How to Determine Your Client Gifting Strategy for Your Interior Design Clients
Updated September 2023
It’s gifting season, and that means you’re probably planning what to send to clients or are about to place orders for client gifts. Gifting is important to your client experience and should be a line item in your overall business budget. Taking the time to create a gifting strategy will make sending client gifts an easy and seamless part of your process. In this post, I’m going to share how to determine what gifts to send to clients, how to budget for your client gifts, and when you should send client gifts.
HOW TO DETERMINE WHAT GIFTS TO SEND TO CLIENTS
When I work with my clients to develop their own on-brand client gifting strategy, we always start with (can you guess…) THEIR CLIENTS!
Who are they? What do they value? What do they enjoy? Do they have kids? What are some local area attractions they might like?
Then, we look at my clients (the business owners) and think about what they love, what they value, what they would enjoy receiving.
This helps to make sure the gift is a good fit for the client and on brand for the company.
Read here for my tips on what to send clients (and what NOT to send clients), like gifts with your logo on them or gifts that may add stress (like clutter or sweets).
HOW TO BUDGET FOR CLIENT GIFTS
When determining what to spend on client gifts, I recommend focusing on these two data points: 1) how much a client is spending with you, and 2) if they are a key client.
Look at how much a client is spending with you. A client spending $500 with you will receive a different type of gifting than a client spending $500,000 with you. You don’t want the gift to feel over the top or make the client uncomfortable, and you also don’t want it to feel like you have ulterior motives. On the other hand, you don’t want to send a $20 gift to a client who is spending $500,000 with your company because that will feel out of alignment (and also not on brand).
Next, look at your whole client list and determine who your key clients are. Which clients send you referrals? Who are the clients who keep coming back for more? Which clients are connected to the community or are in an area where you’d like to do more projects? Who did you love working with and wish you had more clients like?
These are the key clients you’ll want to focus your gifting on. This approach allows you to spend more money on each gift and have a bigger impact with your key clients, versus spreading your gifting budget more evenly across your entire client and referral list.
To do this, I recommend running a report of all your clients and identifying who your key clients are. For clients who don’t fall into the key client category, you can simply send a card to show your appreciation.
WHEN TO SEND CLIENT GIFTS
A big question I get from my clients is WHEN to send client gifts, especially right now since projects aren’t closing out all at once like they did pre-pandemic.
When you’re working with a client, I recommend two key times for sending gifts. The first one is at onboarding, right when a client has signed and paid. This can be a simple gift you keep in stock in your office, or you easily order online and ship to your client.
The second gift should be given to the client on their installation day or event day (you should also ask for feedback and a testimonial around this time as well). This gift should be more personalized because, by this point, you’ve been working together for at least a few months–maybe even a year or more. I recommend adding this as a step to your internal process so it happens right around the time you start placing the client’s furniture orders or when you’re a certain number of days out from the wedding date. This way, if you’re ordering something custom, it will have plenty of time to arrive at your office in order for you to prepare it for your client. Want more tips on creating processes to streamline your design or wedding planning business? Read this post.
The other thing you should consider is sending your annual gifts at times other than the holidays. Let’s face it–the holidays are a time of overconsumption, and adding more chocolates, cookies, and gifts to the mix can feel overwhelming for the recipient.
Think of your clientele and think of your service. When would be a natural time for you to send a gift that would help your clients? For example, if you’re a designer, you know that once your clients take down their holiday decorations, the house feels a little bit empty and bare. That would be a great time to send a gift as they transition from the holidays to the last few months of winter and help fight the post-holiday blues.
To recap:
Think of who your clients are and what would help make their daily life better.
Look at your client list and identify the key clients/referral partners.
Consider the process you take clients through and determine when the best times to send gifts are.
Don’t send gifts with your logo on them, UNLESS it will help a client stay organized throughout the process.
Don't send clutter.
No matter what gifts you choose, make sure your gifting strategy is in line with the service you are providing and reflects your brand. When gifting is done right, it is yet another step in your client experience process that surprises and delights your clients while also showing them your appreciation for placing their trust in your services.
Want more tips like these? Read here about why not to give clients gifts with your logo on them or click below to be added to my newsletter list.
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