‘Tis the season to make your brand shine! Branded Christmas items are strategic marketing tools that leave a lasting impression and keep your company top of mind. Whether you want to spread holiday cheer, show gratitude, or drive sales, the right promotional gifts are key. This article explores the world of branded Christmas items and their functions for various marketing objectives. Each section highlights desired effects and provides practical examples. Let’s make this holiday season memorable in marketing and gifting!
Discussed in this article:
Building brand awareness
Customer appreciation
Customer acquisition
Sales promotion
Differentiation
Relationship building
Data collection
Social media engagement
Employee morale and team building
Customer retention
Building brand awareness
By giving away promotional items during the Christmas season, companies can increase their brand’s visibility and create a lasting impression in the minds of consumers. This can be achieved in multiple ways, depending on your budget, target audience demographic and geographic targeting.
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly option that will keep you visible, Christmas hats and insulated plastic Christmas mugs are two great options that will get you noticed.
If you have a budget of around £30 per item (Christmas season 2023), then there is nothing more noticeable than a custom-knitted Christmas jumper. Our jumpers feel and look as good as any high street fashion brand while promoting your brand.
Customer appreciation
Giving gifts during the holiday season is a great way for companies to win appreciation. Branded promotional gifts can create a long-lasting impression by reminding people of your company every Christmas. Understanding what products to order will help you to achieve best possible results.
I will divide this article into sections depending on the desired effect of your Christmas promotional gift. I will also include some examples of products that work well to achieve each goal: expressing gratitude to your customers, suppliers and business partners, fostering loyalty and creating a sense of appreciation. When saying thank you, you can’t really go wrong.
Depending on your budget and the longevity of the gift, you can choose anything from consumables, such as branded chocolates, advent calendars or hampers, all the way up to longer lasting gifts, such as mugs, Christmas tree decorations, calendars and notebooks.
For the youngest audience, a Teddy bear in Christmas style is an easy winner. Of course, thanks to its great looks it will be noticed by adults too.
Customer acquisition
Offering free or discounted items can attract new customers who may be introduced to your company’s products or services for the first time.
If you will be participating in shows, exhibitions, trade events or brand activation, branded Christmas gifts can really help you acquire new customers. In most cases, good quality but inexpensive items such as Christmas tree baubles and keyrings will help you reach a wider audience. If you want to attract more customers at an outside event, giving away a promotional Christmas hat with your logo is definitely a winner.
Sales promotion
Promotional items can be used as incentives to boost sales during the holiday season. Offering free Christmas gifts with purchases is sure to help you to win more sales: a well-selected product will act as a reminder of the good feelings associated with your brand. Depending on the type of your business, branded glassware, thermal mugs or metal drinking bottles with beautifully incorporated logos are sure to be appreciated. While decorating those items in a Christmas theme will make them look good, for items to be used after the festive season we generally recommend a design that will be suitable for all year round.
Differentiation
High-end promotional items can help your company stand out from competitors and emphasise your unique selling points or values. Smart glass with NFC (near field communication) technology and your logo imprinted with precious metals is an option that, due to its digital interactivity and luxurious looks, will make it a talking point. As NFC technology will open any page or app you want, this can be your brand page, personalised message or anything you can think of.
Another great idea for the festive season is our luxury Christmas gift trunk. Filled sweets, snacks and drinks, this gift comes in a beautiful wooden trunk that will leave even the most sophisticated recipients impressed.
Relationship building
The act of giving can help strengthen relationships with customers, clients and business partners, which can lead to future collaboration and engender goodwill.
Christmas tree decoration with your branding is great idea if you have a young target audience. According to 2022 Christmas tree statistics, 18 to 54-year-olds are a safe bet, while those aged 25 to 34 are most likely to have a Christmas tree in their home.
Wellness kits is another great idea to build warm relationship with your team or clients. Everyone appreciates good quality skincare products. This ensures you will be remembered every time the recipient picks up one of your gifts to treat themselves.
And lastly, clothing. You can never go wrong with this type of gift. All age groups and genders loves to get promotional apparel. Seven out of 10 consumers keep such items for a year or longer, with 42 per cent of women wearing them weekly. Additionally, an item of outerwear will create 6,100 impressions during its lifetime. A real win-win option.
Data collection
If your aim is to collect data during the festive season, custom-printed items are a great way to incentivise people to participate in your campaign. Depending on your objectives, target audience, gender and age group, the following items can help you to achieve your goals:
Greeting cards with your branding are a great way to reach people by post. Thanks to QR codes, people can scan them with their phone and be redirected to any web page you desire.
Reusable shopping bags are great affordable items. This gift will be appreciated by recipients because since May 2021 retailers have to charge for single-use carrier bags in England.
Social media engagement
Christmas-themed promotional items for social media engagement can really boost your exposure. Create a hashtag and ask people to take a desired action before or after they receive a gift.
Branded coasters are compact to ship and affordable items that are appreciated by recipients. They are loved by both genders as they add cosiness when having a warm drink during the cold winter days and nights.
Snowglobes are lovely items to take pictures of and share on social media, especially if you want to promote a cause with a hashtag that will be shared with a snowglobe decorated with your brand and message.
Mugs are another item that look great in pictures, whether pictured on their own on the table or with a person holding them.
Employee morale and team building
The festive season is a great time to show your appreciation to your staff and build more unity. For those two purposes, there are two clear winners: gift sets and branded clothing.
Gift sets are, in my opinion, a must for every company, whether you give Christmas bonuses for your staff or not. Product combinations included in gift sets can vary from sweets, good quality pens, calendars, notebooks and insulated tumblers all the way up to higher end items for homes such as cosy blankets, linen sets and wine gift boxes.
As for team building, there is nothing better than looking around and seeing your team wearing the same clothing as you. If your budget allows some splash, I would strongly recommend knitted Christmas jumpers. Not only do they look and feel like quality shop products but they will be used for years to come.
If your budget is tighter, sweatshirts decorated with Christmasy ornaments and your logo look great. On an even lower end, Christmas hats will do just great!
Customer retention
By giving quality items during the festive season, you can encourage repeat business and win customer loyalty. You won’t go wrong with any good quality product. Here are some ideas that work well:
A fun suggestion is to send an ice scraper with an amusing message such as “Snow is fun – AIOM has your back!”. Every motorist will appreciate it and will remember you when scraping their windows in the morning.
A lovely coffee mug is another great allrounder. Decorating it in red will remind people all year round when it was received. And with your logo on one side and phone number with QR code on the other for clients to land on your website whenever they need to, it works really well.
Conclusion
Congrats for reaching the end of this article. As you see, promotional Christmas gifts can serve multiple purposes, helping you achieve your goal. Deciding what is your objective is step one. Step two is selecting the correct item. I hope this article has helped you with that. If you need any help with ideas and implementation, please contact us at contact@
