Straight from the horse's mouth

If you hear something “(straight) from the horse's mouth", you hear it from the person who has direct personal knowledge of it.  Your customers are the best source of trust and enthusiasm in your brand, products, services. Does your marketing toolbox include testimonials? It should.

Correctly using testimonials is an art. Too fake and fluffy—you run the risk of not being taken seriously. Prospects can see straight through fake testimonials. Also, a short and sweet testimonial (such as, “I love this service!”) recommends your brand, but doesn’t say much else as to why potential customers should choose your brand. Ask your customers to elaborate on why they love your brand, and what sets your brand apart. 

Request that your best customers provide testimonials with details that definitively describe key and unique benefits of your brand. Customers should focus on addressing a pain points that your services resolve. Testimonials should answer the question of why someone should use your brand.

What are your best tips for curating testimonials?

5 Tips for an Engaging Gifting Experience

This article was first printed in Prevue Magazine on July 11, 2018. https://prevuemeetings.com/spark-blog/flip-the-script/5-tips-for-an-engaging-gifting-experience/

Corporate gifting is an opportunity to connect with clients, strengthen relationships and provide an experience—and it takes on many shapes.

At one end of the spectrum, you have the (boring, non-creative, no choice) old-school room drop with a branded goodie bag filled with a few sponsored snacks, and at the opposite spectrum you have a custom corporate gifting experience that’s focused on selection, choice and brands.

Planners are definitely using gifting more now than ever. Many companies are realizing that a fabulous trip in a beautiful destination is only a part of the experience. Corporate gifting now tends to be a bigger part of the memorable experience and companies are recognizing this and the attendees are wanting (and expecting) more.

 

The meetings and events industry is skewed towards the female gender, and Associated Luxury Hotels International (ALHI) never ceases to impress with its lady-friendly corporate gifts such as lipgloss with mirror and OPI-branded nail polish in ALHI Red. At a horse race event, Preferred Hotels partnered with a hat company to allow attendees to select a hat or fascinator to go with their outfit. Impact GPS partnered with Maui Jim for its Los Angels event a few weeks ago to provide a custom sunglass fitting experience. Attendees were able to try on about eight different pairs of sunglasses, see how they fit, seek professional fitting advice and walk away with a free pair of Maui Jims sunglasses.

A meeting planner veteran noted, “I always give gifts as a reminder of the key takeaways of that meeting. If it is an incentive meeting, it is a reminder of the fun that was had and a talking point for when they see you in the shirt, sunglasses etc. It leads to a discussion: Where did you get those glasses?”

andgreat has personally commissioned custom belt buckles for a VIP client event in Austin, Texas. We mailed the buckles ahead of time as an event teaser, and then brought the artist onsite with leather straps for a complete custom belt fitting experience. Not only was it a memorable experience, it tied into the unique destination.

Here are my top five tips for corporate gifting:

Check Corporate Policies

Many companies—especially in the pharmaceutical world—cannot participate in corporate gifting as they pay their attendees an honorarium. A pharma planner noted that corporate gifting is still relevant but gets harder and harder with parameters being put into place by companies.

Determine Wants

Knowing your audience will help narrow and focus your selection. If you know your attendees are mostly female, for example, have a heavier selection of lady-friendly products. If you audience is a mixed bag, you can’t go wrong with a selection of high-end male, female and unisex sunglasses, running shoes or sandals.

Get Creative 

Corporate gifting that reflects the city or destination you are hosting your event is a great starting point. Tying the corporate gifting to the event destination lends to the overall experience. If you’re meeting in a colder mountain destination, a branded Patagonia fleece makes sense. If you’re meeting at a beach resort, consider offering a sandals experience.

Quality Over Quantity

Branded “junk” is self-serving and comes across as such. No one wants branded stress balls. And at the end of the day, your corporate gifting reflects your brand and your reputation. Do you want to be associated with junk?

Find a Trusted Partner

Find a partner that will be with you every step of the way and has experience with corporate gifting. While Maui Jim pioneered the onsite experiential gifting concept over 17 years ago, there are other vendors that offer a wider range of products and brands. Global Gifting partners with high-end brands that manufacturer everything from sandals to electronics, for example.

What’s the coolest corporate gift you’ve received?

Employee Spotlights: A Marketing Strategy for Effectively Engaging and Connecting (Part 1/5)

AUGUST EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT

Do you love your job? We spend 40+ hours working every week, it’s important to not only love what you do, but enjoy who you do it with. Collaboration with co-workers is crucial to drive business results. And when you have a good relationship with your co-workers, life—and work—is better.

If you work for a company that has over 50 employees, you might not know every person, because you may only interact with a few people. And, if you work for a distributed company, you don’t even have the option of “bumping into co-workers at the water cooler.”  You probably need that interaction the most. There are several strategies for effectively engaging and connecting employees, even if remote:

1.            Company Retreats

2.            All Company Meetings

3.            Social Hours

4.            Group Meals

5.            Employee Spotlights

Employee spotlights are engaging and a simple way to connect people at your company. People always want to hear about other people. It’s human nature. andgreat recently implemented a monthly employee spotlight with one of our distributed clients. Each month, a different team member is chosen. The key is to not choose the people everyone is already familiar—but to choose people that are newer to the company, or work in a department or areas that are not afforded much interaction.

Questions. Some of the questions can be light-hearted and fun, and others can relate back to the company and their specific role. This should be a fun exercise for the employee. A good number of questions is 8-10, as a few questions may be “passed” by the employee. Here are a few sample questions from which you can pull:

Are you messy or organized?

What is your role at the company?

Where is your favorite place to eat?

Where do you go to unplug?

Where did you work previous?

Interview. Conduct an in-person/video interview so you can get hear real time answers with more detail. We use the caricature headshots as the featured image. It’s fun to have a visual of who you are reading and it lends to a more consistent look over the Blog as well.

Publish. Publish the Spotlight on your company blog and promote via social media. Key: Don’t forget to promote to the internal team, i.e., the entire company. They too should be sharing it on social media, re-tweeting, liking, etc. Employees should be your biggest fans.

Repeat. Be sure you are asking employees to comment internally on Spotlights. Slack is a great tool for that. It’s important to release Spotlights on a regular schedule so you create a culture of anticipation and recognition. The first of the month is a good time.

We’ll dig deeper into the other above strategies in future posts, so check back often. We’d love to hear what are you doing to engage and connect employees.