Preparing for a gift campaign

Corporate gifting is an effective strategy for building and nurturing relationships with clients, employees, and business partners. However, a successful gift campaign requires preparation. This guide will help you navigate the essential steps for preparing a thoughtful and impactful corporate gift campaign. For a more detailed understanding of planning your gift campaigns, refer to our previous article, "Planning Out Your Gift Campaigns."

Introduction: The Significance of Preparation

Preparation is the key to a successful corporate gift campaign. A well-prepared campaign ensures that your gifts resonate with the recipients, reflect your brand values, and achieve your business objectives. By investing time and effort into the preparation process, you can maximize the impact of your corporate gifting and create lasting positive impressions.

Timing: How much Time do you need to get everything built and approved?

Campaigns take time to build and get approved.While Unwrapit can significantly reduce the logistics involved in gifting, it is important to allocate ample time to create the campaign. For maximum effect, gift options should be curated to the recipient group, campaigns should be branded to the company/event/organization using their approved brand assets and the experience should be personalized to the recipients. 

As with most things, the more time allocated to creating the campaign, the better. However, as a general rule, an Unwrapit campaign requires a minimum of 2 weeks to be created, approved and launched.  

The Unwrapit team is available throughout this process to guide and give recommendations for a successful campaign. We will also provide you with the self-serve tool so that you and your team have the ability and control to work on the campaign at your convenience. 

Cadence: When Will You Send Gifts?

The timing of your gift campaign is crucial for maximizing its impact. Consider the following factors:

• Occasions and Events: Align your gift experience delivery with significant dates such as holidays, work anniversaries, birthdays, or industry events. Timely gifts can enhance the recipient's experience and reinforce your message.
• Frequency: Decide how often you will send gifts. Will it be a one-time gesture, or will you send gifts periodically throughout the year? Regular gifting can keep your brand top-of-mind and continuously strengthen relationships.

How Will You Notify Recipients?

The method of delivering your gifts can significantly affect their reception:

• Direct Email: Sending gifts via email ensures they reach recipients personally and can create a sense of anticipation and excitement. Ensure your subject line is interesting, on-brand and relevant. Unwrapit always suggests this email coming from your team to ensure context and a recognisable email address. However, if this is not preferable, Unwrapit can send out the notification directly. 
• Slack/Teams/Zoom: Are you running a more casual, internal campaign? Consider notifying recipients through your usual communication channel. It can be a fun surprise to receive via a more traditionally formal format.
• In-Person Delivery: For local or important recipients, consider sending a handwritten note in the mail. This approach adds a personal touch and allows for direct interaction, which can further strengthen relationships. The handwritten note can point to the digital unwrapping experience and can perfectly blend a physical interaction with a fun, unique and digital experience.

Measuring Success: How Will You Measure Success?

To gauge the effectiveness of your gift campaign, consider the following metrics:

• Recipient Feedback: Collect feedback from recipients to understand their perceptions and reactions to the gifts. This can be done within or outside of the Unwrapit experience. 
• Engagement Levels: Track engagement metrics such as follow-up communications, social media mentions, or increased business interactions following the gift delivery. Unwrapit can also measure how many ‘high-fives’ are recorded during the experience itself. 
• Return on Investment (ROI): Analyze the ROI by comparing the campaign costs to the benefits gained, such as increased sales, customer retention, or employee satisfaction.

Follow-Up: Is There Any Follow-Up Needed?

Following up after a gift campaign can further reinforce your message and gather feedback.
Each Unwrapit campaign comes with a campaign report. This report can be used to track the progress of the campaign, identify trends and view survey results/thank you form answers. Fully exportable, this report can be downloaded into whatever form is most convenient for you and your team to gain the most from your gifting campaign. 

• Surveys and Feedback Requests: Encourage recipients to provide feedback on their gift experience. This information can help you refine future campaigns and can also be done within the Unwrapit experience.
• Continued Engagement: Maintain ongoing communication with recipients to build on the goodwill generated by the gift campaign and learn for future campaigns.

Conclusion: Executing a Well-Prepared Campaign

With a clear understanding of timing, delivery methods, objectives, and follow-up strategies, you are ready to start on your gift campaign! Remember, the success of your campaign hinges not just on the gift itself, but the care and thoughtfulness behind it.

By thoroughly preparing for your gift campaign, you can create meaningful experiences that strengthen relationships and drive business success. 

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