When it comes to marketing, there is no single channel or tactic that works ‘best’. Rather, a successful marketing mix is made up of a lot of different mediums, all working together to drive awareness, interest and engagement with your brand.
This is what omnichannel marketing is all about. “Omni” actually means “all”, and omnichannel marketing is all the channels you may be using to promote a consistent, compelling message across your online and offline marketing activities. An omnichannel strategy can include popular and effective channels as varied as SEO, PPC ad campaigns, organic social media posts, email newsletters, in-person trade shows and video marketing.
There’s another marketing channel to include in your omnichannel strategy, and one you might not have thought of yet: gifting. Let’s look at why gifting should be a part of your marketing mix.
Gifting is universal
Gift giving is as old as time itself. Giving and receiving gifts is a fundamental part of human relations, and it’s popular in marketing too. Especially in the B2B world, corporate gifting is part and parcel of doing business: in 2021, corporate gifting was valued at over $240 billion, with expected annual growth of more than 8%.
In the business world, it’s not really a matter of whether or not to incorporate gifting into the marketing strategy; it’s more a question of identifying the right gifts and gifting workflows that will bring the best results.
Gifting creates brand value
The thing about gifting is that it has such enormous power and potential. A boring gifting campaign isn't bad. But a great gifting campaign can make an incredible and lasting impression on prospective customers. As marketers struggle with irrelevant metrics and KPIs, gift marketing is an opportunity to disrupt your marketing approach, really connect with customers and build true brand value. Think of how your gift will received, generic (ie. the usual branded swag, standard gift card), or ingenuine ‘bribes’ will fall flat. But if you can be genuine, creative and exciting with the right gift that sets the right tone you'll get results.
Gifting supports other marketing activities
You can find consumers almost everywhere – on their favorite websites, Facebook, Twitter or TikTok, on apps and Messenger. At trade shows and events (in-person and virtual), at home, in the office, or at an airport terminal. The point of omnichannel marketing is to help brands reach consumers in all those places, at many different times. As long as messaging is consistent and compelling, then leveraging a variety of mediums will only build awareness and strengthen your brand. And guess what? With proper advance planning, gifting can be integrated with some of the marketing activities and channels you already use, and make them even more effective.
For example, by including gifting with your email nurturing flow, the potential customer isn’t just reading (or deleting!) emails, but engaging with the experience of receiving and enjoying a gift. Gifting supports other marketing flows by adding another deeper, interactive and exciting dimension to the mix. In fact, Outage gifting campaigns have been shown to have an average 35% engagement rate, which is pretty remarkable!
Gifting campaigns can be based on first-party data, so they are really accurate
The main advantage of online marketing is that brands can track and monitor user data over time. Get to know the behaviors and interests of potential customers with a data-driven omnichannel strategy leveraging offline parts of the campaign. Gifting workflows are a perfect example.
Gifting campaigns can integrate physical or downloadable gifts, together with actions the recipient must perform online to engage with the gift. In this way, your company can get a picture of how interested and engaged the individual is, and therefore, how well the gifting campaign is going.
Plus, Outgage gifting data doesn’t rely on cookies (the marketing kind). Brands can be sure of the integrity of their long-term data-driven gifting efforts.
Gifting campaigns can fit a wide range of budgets
Gifts don’t necessarily have to be fancy or expensive to make an impression. Having said that, $5 gift cards or branded stickers are not going to cut it. Besides being super ‘cheap’, they are simply not memorable.
Do you have a budget set aside for gifting campaigns yet? While a one-off, low-cost gift might work; it won’t be same as an integrated gifting workflow that is part of a broader omnichannel strategy. If you want to really excite prospects, build brand awareness and drive engagement long term; consider your gift budget. To support a more robust, strategic and multi-faceted gifting workflow consider upping budget.
Gifting, yes or no?
Should gifting be part of your marketing mix? The answer is definitely yes, and especially in the B2B and corporate worlds. But just doing gifting campaigns is not enough. Gifting needs to be smart, original, creative and engaging. Know your results and how to optimize them by basing it on an integrated, data driven workflow.
If you’re looking for all that, then Outgage can definitely help you! Contact us today.
