Soon you will have eaten tons of turkey, watched endless football, and seen the news cover the insanity that is the malls. Hopefully, you've started your own gift-giving list and you're checking it twice. Which brings us to an important question: should you include clients on this list? Are holiday cards enough, or do you need to do something splashier? Should you bother doing anything at all? How do you figure out a budget? To help us answer these questions, we're turning to one of our valued consultants, Jennessa Durrani of Celebrate! Jennessa is an expert in event planning, promotions, and direct marketing campaigns. Below are Jennessa's tips for strategizing your company's holiday gift giving.
Questions You Should Ask:
1. What is your total budget? Remember that marketing plan you did last December or early in January? It should have included a promotion budget, and one of the items in that promotion budget should have been the December holidays. If you didn't include a promo budget this year, make sure you do it for 2008. In order to figure out your budget, consider how many clients you have in each tier (more on this below). Once you see a number in black and white, you may realize that your grand plan isn't economical. That's okay. The key to holiday gifts is personalization. Better to send a heartfelt personal note than an ostentatious gift basket with a cookie-cutter gift card.
2. What is your time commitment? Be careful-you could easily use December just to prepare and deliver gifts. Keep in mind your strengths. Are you a wiz (and fast) at baking banana breads? Schedule a baking day and do everything at once. Are you known for your impeccable taste in wines? Make that your gifts to clients. While you want to tailor gifts to the clients, you also want to consider what it is about YOU that you want to share with your clients.
3. Whom do you want to acknowledge? Divide your client list into tiers so you can customize your giving (and your budget!) to the type of recipient: large client (retainer), medium client, past client, colleague/lead source, vendor, etc. Brainstorm different ideas for each tier. Avoid preprinted holiday cards! If you're not willing to write the person a note on the card, he or she shouldn't be on the holiday card list to begin with. Remember, you're not using these gifts to get business; you're sending gifts because you want to say thanks and you want to extend sincere wishes for a happy holiday.
Need some ideas for each tier? Keep reading!
First Tier ($100-$200 per client)
1. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Think breakfast, lunch, or dinner out with an individual client, or invite several clients who either know each other or would like to know each other.
2. Zen Gifts. Think personalized gifts that you tailor to each client's interests or hobbies. Here are two examples:
- Golf Lover's Delight: Give your client a round of golf at his or her favorite golf course. But make it more special than that. Instead of just giving a card with a note inside, put together a "Ninth Hole Care Package." Inside this package, you could include tees, golf balls, a coupon for a mulligan, a gift certificate for the clubhouse, etc. Attach a note with the care package saying, "Don't Open Until Springtime."
- Work Life Balance. If you know someone who is juggling work with kids, give this person a package with ready-made activities he or she can do with the kids: Cookies in a jar, hot chocolate mix with marshmallows, chocolate spoons, and a subscription to Family Fun magazine or Real Simple.
3. Holiday Office Party. Personally deliver a meal to your client's office for the staff in order to recognize them. Include a tablecloth and cloth napkins-make it a fun "fine dining" experience for them. This can be tailored to correspond with a milestone in the person's business (and, thus, this will free up your December a bit). For example, you'd deliver an office party to a CPA firm on April 16.
Second Tier: ($50-$100 per client)
1. Gift baskets. Gift baskets or food items from a favorite vendor make nice gifts, but make sure you have the gifts come directly to you so you can personalize them with a handwritten note. Try to find a vendor who's not as well known, who has an interesting story, or who is somehow "related" to who you are: perhaps it's a women-owned business or maybe the vendor offers part of the proceeds to charity.
2. Themed Gifts: This is similar to "Zen Gifts" above. Come up with a theme and tailor the gifts to your clients. Here are two examples:
- Snow Day: Include a favorite book, hot chocolate, cookies in a jar, slippers.
- By the Fire: Include wine glasses, bottle of wine, great cheese and crackers, great chocolates. If alcohol is a no-no, go with mulling spices for hot apple cider.
3. Baker's Delight: Bake cookies (or whatever your specialty is), include the recipe, and send with a personal note. Better yet, deliver them personally if the client is nearby.
Third Tier ($1-$5 per client):
Personalized Gift Cards: Cards are a perfectly fine way to say thank you to your client and to wish your client a happy holiday if the cards are personalized. If you have them preprinted, make sure you include a handwritten note. You can pick up a nice set of box cards to keep the cost down (figure roughly $1 per client). If you go the pre-printed route, you could go upwards to $5 per client.
Gift Giving Don'ts:
- While it's true that every time we make a personal connection with a potential or existing client we consider this "marketing," don't use holiday giving to tell clients about a new service, promotion, or hire.
- Don't send holiday cards that have been preprinted with your name and company name without including a personal message.
- Don't think you have to do it all before the holidays. There are eleven other months in the year, and almost all of them have holidays that you could claim for your own: Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, First Day of Spring, Halloween.
While the holidays often become the holidaze, they don't have to be. Use these common-sense strategies to shore up your holiday gift list for clients. Oh yeah-and remember to have some fun while you're at it!
