The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

As we approach the Christmas season and with an every growing concern about the state of our planet, these new organic chocolate gifts really do seem to hit the mark. I tried a few and they are simply delicious. Hand made from white, milk or plain chocolate these organic truffles are packed in - yes you guessed it - fully recycled paper boxes available in one, three or seven pieces per box. I simply love chocolate gifts like this because they appeal to my ECO nature, have  a twist on the conventional and can be branded with a printed logo and message - just right for Christmas and most other occasions.

My sister recently gave birth to a wonderful baby daughter whilst travelling in India. During a Skype call she asked me to get hold of some English papers from the birth date for her return to the UK later in the year. Through Google I came across a great website (Historic Newspapers) offering this very same service. Using the website you can select from a range of newspapers and order them in leatherette gift boxes with gold or silver foil imprints.

Recently I found out that the same company were applying their concept to the world of business gifts. Here the focus is on rewarding an employee - for example supplying a newspaper to commemorate a specific milestone and/or the date they started with the company.

This is a wonderful, very personal and memorable type of business gift and one that I am sure the recipients would value and treasure for years to come - just as we hope my latest niece will in the years to come.

This week saw the National Incentives Show whose markething theme centred around a carrot - or to be more precise ‘more than a carrot’. I liked this concept because it exemplifies the two ends of a continuum with corporate gifts and any type of marketing incentives, from defined goal-linked incentives to general giveaways with a wider marketing message - each with a different set of corporate objectives.

Some clients use gifts as incentives and rewards. A great example of this is a corporate reselller rewards programe. Here branded items are offered to resellers who hit certain turnover targets and product shipment volumes. These gifts are generally towards the higher value end of the market and include items from our promotional gadgets range. Such a programme generally includes some form of added financial incentive such as capital bonds. At other end of the spectrum, we have clients using gifts simply as general giveaways to help build brand name awareness and keep contact details within easy reach. Here the goal is less financial and it is harder to pin down a specific Return on Investment (ROI) for the marketing activity as it is more holistic.

What the spectrum reveals in relation to corporate gifts and incentives is the wide range of uses to which they can be used and the reason why it is so important to match the right gifts to the marketing campaign and its objectives, something our Promotional Gifts Consultants are experts in.

I was with a PR company the other day and we decided that promotional gifts are one of the best ways to reinforce a brand name. However you have to be so careful to match the gifts to the client and their marketing message. We decided that as it was approaching Christmas and a time of year to reward clients, that probably Xmas themed gifts would be ideal. From Redbows we decided to offer a range of chocolate baubles, gift hampers, wines and some of our latest engraved champagne flutes and wine glasses.

So whats with the new logo ? Well at Redbows we have been so busy over the last couple of years that we have only just got around to refreshing our own logo. Now Dawn Koffler, our MD is very much into life-forces and ‘feng shui’. So when it came to a new logo and rebranding she wanted to marry the skills of a feng-shui logo expert with those of a web designer. The whole process was a lot of fun and we are very happy with the end result which created a ’Sigil‘ within the logo.

Working with a feng shui expert brought unique insights to the design of a corporate identify for Redbows, and the more we apply the new branding the more we appreciate the unique skills they brought to the project.

The logo and design philosophy is now being taken forward with a complete webskin for this blog to match that being developed for our new gifts store which goes live sometime around mid October. We will then apply the new look back to our current gifts website - hopefully before Christmas. This further work is being undertaken by a team of leading designers and website ‘engineers’ and we are very much looking forward to entering our new websites for awards in 2008.

Have you ever wondered how to plan for a corporate gifts campaign ? Well we have just published a short guide on how to select corporate gifts and get it right. Off course as well as getting the right gifts for your corporate clients it is vital that you select a promotional gifts company that has a consultancy view to sales rather than one based purely on reaching target. At Redbows we take the former view and this is the reason why we get so much repeat business and great customer comments from our satisfaction surveys.

In fact this week one customer satisfaction form received back from a major credit card company was extremely complimentary and said that the reason we stood out was the professionalism and customer service skills shown - far above and beyond the competition.

Redbows has just launched its 2007-2008 Christmas hampers and gifts basket catalogue packed with over 28 pages of information. We reckon we have Xmas hampers and gifts baskets to suit any budget and client from high-flying CEOs to receptionists.

What makes our hampers really unique is that we can cater them in terms of precisely targetting the contents for the recipients - even down to the use of organic and nut-free items, gift tokens etc. For more information see the page we recently added to our website on why hampers make such great business gifts.

Christmas is a fantastic time of year for promotional gifts companies like Redbows. One of our favourite products is the promotional gifts calendar. There are a variety of customisation options when it comes to this type of gift. All our calendars can cater for either a part or full customisation ranging from a completely bespoke design to an off-the-shelf one with an area to imprint your marketing message. We can even print on the reverse of the windows and mould the chocolates to incorporate your company logo. Everything is possible with this type of gift provided that there is a sufficient lead time.

The problem here is that to get the price down these promotional gifts are produced in massive print runs and we collate several orders together on the printing presses. In addition most customers like to have distributed their advent calendars before December 1st. So our order cut-off points run between October 22nd and November 12th. If you then take off these dates say a week or more for artwork approval, you can see why we ask customers to think about promotional advent calendars as early as August!

Hampers and Gift Baskets are very popular gifts for Christmas and a fantastic way to reward clients and colleagues. They can range from full-blown family type baskets to smaller, easier to handle baskets with a quality bottle of wine, chocolates and biscuits. At Redbows we have also found that it can be useful to ‘theme’ your promotional hampers and gift baskets. For example we can do this by country, region and sometimes industry. Also several of the items within the basket can be personalised from one of our other food ranges such as the cakes, wines and spirits.

How relevant are promotional calendars in today’s modern electronic environment? Well this is one of the busiest times of year for calendar and diary orders because they are still considered to be one of the most impactful promotional gifts you can give to a client. At Redbows we have a range of calendars to suit all including artistic scenes, UK, basic, cars and transportation, fun, photographic, glamour, sports, wildlife and world places.

What makes the promotional calendar so unique? Well the key is that you off course get 12 months worth of advertising your company and marketing message to a client. Promotional calendars are generally placed in an easy to view location, sometimes with plenty of foot traffic and what’s more there is no boredom factor - the pages can change every 6 or 12 months dependent upon whether the calendar has one or two months to a page. A great alternative to calendars are  pocket or desk diaries.