At Greetabl, we believe client gifts can be one of the most powerful tools to strengthen your professional relationships. Implementing a gifting strategy can increase referrals, purchase frequency, and overall customer satisfaction. Money in the bank, right?
As a performance marketer, I firmly believe any dollar wisely spent on client gifts will come back tenfold. Depending on your goals, the ROI will appear in your repeat business, number of reviews, or brand authority.
What do I mean when I say “wisely”? A customer recently reached out to our Customer Happiness team and asked, “I am sending client gifts but I am not seeing the desired results. What am I doing wrong?”. That’s a great question.
Ultimately, your success boils down to a few key details. From my perspective, it’s all about timeliness, personalization, and action-oriented messaging. We will walk through exactly what that means in detail, but we’ll first begin with where you’re starting now.
Evaluating Your Current Approach
Before diving into best practices, I am first going to ask you to take an honest look at your professional gifting strategy. Ask yourself:
- Am I showing a higher-than-average level of thoughtfulness and care for my customers?
- Am I creating meaningful points of connection and strengthening my relationships?
- Does my outreach communicate more than, “I sent a gift out of obligation or as my standard of practice”?
If you’re failing to approach your client gifts with a high level of thoughtfulness, let’s re-evaluate your strategy. You’d be surprised what a few small and quick changes can do in the way of your customer relationships.
Not sure how to answer the above? To give a clear and honest self-evaluation, try focusing on your customer. Ask:
- Are your customers reaching out to you upon receiving their gifts?
- If relevant, are your customers sharing their gifts on social media and/or within their networks?
- Has my (insert desired key performance indicator) increased since implementing my outreach?
Methods to Improve Your Outreach
If you’re not receiving your desired results, I have a few suggestions that could help improve your response rate. You know your business best, so don’t be afraid to tailor these approaches to your customer base:
- Consider sending gifts at a different stage of your customer journey. One of the most common use cases we see for businesses is to send the gift right after booking a new client to welcome them to your services. This generates excitement for your partnership ahead and sets the tone for your standard of thoughtfulness and care.
- Consider adding photos, if that feels appropriate. One of the things that makes the Greetabl unboxing experience so special is seeing photos on the inside. We have a full library of stock photos and quotes available in the builder to make it super quick and easy to add a couple of photos. This undoubtedly adds an extra level of personalization to your gifts. We’ve also seen Greetabl customers use one square to include their logo or a business card – this is usually a really successful way to inject a little more of your brand into the Greetabl gift.
- Include a Call-to-Action in your message. The Greetabl customers who see the most success use our gifts as a conversation starter. We recommend including a question or a suggested next step in the message of your gift. For example, you could include a sentence asking your clients how the first week on the new job went. You could also remind them to reach out to let you know if they have any feedback on what it was like working with you.
- Follow up with an email to let them know something fun is on the way. Some of our Greetabl community members love this tactic and some really don’t, so do what feels best for your business. We’ve seen some clients get much higher response rates when they send an email one or two days after they order their Greetabl gift. Letting your recipient know something is headed their way is a small gesture with a big impact. The downside of this is it takes a little bit of the surprise out of the experience, but the positive side is that it builds the anticipation. It also gives them an easy way to reach back out to you to thank you once they have received the gift.
More tips when using Greetabl:
- Most Greetabl customers have a very high response rate and see a high volume of social shares. The businesses that get the highest number of shares often implement few best practices including their business name and personalize the message for the recipient.
- Tailor your approach. We don’t recommend a one-size-fits-all approach because no two businesses are the same. Refer to the above note on the client journey and walk yourself through your business.
- Avoid generic messaging. The point of your gifting outreach is to make your clients feel appreciated and special. By copying and pasting your words, you’re unintentionally sending a message that you care… but not that much.
Pressed for time? Consider making a template to follow for your outreach:
Hi (Client Name),
Thanks for an amazing partnership! I am so glad we got to work on (insert details of project) together. Please let me know if you have any feedback on the collaboration, as I look forward to finding more opportunities to create a little magic together.
Best, (Your Name)
This means you still get to personalize your message, but you don’t have to re-invent the wheel each time you send a gift. We won’t tell anyone your secret.
If you’re left with questions about client gifting, please reach out to [email protected] or live chat our team on the website! We’re happy to assist with gift selection, craft the perfect message, and help you leverage the most out of your gifting experience. Consider our team the employees you don’t have to pay.
Interested in a bulk send or our ongoing program? Visit our corporate page here.
Brittany Wells is the Director of Marketing at Greetabl.