How To: Corporate Holiday Gifting

‘Tis the season to start planning out your corporate holiday gifting strategy. No matter how daunting or stressful the process might seem, giving thoughtful holiday gifts is vital to keep your clients and/or employees feeling appreciated.

Not only is it crucial to gift during the holiday season, but it’s equally important to make those gifts as unique and personal as possible. You can lengthen the time from when your gift makes it to your receivers’ hands to when it ends up in the trash by giving them something that they actually want and will get use out of.

In this post, we’ll touch on some best practices and ideas for successful corporate holiday gifting.

The Season For Giving Back

It’s always a good idea to make the effort to give gifts that also give back, especially during this time of year. Doing good is something that can reflect positively back on you and your company as a whole. The positive energy and intent will be transferred to your recipients and can spread beyond your business’s usual reach.

You can add some meaning to your holiday gifts by choosing to give through a company who supports a greater cause or organization. Another great way to do good this season is to make sure you are gifting from local vendors to support small businesses.

Add Something Personal

If it’s possible for your company size and employee count, adding names and personal notes onto your gifts is always a plus. It can add another level of thoughtfulness to your gifts and make your clients or employees feel special, instead of just another number.

Additionally, if you know certain preferences of individual employees or clients, you can also put in the extra effort and add on personal touches specific to each recipient’s gift. For example, if you know of any dietary restrictions or are aware of their favorite foods, you can keep these in mind. This option might only apply to smaller scale businesses.

Skip The Heavy Branding

The last thing your clients or employees want is a heavily branded item that they can’t realistically enjoy outside of their work life. For example, a blanket or mug with a giant company logo across the front -- the products themselves are great, but the intense branding isn’t.

It can mean a lot more to give a nice, usable product from an outside brand. That said, you can still display your company’s image through the unboxing experience with branded packaging and letterheads. In addition, you can keep the actual gift itself on brand by sticking to items that you know align with your business and would be enjoyed by those working with you.

Keep Things Equal

To keep good gifting etiquette, you’ll want to ensure that your gifts are as equal in value as possible. No matter how close you may be with one of your coworkers or clients, it’s important that you don’t make it obvious that you’ve spent more on one recipient than another.

It’s also equally as important to not leave anyone out during the holiday season. Employees and clients can talk and if someone realizes they didn’t receive a gift when others did, they could become upset and grow resentful to your company.

When to Order Your Corporate Holiday Gifts

Starting your gift ordering process early is always best! Some benefits of ordering early include getting ahead of the rush, having the first selection of products or gift boxes, and avoiding any supply chain issues that might occur last minute.

We generally recommend ordering your business holiday gifts in August or September to ensure that you will get what you want and get it in time.

Business Holiday Gift Ideas

Now for the fun part; planning out the actual gifts. It can be tedious to handpick your corporate holiday gifts, especially if you have a larger company or if your recipient list is long. Of course, you can always default to just giving your clients and employees gift cards or restaurant vouchers -- which is still nice, but not as thoughtful.

We’re here to bridge this gap! We specialize in personalized, thoughtful gift-giving at scale. Through our corporate gifting, we do all the work for you by arranging custom gift boxes for 20 or more people. Our gift boxes are brandable and are fully customizable. We also only use goods sourced from small merchants, including those local to Arizona and beyond, which can let you feel good about giving gifts that give back.

If you are interested in learning more about our corporate gifting options, you can start by emailing us at hello@birdytell.com to tell us about your needs!