Celebrating your clients in the new year

If you’re kicking yourself right now because you’ve been too busy closing out the year to think about sending your clients a holiday gift – don’t sweat it. You still have time to show them your appreciation. The celebration of the New Year is right around the corner and it’s the perfect opportunity to send a thank you with wishes for a prosperous new year. After all, a New Year-inspired gift is relevant throughout the entire month of January.

We’re big fans of New Year gifts at Vitamin. We like them for a few reasons – they stand apart from the December holiday clutter, they represent a celebration and a fresh start and generally speaking you don’t run the risk of making any religious offenses with a New Year gift since the holiday is recognized globally even in countries like China, which celebrates its new year on another day.

Now that we’ve established that you have more time to celebrate your clients in 2014, what should you send? We’re guessing that your internal marketing team or your branding agency would have several great ideas. Take time to sit down with your creative team members and have a good ol’ fashioned brainstorm. Throw out ideas; all sorts of ideas and see what sticks. Consider gifts that allow you to:

• Share a piece of your firm

• Accent things that connect you and your clients

• Show off your internal team’s personality

• Capitalize on a relevant cultural trend or event

For example, here at Vitamin we are super hard workers and avid coffee drinkers. Our espresso machine is buzzing almost as much as our phones are ringing. So in celebration of 2014 being the year of the horse (according to the Chinese calendar), we decided to dub our gift The Year of the Work Horse – giving our clients the gift of productivity by way of our favorite office beverages. The gift was custom designed by our team to share a piece of our firm’s work, to show off our personality and to connect with our clients who share our thirst for java and hot cocoa. And, it’s versatile enough to send in December or anytime during the month of January.

If you have a lot of clients to appreciate and a minimal budget to do it with, consider celebratory gifts that are always appreciated – like bottles of champagne or wine (make sure you know the laws for shipping across state borders), boxes of mouth-watering snacks or a bestseller book relevant to your client’s industry. If you go this route, remember that customizing your gift makes it more thoughtful and memorable. Do a custom label on that bottle of champagne, design special packaging for the snacks and write a hand-written thank you note.

New Year is ripe with opportunity to connect with the clients who are fueling your revenues. Take the time to treat them as friends and partners this coming year – not just as dollar signs.