Tag: Gift
For best impact: What to give and who to?
The Christmas gift story begins with the desire to give to people who’ve helped you along the way this year. For smaller businesses this can be quickly seen to with a few crates of beer or chocolates off the supermarket shelf, but for businesses growing a brand, it’s time to sit down and think about your clients and how they will feel receiving a gift from you. The warm fuzzy feeling going on around giving has got to fit with your brand.
To make it simple, you shouldn’t pick gifts that conflict with your brand and what it stands for.
To make it simple, you shouldn’t pick gifts that conflict with your brand. If your brand is all about Health and Well-being, you probably wouldn’t select Chocolates and Wine. Why ever not? Because these foods are, sadly, associated with indulgence and excessive eating.
Selecting who to give to… We always recommend including your team members (whether they know about the Christmas gift idea or not, it will still be a surprise that they’re included in receiving it) along with your Top Customers and Top Suppliers. These 3 stakeholders, or whatever you like to call them, are supremely responsible for keeping your business up & running. Remember them, at least once a year.
And on this point, it doesn’t have to be at Christmas, some companies are now jogging the gift into January, to keep it separate from the overdose of gifting that comes at Christmas. That said you don’t want the gift to look as though it’s a last minute idea, or purchased only in the sale, and potentially lose impact.
Really your gift should epitomise your brand.
Are you known to be generous, crazy, funny, fast, innovative? Is your brand smart/sleek/chic and brilliantly mod or a steady/seclusive/mature/luxurious commodity?
Really your gift should epitomise your brand. For this you need to think about how others see your brand. Are you known to be generous, crazy, funny, fast, innovative? Is your brand smart/sleek/chic and brilliantly mod or a steady/seclusive/mature/luxurious commodity?
Then think about your customers, what gift is fitting for them personally (consider – would they actually use this?) and are there any gifts that would get turned away. Some companies do have strong gifting policies in place, preventing potential bribery in the form of “gifts” in exchange for contracts, even enforcing staff to return gifts or request that they are collected (making for an embarrassing phone call, instead of a pleasant thanks).
This is where the Mince pie pack has proved popular because it’s a fun and non-offensive office sharer, sits by the coffee machine and everyone gets one. (We firmly believe it beats most of the list below for originality and share-ability!)
Another thing, where we use the term “Top” Customer – this refers to people who have placed bigger orders with you. The gift should really be proportionate to orders placed. In the case of Customers or Suppliers, you need to be thinking about the contacts and companies where you want to strengthen the relationship for longevity. Which companies are core to your business, and which companies do you want to keep your brand front of mind into the future.
Back to the topic of “What to give”… Anyone can use Google, but we believe the Top favourites list is covered off well with the list below.
Top Christmas Giveaways for Corporate companies
- Chocolates
- Wine
- Hampers
- Plants
- Notebooks
- Calendars
- Phone charger
- Pens
- Mugs
- Bobble hats
For more advice on promoting your brand through on-brand gifting (What to gift and What not to gift!), reach out to our team of expert advisers on 020 3011 0211, or via our Contact us page.
Merry Xmassive!
Please forward a link to the person responsible for meeting your Sales targets this month.
We’re recommending that you ask your top clients to tell you what you stand for.
By conducting a simple survey with our clients, we discovered that many of them didn’t know what else we did… (This was finding Number 1)
So we started including an abbreviated list at the foot of our monthly marketing idea-mails, below we’ll talk you through it visually*.
We also discovered that it is Sales Teams that LOVE us! (Finding Number 2)
Is that surprising, when we’re here to help Marketing teams, to stay loved by Sales; Win more and Get Results? (This then benefits both the Marketing and Sales teams.) In short, we do their job for them.
In short, we do the Sales job for them.
*What we offer to ensure you Win more…
Bespoke Promotional
Branded Presentation of Goods for Promotion Sample Presentation, Product Launches
Packaging that works Magic for your Brand
PR and product launch. A selection of the new Nars range was presented in this luxury presentation pack and distributed to the magazine writers for editorial.
New Client Welcome Packs so Sales teams can step out with confidence, making a great first impression
Onboarding packs, on-brand, perfect PR for HR
Unique sample presentation for the ultimate promotion of your brand
Send samples of your product straight to the Decision maker
Original and Creative promotional items never seen before
Products to talk about – say “Hello” and “Thank You” and generally Shout about you
Winning client confidence with outstanding quote presentation
Products that Win Projects
Disruptive Marketing Communications
Innovative & unforgettable Helping our clients to get their point across, through innovative direct mail, an effective way to communicate your all-important Unique selling propositions
Time-critical and Time sensitive Promotions
We oversee fulfilment in-house ensuring that Mail reaches destination on the date designed
Physical Mail-Merge – We oversee fulfilment in-house
See how we could turn your properties into London’s most popular attractions… Effective direct mail, a capacity envelope enclosing advertising vouchers for Rightmove.
We work with you to ensure that your message is carried through
Get your message to the End User / Consumer
Ideas that Work & Win
Unique Product Packaging
Designed with the brand in mind we produce product packaging, for industrial, retail and OEM
Bringing your whole idea together in one box
Out-of-the-box Product Packaging ideas that Promise Off-the-shelf Sales
Regal Tags, Durable Tagging Solutions, Product packaging in full colour process, litho-laminated e-flute corrugated, supplied flat to the Production line, easy to make up
Not-so-standard Presentation Packaging
As unique as your brand
A retail pack for two bottles of Yalumba Wine, printed on 1 sided Kraft pack in black and 3 spot metallics, with an all over gloss varnish.
Not just shelf-packaging! But purpose built and designed to slide into the sock drawer
A clear view plastic sleeve to view the product, this retail packaging for three pairs of socks was inspired by the “sock drawer” with a pull tab at the front.
Point of Sale & Display, Bespoke solutions
Make a big hit with Counter top displays and display cubes in a range of sizes, along with coin collecting boxes and leaflet dispensers
Keep Your Brand out there
We offer to make a bespoke size of collection box, nothing run-of-the-mill…this way you can think about where it’s going and the people you want to attract…
Stay in control of your products – Keep things tidy when they are on display at your Distributors
Leaflet Dispensers
Please take one
Leaflet dispensers, available in a range of popular sizes, from our standard forms or we can create custom backboards and pocket capacities to suit your campaign.
Product Packaging that becomes Display Packaging – Branding all the way
Selling Radiators and Heated Towel rails, Chatsworth Heating needed a box to send out leaflets to the Showrooms of distributors, which could double-up as a dispenser
Table-Talkers!
Raising awareness of forth coming events & offers
Retail display cubes as seen in Carphone Warehouse. The easiest form of visual merchandising, available in a range of sizes from 60x60mm to 240x240mm.
Retail Presentation Materials for Instore & Online
Easy off the stock options or branded for the Ultimate Customer Experience
Packaging to enhance the Unboxing Experience
Custom-made Stationery Products
We are the manufacturers of the Polysmart collection, the Overboard range and the Alusmart system.
With a range of regular and unique styles available for personalisation to improve your presentation, including ring binders, document wallets, portfolios and bespoke solutions to enable your business efficiency.
Document wallets – Sign Up takeaways
Branded Presentation Folders & Files
Ring Binders
Going Global? Take your brand with you
Document Wallets
Training tomorrow’s World with your Corporate Image
Polysmart Wallets, produced in hard wearing long life PVC, with simple clip lock closure. The ideal product for schools, colleges, or outdoor use.
Bringing everything together for you & your client – We call it a Win-Win situation
A Polysmart Project closure file, with tabbed dividers, and a large document pocket for associated project plans and paperwork.
To discuss your brand needs, call us on 020 3011 0211
Is your packaging aligned to core values, conceivable for the consumer?
As we enter 2020, Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of brands: Luxury, earthy or otherwise; with scrutiny of packaging being high on the agenda. First impressions count has never been truer.
They’re balancing their own values with sustainability, asking questions like: Will this product, service or luxury be available to generations to come? What is the long-term prognosis? Can this packaging be recycled or reused rather than wasted on rubbish heaps that we’re seeing in the news; or worst still, the scam of joining rubbish dumped off-shore.
Undoubtedly packaging still has it’s place: for Protection in delivery (delivering without damage), Presentation of the brand (for enhanced value, gaining an emotional connection and communicating with the consumer) and Security (so it reaches the consumer without being tampered with).
Balancing the protective packaging side of delivering products with over-protection and increased waste is an all-time belly ache for Packaging designers. Too much protection is seen as over-gilding and wastefully filling up our bins.
Presentation of the brand is all about making the core-values of the company align to the delivery of the product. Earthy products can’t come in plastic.
Security is going to depend very much on what, the weight, and how you’re delivering.
Team survival kit, including Doritos and Pepsi Max to put some real fizz back into the team.
Environmental Product packaging created in Kraft e-flute corrugated and screen printed in dark brown, with the product packed in wood wool.
Whilst the large part of what we do is produced on paper that is FSC approved, we realise that for companies who promote sustainability and recycling as part of a strong core ethical belief, it is increasingly important for this to be crystal clear in all communication, not least in delivery to the consumer.
In brief, it is possible to produce Sustainable Presentation Packaging solutions for companies who promote and believe in a sustainable earth.
Are you looking to be more aligned for 2020? Reach out and Contact us
How to pack the perfect Onboarding Kit
First and foremost, what is “onboarding”?
The action or process of integrating a new employee into an organisation
We frequently see great examples of onboarding, desks laid out in a welcome-fashion. On LinkedIn (home of head-hunters!) there are often updates with images, like those shown below, typically getting a high number of likes and comments.
Just Eat onboarding pack
Here at BoxcoUK, where perfect presentation is really our thing, we regularly get asked for on-brand, onboarding sets, packed-perfect (and all’s well, when you have a staff onboarding budget and in-take of 80+ per year – but it doesn’t work out quite the same, when you’re averaging less than one new member a month). None-the-less it’s important to get it right, if you want to secure a loyal employee.
Paddy & Scott’s onboarding desk set up
With this in mind, we’ve come up with an easy way of doing onboarding, that still looks great, alongside some content-ideas to help engage staff from the point they agree to join your team.
Obviously, you’re going to have your own ideas about what important elements are needed to make up the perfect onboarding pack, but we hope this helps.
In the run up – 4 Ways to engage
Thinking about the time between when the person agreed to come to you, and their start date (LinkedIn Talent Solutions calls this Pre-boarding). If this is a few months, you may want to think about engaging your client in a regular way during this time. Even an email would help. How much you put into this is down to you – think about the potential value of that staff member to your organisation, the value of securing them for the long-term, and whether you want to save them having second thoughts during that period and staying with their current employer or, worse case, looking elsewhere.
1.Your company strategy, culture, overview, brochure
Have they got this information from earlier interviews, or could these be part of your engagement programme, sent to the candidate in a structured way.
2.Were there any perks you discussed in the initial stages that you could elaborate on
Staff lunches, cars, company traditions, differing opening hours… e.g. early close Friday.
3. Explain what a typical day will be like
Add some humour, nothing to put them off but here’s your chance to mention when they might be expected to help out, which day the cleaner comes and when to avoid tripping over the hoover.
4. Overcoming the fear of first day – How will they get to work (do you need to send information about their car)
Do you need to let them know about where they should park, where staff are expected to hang their coats, put their bag, all the hum-drum things that are going to turn that first scary moment into an easier ride and a more enjoyable experience for both the new staff member and their colleagues.
Whether you send it ahead, or you put it on their desk (or both)… Why not “Invite them to join your family” – build a pack that appeals to their family situation, spouse, kids (whether you’ve taken an interest to find out will speak volumes) and gain a long-term commitment to your company. Clearly, for this, you’ve got to have a family to join, so you’ll need to think about setting this up with your existing staff ahead of pushing it out through HR.
Gifts you could include in your Onboarding pack
These are ideas that we’ve seen used in great onboarding packs. Pick the winners for your brand:
Notebook
Pen
Power pack
USB
Chocolate Bar/Choc Orange
Keyring
Slider Puzzle
Stress Product
Sweets/Mints
Mug
Something personalised with their own name (spelt correctly of course!)
“Onboarding in a Box”
The complete guide to Onboarding – Click below & print off
Look great, for less
OUR SUGGESTION is a pack of 12 Luxury gift boxes (we have these available in a range of colours), with a magnetic closure and coloured grosgrain ribbon. Pick a ribbon colour that works well with your brand, and possibly tissue paper, to hold the gifts, and add elegance.
CONTENTS Fill with gifts from the list above. No limits here.
GIFT TAG OR GREETINGS CARD You can add a gift tag made from a business card or compliment slip, or a greetings card, for a personal and welcoming touch.
Tel 020 3011 0211
Email your details with a best time to call, business@boxcouk.com
Stay in touch Follow BoxcoUK company page on LinkedIn
Introducing our sister company, Kudos Giftwrap
Are you being disappointed by long delivery times?
Don’t be!
We’re happy to introduce our sister company, Kudos Giftwrap. Kudos has a stock range of Giftwrap & accessories available for all your gift packaging needs.
It’s an out of the box solution, to deliver your gifts to clients this Christmas.
We know that long lead times at this time of year (end November) means that some companies can’t have their corporate gifts wrapped and delivered in the way in which Marketing teams have designed them.
For a lastminute.com fix, try Kudos Giftwrap who have a range of giftwrapping solutions that look great, with short leadtimes on stock ranges.
Sweet treats are always a success, but there’s a few things to watch as well as your waist line…!
We’ve found that any promotion with food gains more traction than without!! Even with our monthly emails, if they have a foody Subject heading, the clicks go up. From our experience of helping clients pack their marketing message alongside a foody give-away, and sticking mainly to sweets and chocolate, here’s a few of the pitfalls:
1. Best-before dates
Really you need to be thinking more in terms of when will your sweet-treat look it’s best, and how to deliver it so it does reach your target audience in its best condition. This isn’t just about standard best-before dates, it’s about protecting it’s route all the way from the supplier through to final consumption!
2. Food becoming tainted by print
You need to consider whether the sweet-treat could be tainted in any way by coming into close contact for an extended period of time – chocolates in silver or paper wrappers (not fully sealed) is the worst example for this. Whether it’s coming in close contact with fresh print in the packaging or whether it’s tainted from other printed items it’s packed in with. Sometimes it is a long time between goods being packed and when they are discovered and enjoyed. Generally fruity flavoured sweets are fine, but chocolate is not!
We recommend that the time between goods being packed and the time they are delivered (to the consumer) is 3-5 days – so if you’re sending chocolate you need to arrange for a one-off campaign to be packed and sent in a very short space of time.
Alternatively there are ways to seal the sweets or the packaging to avoid tainting.
3. Sending out as a Campaign, or one by one?
We recommend a campaign for a number of reasons – for one it makes it easier to track the success, how many people responded, level of new enquiries (we always recommend following up a campaign by email and/or phone, backed by social to gain maximum results) and secondly, you don’t end up with overs on any foody bits that go out of date on you, meaning everyone gets fat eating them up! However, that said, we know that some of our clients like to send out quotes with samples, that simply can’t be done as a campaign. So… we recommend choosing foody gifts that will definitely be in the supermarket and available as one-offs, so you’re not tied by bulk-buying and food going out of date.
4. Choosing a shape of foody-gift
If you’re going to send out ad-hoc, and even if you’re going to run a campaign at the start, it’s always worth picking a sweet-treat that is a standard size. For example, if you’re going to send out a cream egg it’s worth picking a really standard size, so if it’s got a designed slot in your presentation pack then it’s easy to change over to a different type of easter egg if you find you can’t get the same thing. Certain sizes of sweetie bags come in a range of different brands and flavours, but similar size of bag, making it easy to change over (if you had to!).
5. Keeping costs sensible
You might want to think about costs too – it’s all very well doing a campaign when you can contact the manufacturer and buy in bulk (and they are pleased to hear from you!) but if you want more for sending out later, you want to be sure that they’ve sold you a standard size that you can easily obtain in smaller quantities.
6. Selecting food suitable for the time & location you’re sending it in to
This sounds more complicated than it actually is. It’s just about delivering the right message, at the right time, to the right people. Merial (below) delivered a pack of microwave popcorn and fruit gums to the first 500 people who signed up for their webinar, a great example of delivering the perfect sweet-treat so appropriately.
Sweets and chocolate delivered to almost anywhere is appropriate, unless you’re trying to sell to Dentists or Hygenists, then perhaps not…! Over to you on your target clients.
7. Buying too many
Touched on already – this is a common problem – the campaign was for 500 people but the outers on chocolate bars meant you had to order 600… It doesn’t take anyone with too many brains to work out that there are 100 overs sitting around. It’s well-worth planning an office party, or how else you will use them up rather than have them sitting there going out of date, or heading onto the hips of your staff, groan!
8. Don’t use your brand confectionery
There are many promotional companies that can sell you all manner of confectionery, fudge, biscuits and other items branded with your company name. Imagine if you received a tube of BoxcoUK biscuits. You might well say “Are these OK to eat!?”, after all BoxcoUK doesn’t make biscuits, and there’s a good chance that you don’t either! (So don’t go there!) When sending promotional biscuits or confectionery, depending on your target audience use a well-known, popular, or luxury brand. Your customers will have confidence in packaging they have seen before more than they will in your own brand product.
The exception to this rule is if your own brand confectionery packaging has a secondary use, in which case it will be used for storing something unrelated (and your brand will be on it, rather than another).
(Almost everybody has another use for a nice box or tin for keeping things in.)
We hope you learnt something new and if you’d like to tell us about your experiences with food, good or bad, we’ll try and include your contributions to this blog post! Stay in touch by following us on Linkedin for more.
For fun, here’s some great examples:
Fixfast – Pick ‘N’ Fix pack
Providing exclusive hampers – This mock-leather hamper was used to launch the new season’s brochure in straw, to match the catalogue, alongside luscious Stem Ginger & Dark Chocolate fudge!
Maple Sunscreen Quotation delivery pack
What could your clients need more when they come to read your catalogue or brochure, this pack came complete with biscuits, mug, notepad and pen.
Merial Webinar Snack Pack
The world shopper insight panel reached a 30,000 members! This simple yet very effective marketing communication was produced to share the news, along with a pile of Viscount biscuits.
Liquidline Truffle presentation pack
Woodhouse Workspace Drop-in pack
Inspiring dynamic workspace performance, using Woodhouse can make all the difference when it comes to taste…explained in a handy leaflet and delivered with Montezuma chocolate bar!
Want to have foody fun with your brand…?
For bespoke promotional marketing and training products that help you Win more…
Call us on 020 3011 0211.
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