3 Ways Business Holiday Gifts Make You Smart

The holiday gift giving season is a sure thing, often presenting challenges for your business or nonprofit organization. Should you give? To whom?

If you’re even questioning whether to give or not, you can stop right there. No matter your budget, there are excellent business reasons why you should!

Here are 3 ways that giving out holiday gifts is a smart thing to do:

Demonstrate Customer Appreciation

Customers* who feel appreciated and valued tend to stick around, increase their purchasing or loyalty, and recommend your biz/org to others. As long as you continue to provide exceptional service, and what you offer brings value, they won’t have a reason to leave.

I’ll bet that you say “thank you” after each customer transaction, but what about your frequent or high-value customers? The holiday season is an excellent time to show your appreciation in a bigger way.

(*Customers include anyone your business/organization serves: clients, consumers, members, donors, volunteers, etc.)

Demonstrate Employee Appreciation

As with external customers, your biz/org would not exist without internal customers – its employees. More than 60% of businesses give gifts to employees during the holiday season to show their appreciation for their relationship and hard work over the past year. (Sanmar, 2016)

There are several things that employees really appreciate:

• Cash (notrelated to performance)
• Gift cards
• Extra time off
• Promotions (that come with pay increases)
• Flexible work hours

If you offer one of these options, employees will still appreciate a token gift during the season. If you don’t offer one of these options, then a nice holiday gift is certainly in order.

Keep Your Brand Front and Center

The holiday season is a busy one with parties, decorations, and uplifted spirits. Even though your customers will likely receive other business-related gifts and greeting cards, you don’t want to stand out as the one who didn’t send anything! If you think they won’t notice the omission, think again.

Giving holiday gifts keeps your brand top of mind with customers, prospects, and lapsed customers. The more they see and hear about it, the greater the chance they’ll remember it when it’s time to make a purchase or respond to a call to action.

Past surveys of corporate gift givers and recipients by the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), discovered that vendors who gave gifts were twice as likely to increase their chances of being contacted by recipients as those that didn’t have a gift program.

For more holiday gift giving tips and advice, download my FREE Holiday Gift Giving Guide!