Letâs talk about gifting. More than just well-timed swag to woo prospects, gifting is quickly growing into one of the most impactful revenue-generating channels for B2B companies.
So, how does gifting work? And how can gifting tie into existing marketing initiatives, like events? Youâve got questionsâand so did we! Thatâs why we partnered with Alyce for a webinar all about âsmartâ gifting!Â
Alyce is the first and only AI-Powered Smart Gifting Platform for business swag services that uses its best-in-class experience, intelligence, and execution to drive greater impact. So, they know a thing or two about gifting as a pipeline accelerator.Â
Nina Butler, Senior Director of Revenue Marketing, joined us for a lively session where she taught us:Â
Whether youâre new to gifting or youâre looking for smart ways to level up your approach, this webinar is for you!Â
Check out our recap below đ and be sure to check out the full recording for even more hot gifting tips!Â
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When you think about how we gift in our everyday lives, thereâs such an emotive connection to that. So, smart gifting is really about capturing that sentiment but translating it into a business relationship context.Â
And what makes it so âsmartâ is that itâs not just that experience, but also the intersection between experience, intelligence, and execution. How can you use data and artificial intelligence to make your gift more intentionally? How can you find the best places in the customer journey to introduce a gifting moment? And, how can you combine those things with a memorable execution?Â
We want to make sure both the sender of that gift andâmost importantlyâthe recipient of that gift, have a beautifully executed experience that they can go rave to their friends about.Â
âSmart gifting is really the marriage of experience, intelligence, and execution.â Â
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This is a really common question!Â
Before we get to the tacticalâhow much is too much or too little to spend on a gift âwe need to back up and think about all of the opportunities where you might want to introduce a gift. Are you trying to drive a certain outcome? Incentivize an action in the relationship?Â
As a result, when you think about all of those different moments in the customer journey, there are plenty of interactions at the top of the funnel. For exampleâincentivizing engagement around a piece of content, encouraging people to register for your events, having people listen to your podcast, or just getting folks to your website.Â
When you think about it in that applicationâitâs a little bit more of a higher-volume, lower-value play because you actually havenât earned the right to put that audience through a hyper-personalized, whiteglove experience yet. You havenât earned that opportunity to get that comfortable and familiar with them.Â
âItâs more of a high-volume, low-value play in the beginning because you actually havenât earned the right to put that audience through a hyper-personalized, whiteglove experience yet.â
So ideally, as youâre taking that customer or prospect on that journey, you get more familiar with their brand, your brand sentiment and loyalty starts to increase, they start to get more focused on who you are as a product (not just a logo). Then, suddenly, youâre thinking about what opportunities you have to introduce gifting in a mid-funnel or down-funnel accelerator play.Â
Thatâs where you might want to be thinking about lower-volume, higher-value gifts. Thatâs where the sales prospecting use case comes in. Youâve identified who your ideal customers are, you know who the right personas or target contacts are at those accounts, youâve warmed them up in the earlier stages of the marketing funnel, and now you want to introduce gifting with a bit more premium of an offer. Thatâs how I like to think about it.Â
And, of course, once youâve earned that piece of business, thereâs a whole other side of the funnel where you can think aboutâhow can I use gifting to retain customers? To surprise and delight customers? To deepen relationships? To say sorry (we all mess up!). So, thereâs a lot of interesting customer moments where you can think about introducing a gift.Â
Ultimately, your approach to gifting really depends on where youâre looking to drive better outcomes in the funnel.Â
In terms of price points, generally speaking, when youâre gifting more top-of-funnel (a marketing-led use case), try to keep those gifts in the $5 to $30 range.Â
Farther down the funnel (a sale-led use case), $45 - $60 is a good price range. Generally speaking, anything more than that can actually be off-putting.Â
If youâre prioritizing the recipient first, you are creating an equitable relationship (one thatâs built around reciprocity), the messaging that youâre providing is value-oriented and relevant to themâif youâre putting in all that work, then youâve earned the right to start a relationship.Â
âYour approach to gifting really depends on where youâre looking to drive better outcomes in the funnel.â
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The more you introduce gifting into the customer or prospect experience, the higher likelihood you see of those gifts being accepted. Meaning, youâre starting to build up that brand recognition and youâre seeing those folks move through the funnel more quickly.Â
From our point of view, thereâs no such thing as too much giftingâbut you really do want to be smart about where youâre introducing gifting. You donât want to gift just for the sake of gifting.Â
âFrom our point of view, thereâs no such thing as too much gifting.â
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Because gifting as a whole can be a premium investment, you want to be really critical of what audience you want to put through that more luxury experience. You have a whole host of individuals post-event, and you really want to be critical about how you segment them out.Â
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First off, folks who attended and who didnât attendâthatâs an easy way to think about segmenting your audience. Within attendees, you have prospects and customers. Same with those who didnât attend. And within your customer base, you probably have varying levels of familiarity or emphasis that youâre looking to put on that account.Â
Once you widdle these segments down, we really encourage you to reserve that sales-led use case for the tip-top, cream-of-the-crop audience that youâre looking to accelerate with a personalized, 1:1 experience.
When you think about the tier thatâs slightly above thatâyou still want to leave a lasting impression, you still want to create momentum in this relationship, but it doesnât happen to be a target accountâyou might go with a more marketing-led follow up. Maybe you donât have a hard call-to-action, like a meeting booked requirement, but maybe you have a softer ask, like a post-event survey or reading additional content about the event topic.Â
From there, you have your final tierâfolks that should really be put in 1:many post-event experiences. This might be completely marketing-led through automation with a campaign or nurture.Â
This mirrors similarly for customers, but youâre in a much different relationship with those folks, so the approach might be a bit more nuanced.Â
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Oh, this is a fun one!Â
The first one that comes to mind is when you want to incorporate âsmart giftingâ into your pre-event strategy. Think about if thereâs some sort of thematic element to your event, like your eventâs host city. Or if the event itself is focused around a particular content angle that has a strong theme. Matching your gift to that theme is a subliminal way to over-communicate to the audience and get them excited and ready to join you day-of to get more of the same.Â
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For example, we were recently in Austin, Texas for a local event. We put together a gift marketplace that featured all sorts of locally-inspired gifts. We had music gifts, food gifts, and lots of Austin-themed giveaways. That way, the recipients, whether they were virtual or in-person, could take a little bit of Austin, Texas home with them. It was a huge hit! Iâm actually still getting âthank youâ notes from the event.Â
Second, you can also incentivize registration or show-rates, which, over the past 18 months, have been declining. Itâs hard! How do we keep people excited and keep the stamina up? How do we make sure they actually show up to the event?Â
We did this for another recent event. We sent everyone who registered in time a lunch gift card.Â
Once you establish that reciprocity with your audience by sending them something small that they can enjoy during the event, itâs going to incentivize them to actually show up. Think about what you can pair like a meal or activity that aligns with the time of day of the event.Â
Finally, you can encourage certain session attendance with gifts. We did this last fall for our YOUniverse event. We incentivized folks to stay for the final keynote (a big ask for an online event!) by saying that everyone who was online during the session would get a special Alyce gift.Â
And, thanks to platforms like Goldcast, weâre able to understand the analytics and execute that play the moment the event ends. So, itâs really important to have not only the ideas but also the infrastructure to help you execute those ideas and deliver on your promises.Â
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In Alyce, you can measure the conversion rate of that gift through the giftâs lifecycle. You can see when that gift has been viewed, when itâs been accepted, and if the required action has been completed.Â
Now that youâre able to understand the benchmarks at each stage, you can start testing different gifts to optimize the experience.Â
And then through integrations with other tools, you can really figure out an ROI per gift.Â
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Thereâs a misconception that you can find someone the perfect gift. I donât know if the idea of a perfect gift exists because everybody is so individualized.Â
Platforms like Alyce give you the power of choice to let people pick the best gift for them. Ultimately, the pressure isnât on the sender to nail the gift. Instead, itâs putting the power of choice back onto the recipient to walk away with something they love.
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There could be things that are more top of the funnel, less conversion-oriented where you want to position and present your brand in a memorable way. Gifting can definitely help you satisfy that goal.Â
There are parts of our own strategy, more on the content side, that take this approach.Â
We donât gate 99.9% of our assets. So, itâs hard to track how gifting correlates to downloads of an ebook, for example.Â
Instead, we think about value-additive content that people are going to want to consume at their leisure, and then weâre able to understand who has taken that type of engagement and just send them a surprise and delight gift to thank them for taking that action.Â
âGifting doesnât always have to be the carrot on the stick.â
Gifting doesnât always have to be the carrot on the stick. You can instead reframe where itâs introduced in that personâs experience and reframe it as a surprise and delight moment. No strings attached. No hard ask. Instead, itâs us thanking you for spending time at our event, consuming our content, joining our podcast, contributing to our blog, whatever it might be.Â
Thereâs also a lot to be said on the customer side of the house. Customer marketing is becoming the new demand generation. Marketers are responsible for more of the funnel than they ever have been before. Retaining and growing books of business is the new direction strategically.
When you think about gifting in the customer base, think about all of these different milestones in the relationship you have with themâproduct usage, they just got promoted, their company just got funding, a new hire, etc. There are all of these different ways you can drive that surprise and delight. Thereâs no ask of the customer, but when it comes to renewal, theyâre going to remember all those individual moments and how youâve made them feel in that relationship.Â
âMarketers are responsible for more of the funnel than they ever have been before.â
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Oh boy! Well, there are definitely a few we see more often.Â
First, when the value of the gift is not near where youâre at with the person.Â
For example, sending things that are really extravagant and elaborate to a contact that you have no relationship with and their company isnât quite sure what your product or service does or what itâs value is.Â
Conversely, if youâre coming up on a three-year renewal with one of your most tenured customers and you send them a $5 coffee gift card. Theyâre probably thinkingâwhat?!Â
âMake sure that youâre mirroring the perceived value of that gesture with the actual point in the customerâs journey that theyâre at with you.â
The second thing that comes to mind âand this might be a hot takeâbut I often see marketers introducing a swag experience at the incorrect moment in a customerâs journey.Â
If you havenât built up brand recognition and then affinity and then loyalty, you could actually be introducing swag at a point in time where the personâs likeâI donât want to rep your stuff.Â
Instead, think about gifting people with swag if theyâve given you a case study, provided a referral, or just did a renewal. Those are your champions and advocates, and those are going to be the folks that are way more apt to rep your brand and rep it with pride.Â
So, make sure that if you're thinking about introducing swag at any point in the prospect or customer journey that you're really making sure that itâs the right time and that they have the right familiarity with your brand to do that.Â
The whole point of swag is to get brand impressions, so whatâs the point if itâs sitting on a shelf?
âSpoiler alert for all of those trade show t-shirt leads: they donât turn into revenue.â
Thanks, Nina, for joining our event and sharing your expertise. Gifting a space where we see a lot of momentum building, and weâre very excited to see where Alyce takes it next.Â
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