6½ Habits of Highly Effective Gifters

A Study of B2B Gifting Practices in Revenue & Growth Marketing

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01.

Introduction

You’re in the right place to learn about top gifting trends among B2B marketers.

In 2022, we surveyed hundreds of marketers to learn more about gifting goals and perspectives, and to understand how well gifting is working in practice. This report shares what we unwrapped from our research and will give you tons of ideas and insights along the way. With these insights, you can multiply your campaign response rates and accelerate pipeline, maximizing every opportunity and dollar of your budget.

B2B Marketing Is Not for the Faint of Heart

B2B marketers have a lot on their plates.

Whether your role covers demand gen, brand strategy, field marketing, ops, events, campaign management, ABM, or a herculean combination of all of the above, this job is not for the faint of heart.

Plus, B2B marketing never stands still. You’ve got metrics to meet, stakeholders to satisfy, prospects to persuade, and customers to captivate. 

But – and it’s OK to admit it – there’s probably a part of you that thrives on the fast-moving, always-changing nature of marketing. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here reading this report!

Marketing may not be for the faint of heart, but marketers sure do put a lot of heart into their work. After reading, you’ll come away with:

  • How B2B marketers view their responsibilities and goals
  • How gifting plays a crucial role in their growth
  • What makes more successful marketers

We’ll look at our findings and share some habits (and practices, ideas, and motivations) from which you can draw inspiration in your work

Let’s jump in!

02.

The Role of the Marketer in 2023

We wanted to first understand what marketers are working toward.

Even though there are many differences from marketer to marketer – your industry, your specific role, your YOUness – some commonalities tie everyone together.

One of the key findings from our research is that marketers are covering a multitude of metrics, goals, and revenue-driving responsibilities, and many expect to have even more on their plates within the next year. 

role-of-marketer

KEY INSIGHT

Most marketers expect even more metrics and responsibilities in the near future.

How Marketers View Themselves

As part of our study, we asked a classic job interview question.

In addition to learning about the goals and roles of marketers, we wanted to see how marketers view themselves as professionals, and asked them to choose words from a list.

What strikes us is that many of the top choice descriptors for today are related to ambition and drive, while top choices for the future imply that marketers believe they will achieve what they’re driven to do.

how-marketers-view

KEY INSIGHT

Marketers expect the creativity and ambition of today to lead to greater success and accomplishments tomorrow.



03.

How Does B2B Gifting Factor into RevGen Marketing?

Gifting ranks among the top three marketing activities.

We love gifting, but even we know that gifting isn’t the only tactic or channel marketers have at their disposal. 

With this in mind, we wanted to study how gifting fits into an overall B2B marketing mix and how gifting stacks up against other preferred marketing activities.

top-tactics

KEY INSIGHT

Marketers expect the creativity and ambition of today to lead to greater success and accomplishments tomorrow.



04.

How B2B Brands Use Corporate Gifting

Just as B2B marketers’ responsibilities, goals, and tactics vary widely, gifting itself isn’t a one-trick pony.

It may be tempting to think that gifting nestles squarely into one specific use case or follows a particular motion in marketing. However, even the gift types themselves run the gamut. 

Remember how “creative” was marketers’ top descriptor for themselves? With all the ways marketers use gifting, serious creativity is at play here.

how-b2b-use-1
how-b2b-use-2
how-b2b-use-3

KEY INSIGHT

Marketers leverage gifting to accomplish many different goals across a bevy of use cases.



What About Non-Gifters?

Not every marketing team uses gifting as part of their strategy. But do they have a perspective on gifting?

Overall, non-gifters have a favorable view of gifting, and many are interested or planning to explore gifting more seriously in the near future.

While some said they’re still skeptical of gifting’s effectiveness, nearly half of non-gifters believe gifting can be effective in B2B marketing, and six in 10 plan to explore gifting for their business within the next 12 months.

non-gifters

KEY INSIGHT

Most marketers have strong confidence in gifting, and many non-gifters plan to begin gifting soon.



05.

Does Experience Matter in Gifting?

We uncovered that it does! We asked gifters to identify themselves as either Experienced or Novice Gifters.

We examined whether any patterns emerged between the two groups. (Read on to see them!!)

Out of the 235 marketers who told us they have at least some experience with gifting (out of 314 marketers total), it’s pretty close to an even split between those who rate themselves as savvy with gifting and those who are early in their gifting journey.

experience-in-gifting

Does Corporate Gifting Work?

Here’s where things get really interesting.

Are the more experienced gifters more successful gifters? In other words, does gifting actually work?

Across every factor we measured in our industry survey, experienced gifters have had more success than their novice counterparts, for both objective achievement and use case efficacy. 

And in some cases, experienced gifters tend to be more than twice as successful!

corporate-gifting

KEY INSIGHT

Experienced gifters find greater success with their gifting practices across every objective and use case we measured.



06.

Gifters Achieve Higher Satisfaction of B2B Marketing Campaigns

Experienced gifters rated higher satisfaction of campaign performance vs. novices.

Are more experienced gifters simply nailing it with business gifts, or are they more successful marketers across the board?

The data speaks for itself! Plus, experienced gifters rated gifting as their most effective marketing tactic, nearly tied with content marketing and events.

higher-satisfaction

KEY INSIGHT

Experienced gifters find greater success with their gifting practices across every objective and use case we measured.



“With B2B gifting, there’s this element of knowing how personal to get with someone depending on the stage of the relationship. So the right gift and the right messaging for a customer event may not be right for an MQL door opener. 

In other words, there’s no one right way to use gifting. There’s no code to crack. And take it from me: experienced gifters don’t start out crushing every metric every single time. It’s a matter of testing ideas to see how your audience responds, learning from it, and then saying, ‘OK, let’s try this next.’ 

At the end of the day, it’s all about being adaptable and empathetic with marketing and continually exploring ways to use gifting as an experience enhancer for your recipients.”

07.

What Sets the Experienced Gifters Apart?

Based on the evidence that experienced gifters tend to be much more successful and effective gifters overall, we wanted to see what else we could learn about them. 

We uncovered several attributes that highly effective gifters share.

Habit #1
They tend to rely on a multitude of marketing tactics.

Experienced gifters reported having higher reliance across a more varied list of marketing tactics than their novice gifter counterparts. In addition to gifting, experienced gifters rely heavily on tactics such as content marketing, events, SEO, and paid media.

Habit #2
They utilize a wider variety of gift types.

Experienced gifters were more likely than their novice counterparts to say they plan to use physical gifts (82% to 61%), branded swag/kits (75% to 64%), donation gifts (71% to 51%), and experiential gifts (66% to 54%) in the coming year. 

While all gifters also plan to use gift cards, experienced gifters appear to be putting more variety and creativity into their gift choices.

Habit #3
They seek more creative ways to connect with recipients.

Experienced gifters aren’t satisfied resting on their laurels; 83% plan to explore more gifting use cases in the coming year. A smaller majority (68%) of novice gifters had similar plans. Experienced gifters are more likely to use a wider array of use cases already, so we predict the extra creativity will help them to stand out even more to prospects and customers. 

Habit #4
They spend more on gifting in general.

Survey respondents shared their gifting budgets, and experienced gifters tend to spend more on gifting than novices do. That said, the difference isn’t huge. For example, the average annual gifting budget for experienced gifters was around $155,000, while the average for novice gifters was around $120,000.

Habit #5
They are planning to invest more in their gifting programs.

A strong gifting program requires intentional investment. Experienced gifters have seen that gifting pays off, so it’s not surprising that 69% intend to increase their investment in gifting in the next year. Yet only 41% of novice gifters said the same.

Habit #6
They are never bored.

When asked to select words to describe how they feel about themselves as marketers, zero experienced gifters chose the word “bored” from our list, while a handful of novice gifters did. Plus, experienced gifters were more likely than their novice counterparts to choose the words “successful” and “fulfilled.”

Habit #6½
They might be you!

Experienced and novice gifters have plenty in common, and even marketers who’ve yet to use gifting share plenty of similarities. You might already be an experienced gifter! And if not, you certainly have the makings of becoming one. 

But, the way we see it, a significant finding that shines through in our research is that marketers of all kinds are using a ton of creativity, drive, and heart to make the world of marketing turn.

08.

Wrap up

Thanks for perusing our latest gifting research for B2B marketers. We hope our findings sparked some new ideas for you and that you’re inspired to try at least one new thing with gifting.

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Where to Next? 

Methodology

In mid-2022, Alyce conducted an anonymous industry survey among 314 B2B marketing professionals and business leaders. These survey respondents represented many different roles, years of experience, and industries, bringing a variety of perspectives to corporate gifting. None of the survey participants were affiliated with Alyce.

About the Corporate Gifting Survey Respondents

  • Work at organizations with 100 or more employees
  • Work at organizations with at least $1M in annual revenue
  • Work in Marketing across the following industries:
    • Advertising & Marketing
    • Business Services
    • Education
    • Financial Services
    • HR & Staffing
    • Health care
    • Internet
    • Insurance
    • IT/Computer Services
    • Manufacturing
    • Logistics & Supply Chain
    • Retail
    • Real Estate
    • Software
    • Technology
    • Telecom

Thank you, Tina, from Ignite Research, for administering this
survey so we can uncover trends and attitudes around corporate gifting.

For additional questions about this gifting report, please email social@alyce.com.