When was the last time you showed customers you value them?
75% of consumers prefer brands that offer rewards. Even though rewards may come as loyalty programs or discounts, you can send other custom corporate gifts.
A postcard on Valentine’s Day, birthday greeting card, coupon, and other courtesies delivered by mail also boost customer loyalty. They show customers your appreciation and encourage them to stay faithful to your brand.
Not sure what customer appreciation gifts work best?
In our article, we’ve listed top customer appreciation gift options to bring you inspiration. You will also learn why, when, and how to send them.
Why Do Businesses Need to Send Customer Appreciation Gifts?
First of all, it’s nice. Custom corporate gifts are a great way to thank the people who support your brand. They deserve it.
Apart from that, there are some purely financial and marketing reasons to deliver custom corporate gifts. By strengthening your customer relationships, you get leads that are more likely to convert. This brings a range of tangible benefits:
#1. Customer appreciation gifts improve repeat sales
When you deliver custom corporate gifts, you invest in customer loyalty. The chance of selling a product or service to an existing customer is up to 70%. People who receive well-thought-out customer appreciation gifts are more likely to buy again and stay loyal.
#2. Customer appreciation gifts have great ROI
Although you will need to spend some money on buying custom corporate gifts, in the long run, they pay off. Targeted at your best accounts, they help renew dropped conversations, increase the number of references, and decrease churn.
#3. Customer appreciation gifts reactivate dormant customers
If a customer has already purchased from you but stopped doing it for any reason, gift sets can help. A coupon, witty greeting, or a helpful product sample or service trial can remind them about your brand. It’s an excellent opportunity to reach out to inactive leads.
Read 5 Tips On Using Direct Mail For Client Reactivation
#4. Customer appreciation gifts give you a competitive advantage
Only 18% of companies focus on customer retention. This means that by adopting a customer retention campaign with gift cards, you can easily outperform other brands in your niche.
#5. Customer appreciation gifts make you noticeable
Corporate gifts offer an offline customer experience we all miss so much. When most customer communications default to email addresses, custom corporate gifts help your company stand out from the crowd.
8 Ideas for Customer Appreciation Gifts Sent in Batches
When it comes to custom corporate gifts, you can choose any gift and packaging type. A box of sweets, socks, or flowers? Great! Everything works if you do it right.
In our article, we want to focus on cost-effective gift ideas. These options are easy to deliver in batches and don’t require huge investment.
- Birthday postcards. Send greeting postcards to customers on their birthday, offering them a discount or just saying congrats. If you don’t collect the birth data from your leads, you can send a postcard on your company’s birthday. In the second case, make sure you are ready to offer customers some bonuses, not just a piece of mail.
- Milestone postcards. When customers stay with your company for X years, make the tenth order, or reach any milestone you’ve set, send them a greeting postcard.
Discover 7 Common-Triggering Events For Omni-Channel Campaigns
- Pre-sales coupons. If you are about to start sales, let your existing customers tap in first. You can send them a leaflet with access to secret deals as a small gift.
- Discount codes. Personal discounts are the most popular and adored form of customer appreciation gifts. But remember to set the rules and select a proper occasion. There is no need to keep scattering discounts all the time.
- Free upgrade offers. A complimentary or time-limited plan upgrade may be a great gift if you offer services or tech products. You can send such offers to all customers who have stayed with you for two years, for example.
- Handwritten letters. Millennials and older generations still remember handwritten letters and secretly love them. You can write such letters manually or pick a suitable font to print them in large volumes.
- Holiday cards. Use Valentine’s Day, Christmas, New Year, or Easter to tell customers you appreciate them. No need to send postcards and custom corporate gifts on all significant holidays. Choose one day and make it a tradition.
- Face masks. As long as the pandemic affects consumers, hygienic products will remain trendy. Don’t hesitate to show your care and send masks, sanitizers, and other stuff as customer appreciation gifts in batches.
As you can see, for batch delivery, customer appreciation gifts must be universal. Unless you sell some luxury products or services, a simple postcard may be enough to make customers feel valued. Such simple gestures significantly improve customer service and satisfaction.
How to Send Customer Appreciation Gifts in Batches (FedEx, UPS Batch Processing, and More)
When you need to deliver customer appreciation gifts in batches, there are three options to choose from. You can use a third-party delivery service like UPS batch shipping, ask the manufacturer of gifts to organize delivery, or automate the process. The choice will depend on your business needs and the type of custom corporate gifts.
FedEx, UPS batch shipping, and other third-party providers
Mailing services like FedEx or UPS batch shipping offer dozens of mailing options (e.g., UPS Next Day Air delivery, UPS Ground Shipping, etc.) through batch file import. You may need to use mailing providers if you ship large gifts. Another case is if your mailing list is too small to invest in mailing automation.
In case you opt for FedEx or UPS batch shipping, we recommend researching different mailing options. The rates and conditions greatly vary. Visit this link for UPS batch shipping and this page for FedEx rates.
Batch mailing services from gift producers
Some companies that offer branded products or gift boxes can also organize delivery. If you don’t want to manage shipment and printing labels, you can fully outsource the process.
This option is suitable for relatively expensive gifts like flowers, candy boxes, clothes, etc. Even though it’s possible to send them in batches, such marketing campaigns are too costly for most businesses. Usually, they’re used for selected accounts or by luxury brands, with a smaller list of recipients.
Automated mail delivery services
Automated batch mailing is a perfect solution for the larger-scale gift ideas listed in our article. With software like Inkit, you can automatically forward personalized postcards to printers and deliver them in batches. UPS batch shipping cannot do this.
Such printing is cost-effective and fast. Postcards and leaflets are among the most cost-effective types of customer appreciation gifts. The best thing is that you can fully automate custom corporate gifts. The software will automatically print and ship personalized mail based on triggers or events.
Inkit for Automated Delivery of Customer Appreciation Gifts
Inkit is a reach enablement platform that automates the delivery of customer appreciation gifts and other business processes.
Inkit Send product can help you manage offline shipment campaigns. The tool initiates direct mail printing based on triggers and delivers the mail pieces to specific people. You can use it to automate custom corporate gifts delivery and run omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Apart from Send, Inkit includes Render and Verify products. Render generates printable PDF documents from HTML file format. This allows you to properly store and manage all your paper and paperless communications and ensure the best document governance practices.
At the same time, Verify validates the addresses for delivery. Thanks to such a combination of tools, your gifts will never be lost or returned.
Do you want to test Inkit or learn more about how it works? Contact us for a demo.
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