Corporate Gifts are Good Business Idea

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Incentive marketing isn't just for big companies. Small business can also use business gifts to reward loyal customers, and increase employee motivation.

Research shows incentive gift plans work. But how the program is structured is critical.

A Maritz Research study indicates that out of 1,205 adults, 49% participate in a customer reward program. 80% indicated they do more business with companies because of reward programs.

Employee appreciation gifts are beneficial, too. A Site Foundation study showed that employee incentive plan rewards increase work performance 22%.

Corporate gift solution keys:

• Select target
• Establish time frame.
• Determine goals and what participants do to win.
• Develop the award structure; i.e. how much payout for what action, percent of sales increase, or total volume, margin or percent of increase, etc.
• Reward customers for the value of their purchases. This keeps them coming back.
• Determine the type of reward: recognition, gift certificate, merchandise, travel or a combination.
• Plan an announcement that includes rules, regulations, tips on how to, and the rewards.
• Create a theme logo to go on all correspondence and mailings.
• Promotion: inform participants how the program is succeeding. This way, your customer loyalty program communicates to customers how they benefit by using your services/products and how they're rewarded for doing so.
• Administration: develop a tracking and measurement system for awarding of points or display of goals reached during the campaign.
• Develop a time line for program conception, creation, implementation and close.

A reward can be anything, even a logo imprinted mug. However, as the perceived value increases, there's a corresponding incentive increase.

The entire business gift plan should be self affordable as a result of increased sales, improvement in productivity or increase in customer spending.

The ideal solution is:
1. cost effective requiring little or no space to manage
2. extremely easy to administer in terms of employee handling
3. visually appealing (the wow factor)
4. precisely what your customer - employee wants
5. coordinated online, saving time and money

One product matching the above requirements is the Ribbon Gift/Card Catalog Collection. Distributed by Quixtar, Inc., the Ribbon Collection makes giving incentive gifts easy.

Each recipient gets a gorgeous gift/catalog from which to choose gifts and order online. Each gift is shipped directly to the recipient's home. Staff time is limited to administering the program rather than gifts.

Corporate gift solutions are not all equal. With the right gift idea, you can manage even a large scale program in house.

The Incentive Federation suggests these guidelines for your budget:
1.    Awards: 80%
2.    Communication/Promotion: 10%
3.    Administration/Training: 10%

A very large complex program may require:
1.  Registering participants and creating a database
2.  Designing, printing & mailing program promotions
3.  Tracking progress within the database
4.  Reward fullfillment
5.  Reports to participants and management

A good program will improve: sales, market share, profits, customer loyalty, and customer service.

In the Site study, 92% of corporations reported objectives were surpassed, met or partially met.

The key to effective incentive giving is the corporate gift idea, itself. A bad idea can defeat the plan before it starts. The business gift must function as a promotional item and be cost effective to administer; store safely and compactly; and be very portable.

Buy any Ribbon Collection gift(s) over $75.00 and shipping is free.