Sales-forward messages and efforts don’t have the same effect they used to. Audiences are increasingly more educated and careful about the brands they give their support too.

In a recent survey, 86 percent of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support, and 81 percent of consumers said that they need to be able to trust the brand in order to buy from them.

Not only is trust important, presentation and first impressions are just as important in building relationships with your customer base. It takes about 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for people to form an opinion based on visuals – but it takes additional steps to achieve real loyalty and trust. Brands that build meaningful relations and who are viewed as making the world a better place outperform the stock market by 134%.

So how do you approach your audience these days? You speak to them in a meaningful way.

Creative gift marketing benefits your brand and wins over your customers

People crave personal connections, even more so throughout the last year. Building a meaningful experience through gifting gives audiences that human connection they are looking for with the added bonus of learning about a service (hopefully yours!) that could solve a problem they are having.

It’s not surprising that the corporate gifting industry is booming – the personalized gift item market was valued at $31.63 billion in 2020, and even the smallest of the companies reported a 50% boost in their sales.

These results are not just due to the overwhelming digital noise and our increasingly virtual lives. People have always wanted to feel like brands care about them. A recent study showed that 56% of consumers feel more loyal to brands who “get me” and show a deep understanding of their priorities. What shows you care more than a gift?

Why Direct Mail and gifting benefits your brand

First impressions are important. It goes without saying that getting a gift from someone makes you feel good. Associating that Christmas-morning feeling with your brand in one of the first interactions with a contact begins construction for building a longer-lasting loyalty and trust.

Creativity sparks conversion

Campaigns that had been recognized as highly creative were on average about 12x more effective than “normal” campaigns, meaning they represented a highly profitable investment. Doing everything you can to get in front of the right audience and build an amazing, meaningful experience for them to spark conversation and eventually a conversion.

You can’t just send anything – the gift has to make sense for your audience and your message. What will really wow your prospects and customers is the creativity behind your gifting experience. Sparking that connection through a thoughtful gift that is branded and makes sense with your message will leave a lasting impression that builds the foundation for a long-term relationship with the user.

Get audiences’ engaged on multiple channels

An added benefit of Direct Mail and gift marketing is that it can be incorporated into your already existing marketing efforts and gets your audience interacting on multiple channels. Supporting your Direct Mail efforts through emails and social media is a great way to stay in front of your audience, and you can boost engagement on channels that are already doing well by adding a gifting element to the campaigns.

This can include adding a gift enticement to email marketing efforts to set up a meeting or even including a gift in an event invite. The possibilities are endless when it comes to where you can include gift marketing in your efforts.

Put yourself directly in front of your audience

While it does get in front of your contacts and is scalable, digital means of marketing can be overwhelming. Direct Mail packages get directly in front of your audience and cut through the chaos of the digital world, creating a meaningful spark. Getting an email with a fun message and asking for an address to send a gift to is a lot more meaningful than a simple email asking to sign up for a meeting with no incentive. On top of that, the actual experience of getting the gift ignites joy and associates that feeling with your brand.

Build trust, familiarity, and loyalty

If your first impression with a contact is a well-thought-out gift that means something to them and sparks conversation, you’re doing your job right. We already know that customers want to feel like brands care about their pain points – 57% of people claim that receiving mail makes them feel more valued.

So not only are you addressing prominent solutions your product or service offers, you’re consistently building a cadence of showing that you actually care about the individual.

How does Outgage make this possible?

We elevated creative caring. Direct Mail packages and gifting experiences with Outgage ensure boosted engagement rates. Our campaigns average 35% in engagement rates (though we have seen up to 92%) and our clients have seen up to 12x the ROI when incorporating gifting into their strategy.

If you want to learn more about Outgage solutions, you can find out more on our website or get in touch with us at [email protected].