Business Gifting Is Powerful – You Done It Yet?

By Don Wong

While individual gift-giving to near and dear ones is a long-standing practice, not many are aware of the practice of offering corporate gifts. These gifts, unlike gifts to friends and family, are given to clients or employees to show thankfulness for their patronage or service.

These gifts are expensive things and they normally do not have any role to play in promoting the products or services of the company, which means that they do not bear any reference to the company. However, companies often do promotion through distribution of merchandise like key chains, pen holders, USB drives, and other gifts to the workforce and prospective customers.

The gifts to be given by the company should be selected according to the needs and desires of the person for whom it is intended. Although custom and costly gift items are given to key customers of the company, the employees are usually given a standard gift, which is not very expensive, but has good utility.

In order to reinforce and promote a healthy association with a client or an employee of the organization, it is essential to remember that the apparent worth of the corporate gift has a big role of play. Conferring with in house lawyers of your company before giving corporate gifts is recommended, because in some place the law might prohibit it.

It’s advisable to prepare for corporate gift-giving beforehand by allocating a budget, estimating the number of gifts to purchase, and looking for bulk deals with retailers. The planning part is more significant with respect to employee gifts, even more so if your company is a mid-sized or large entity. You should procure the correct number of gifts so that no employee whom you plan to thank is missed out.

Offering corporate gifts to employees and clients helps in strengthening the professional association, and it is a smart business practice to adopt. However, two things must be kept in consideration – the law and your budget.