt the logo or image to be personalised to ensure it looks perfect.
In this case, it’s crucial to have various versions of the logo (original, black and white, ‘horizontal’ version, separating the slogan or text from the icon or image…) to allow for adjustments to the surface of the promotional item.
4. Selecting the ideal type of branding
Some products offer a choice of different types of branding for customization. Metal items, such as some custom USBs, pens, or cardholders, allow for either stamping or laser engraving.
Opting for stamping provides the option to display the logo or design with its original colours, but there is a risk that over time, due to use and handling, parts of the logo may fade.
This is not the case with laser engraving, which is much more durable and looks more elegant on certain items, but on the downside, we lose the logo’s colours.
Inform yourself about the available types of branding for the products you choose and seek advice on which is the best option.
5. Determining the optimal quantity
The corporate gifts sector is quite particular. One of the challenges is the unit cost when ordering small quantities.
We can better illustrate this with an example:
Taking the Pelcu keychain model as a reference, if you only want to order 10 units customized in one colour, the cost would be €170.37.
For just €17 more, we can get an additional 90 pens, as 100 units cost €187.55. Therefore, choosing the quantity is important to not miss out on the opportunity to have many more units for very little extra money.
6. Placing the order in advance
One of the main issues when placing orders is often the lack of consideration for the preparation time required.
The typical steps in the purchasing process are as follows:
- Search and select the items
- Calculate their price
- Decide to place the order
- Prepare the final design
- Confirm the design is okay
- Initiate the order
- Customize the items in the workshop
- Send them to the customer
All these phases of the purchasing process can be completed in a few days.
But it can also take several weeks, depending on the speed of decision-making, as well as the availability of the item or the workload of the production workshop.
Many customers think about corporate gifts they need too late, especially when it comes to events with a set date, and often find themselves unable to obtain personalised gifts.
They end up requesting non-personalized items, which is a disadvantage compared to having corporate gifts personalised with the logo or image of the event or company.
7. Requesting a sample of the item to be personalised
If you’re unsure about the quality of the chosen item, it would be advisable to see and feel the corporate gifts before placing the order.
Sometimes the item may differ slightly from the catalogue photo, whether in texture, material, colour, etc.
These samples come without personalization, but are useful if you want to confirm the quality of the product.
8. Choosing a trusted supplier
Many customers have told us how happy they are to have found a promotional marketing agency like ours, after one or several unsatisfactory experiences with other suppliers.
The main issues often come with hidden extra costs (such as transportation or taxes) or with after-sales service, in case of any unforeseen circumstances.
That’s why we like to show final prices, with no hidden costs, including transportation and branding.
Additionally, if the item doesn’t meet your expectations, we will always respond by offering solutions so that the customer is always satisfied with our service.
