If you have a wine club or other DTC sales channel, you may have thought about corporate gifting. Corporate gifts are a great opportunity, not only to sell more product, but to really get your brand and name out there and in front of new potential customers.

The trick is, and if you want to do it right, you’ve got to start the planning and the conversations now.

What is Corporate Gifting? (And How is Wine Involved?)

Businesses and other organizations often give gifts. Sometimes they want to say “thank you” to their best clients, and sometimes they want to recognize (and reward) their top performers. Corporations do this year ’round, but it happens especially as the holiday season approaches.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the person within the corporation tasked with finding these gifts. What do you want? You’re looking for a solution that is elegant, affordable, and that represents your own brand in the best light possible. You would also want an ordering process that is easy, and delivery that is fast and efficient.

Wine can often accomplish all these things. Wine is elegant. It is almost universally appreciated. It is not an impersonal gift, but it is still one you can feel comfortable giving to business associates. It is shelf stable, easy to carry, and lends itself to all sorts of gifting and opening experiences.

As an added bonus, corporate gifting is a good way to showcase your new or up-and-coming wines, too. Many of our own clients will include a coupon, small promotional flier, or catalog with their corporate gifts to entice the recipient to explore their brand and, hopefully, order again.

So, if you are a winery or wine merchant, your wines could make for excellent corporate gifts. You just have to market to businesses and offer them an easy solution for their corporate gifting needs.

What to Do Now

Whether or not you’ve leveraged corporate gifting in the past, you’ll need to get your ducks in a row now if you want to get in on the 2018 gifting season. We suggest you:

• Start creating a calendar. Holiday gifts need to arrive in given time frames. Be sure you are getting in front of your corporate gift prospects early enough to deliver.
• Look into kitting. Pre-assembled kits make great gifts. Have a few simple kits designed and pre-assembled, so they are ready for sale and delivery.
• Think about the packaging. There are some tight restrictions on how you can package and ship wine, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have impressive packaging. Indeed, opening the gift can be a part of the experience itself (you can find further ideas in our white paper on the unpacking experience).
• Offer personalization. Your corporate customers will want to personalize their gifts in some way. How will you do this? Will you simply add a card with their message,tissue wrap the bottles, or even add merchandise to the gift? ? What other things can you do to make your wine delivery more personal?
• Talk to your 3PL about logistics. Corporate gifts will need to be picked, packed, and delivered according to a tight schedule. If you’ve started creating your calendar and looking into kitting, you’ve probably figured out that working with Copper Peak Logistics is a good idea at this point. Start a discussion with us as soon as possible, so that you can find out what are your best options.

Your Own Gifting

Don’t forget that this is the season for sending out your own gifts as well! Just keep a few things in mind:

• Laws that affect DTC wine shipments can affect gifts and samples as well. These days, carriers are getting stricter about compliance. If you already have a license and are in compliance for DTC sales to a given state, you should be OK, but check, don’t just assume. (Our post on wine media samples has some advice that is relevant here, too.)
• It pays to send your best stuff. Just as a movie trailer shows you the funniest or most exciting parts of the movie, sending your best vintages as gifts will make a lasting impression and get others to try more.
• Plan now so that your gifts can get out the door in time. Holiday shipping is crazy. Getting your gifts out early is a good idea. Can you get gifts out too early? Let’s put it this way: We’ve never heard someone complain that they got a bottle of wine too far ahead of the holiday season. It is a gift that is always appreciated.

Ready to discuss plans for corporate gifting? We’ve handled logistics for wineries during corporate gifting season for years. We’d love to hear from you, and have made it easy to reach us by using this Contact Us link.

The Team at Copper Peak

707-265-0100