Promotional Gifts – Useful Is Good But What Is Useful?

Recently, I’ve come across a bunch of articles on the subject of promotional gifts where the author suggests that you give useful gifts to your employees and people who work for companies your company deals with.  Then they add that such gifts should be gifts that could be useful at work.  And I have a bone to pick with them.

They’re right about promotional gifts being a good, inexpensive marketing tool.  They’re right about advising you give useful promotional products as gifts.  They’re only partially right when they suggest your promotional gifts should be useful at work, then suggest you give desk clocks or desk calendars and such things. 

They are right when you are talking about giving promotional gifts to people you work with that work for other companies.  If you give them a desk calendar that has your logo and message on it and they put the calendar on their desk, they’ll see your logo and message every time they need to check out a date.  Same for desk clock or pens, etc.

But, should you give your employees a personalized pen as a gift? I think not.  You shouldn’t give your employees any promotional gifts that are items you should are providing them anyway.  Where’s the gift?  You logo?  Your message?

Yet it might be a good idea to give them something they find useful at work.  So what can you give them at work that’s useful (from their point of view) yet not something you’re providing them anyway?

Custom coffee mugs is the first thing that comes to my mind.  Perhaps you could also give them personalized water bottles.  Personalized coasters? Everybody drinks something while at work.  So, you can’t go wrong with these kinds of items.  Depending on your employees and occasion, you could give different items.  Perhaps fine chocolate, or other edibles, perhaps in a nice basket. 

What you give will also have to match the occasion not only your budget.  You’re going to give different gifts to the people who just landed you a large contract than to people who’ve caught a couple of spelling mistakes in a brochure.  However, the timing of your gift giving is essential in both cases so is the gift.  Your gifts lose value if  they're personalized coffee mugs and the people who found the typos don’t drink coffee and you should have known.  (And that’s something you should have known.)

Let’s go back to desk calendars to be given to people, executives, who work for companies that are essential to the success of your company.  Most likely, the company they work for has provided them with desk calendar and desk clocks.  Case in which, your gift has competition.

You’re giving them to create good will, and good will is created even if they don’t actually put it on their desk, even if they put it in storage.  However, you’ve also given your gift so that they could be reminded of your and your company often.  That’s not going to happen if they don’t put it on their desk.

So, perhaps, giving desk calendars and clocks as gifts is not all that great of an idea.  Because most people will only keep one of them.  Though it’s possible to have to desk clocks on your desk, you surely will not have two calendar desks on your desk.  So, how about giving these kind of people gifts that don’t have this kind of limitation?

People may get attached and use only one coffee mug, one pen, but they can, and usually do, keep more than one. 

The point of this article?

1.               What’s useful is always from the point of view of the gift receiver.  In other words, though buying in bulk cost you less then buying retail, often buying retail can get you a far better value. 

2.               Like with every other kind of marketing, and giving gifts to employees is marketing, you need to segment.  The more you segment, the better results you have.

So, the next time you come across someone who suggests you give employees promotional gifts that are useful at work, make sure you ignore them if they suggest your gifts should be pens and other items that you’re supposed to provided them anyway.