We all know the feeling of opening up a perfect gift. You feel seen, honored, and happily surprised. Maybe you even see the sender in a new light, as someone who understands and values you. Your mind races through the possibilities of what you’ll do with the gift, of where and how it’ll fit into your life. You now have a tangible reminder of the sender and their appreciation for you.
This is exactly how you want your customers to feel about your business. By thoughtfully choosing and sending the best customer appreciation gifts, you can achieve that effect.
Need ideas for gifts that make your customers feel valued without breaking the bank? We’ve got you covered. Explore the following sections to make sure you can make the most of your customer appreciation gifts:
- How Do You Show Customers You Appreciate Them?
- Tips for Choosing the Best Customer Appreciation Gifts
- The #1 Best Inexpensive Customer Appreciation Gift: eCards
- Other Inexpensive Customer Appreciation Gift Ideas
Let’s get started by looking at gifts as a customer appreciation strategy and breaking down the benefits for your business.
How Do You Show Customers You Appreciate Them?
While there are a variety of creative ways to show customers you value them, one of the most successful strategies is to periodically send customer appreciation gifts. Well-chosen gifts create positive relationships with customers, increase brand loyalty, and provide customers with a reminder of your business. One study found that 83% of customers felt closer to businesses after receiving a customer appreciation gift.
How do you tap into the power of these gifts? Start by determining the best times to send them to select customers. Some times to consider include:
- After a customer makes a major purchase
- When customers reach important milestones, such as being a customer for 2 years or sharing 5 products on social media
- On customers’ birthdays, major holidays, and other special occasions
- When promoting a specific new product or campaign
Along with these natural times to send gifts, don’t underestimate the power of surprise. Occasionally sending surprise gifts without a clear reason can actually increase the gifts’ impact. This way, customers will know they can receive a gift at any time just for being a customer, making them more likely to stay loyal to your brand.
Tips for Choosing the Best Customer Appreciation Gifts
Increased retention rates and improved customer relations are just the beginning. Customer appreciation gifts also build brand awareness on social media and through word of mouth. When customers like your gifts, they’ll be sure to talk about them, generating interest and attracting new customers for your business.
To access these benefits, however, your gifts need to resonate with customers and make sense for your business. Follow these tips for choosing customer appreciation gifts that make an impact:
- Tailor gifts to your audience: Use all available data to choose gifts that you know your customers will like. Evaluate customer demographics, feedback, and social media engagement to determine their interests and appeal to them.
- Make sure they make sense: Gifts have to be relevant to your company in some way in order for customers to positively associate the gift with your business. Choose gifts that align with your industry, offerings, and company values.
- Customize and personalize: Generic gifts don’t have the same appeal or create as strong of an association with your brand as customized gifts do. Customize your gifts by including your branding, writing personalized thank you notes, and, if possible, customizing the gifts themselves to reflect your brand.
- Find inexpensive options: To get a high return on your investment, be conscious of your budget and don’t go overboard. Instead, search for inexpensive, unique gift options that still make a big impression on customers.
As you choose customer appreciation gifts, make sure there’s variety in your approach. Ideally, sending these gifts won’t be a one-off campaign, so you should select plenty of different ideas for gifts to send in the future. Start with our 20 customer appreciation gift ideas, then use these tips to refine your choices. Let’s dive into our top recommendation for gifts that are both inexpensive and impactful.
The #1 Best Inexpensive Customer Appreciation Gift: eCards
eCards combine all the best elements of more expensive customer appreciation gifts into one unique, heartfelt gift. They’re simple, creative, fully customizable, and budget-friendly. The best part is there are unlimited possibilities for using eCards for both marketing and customer appreciation.
Using a platform like eCardWidget, you can create branded customer appreciation gifts that are interactive and engaging. Your business designs a set of eCards, integrates a widget into your website, then lets customers add personal messages and send eCards to friends. You can use the eCards themselves as gifts, or let customers unlock a separate gift (like a discount code, digital download, or entry into a raffle) by sending an eCard to someone else. Either way, customers receive your thanks, and your business reaches a wider audience.
Why eCards Work
eCards work extremely well as customer appreciation gifts because they let customers take the lead and share their own appreciation. When you launch an eCard marketing campaign, you’re not only giving a gift to your customers. You’re also letting your customers send gifts to the people they care about at the same time. This makes for a distinct, shareable experience that’ll stick in the minds of your customers and their friends.
On top of this major benefit, eCards have a track record of being well-received, with an impressive 95% open rate. eCards are also:
- Surprising and unexpected
- Completely customizable for your brand and audience
- Personal for both customers and their loved ones
- Easy to pair with holidays or specific marketing campaigns
- Trackable for your business to quickly gain engagement insights
Peer-to-peer marketing is powerful, and customer appreciation eCards are the perfect opportunity to lean into the possibilities.
Customer Appreciation eCard Examples
eCardWidget’s customization features allow companies to tailor their gifts for their audiences in a wide variety of creative ways. Take a look at a few impactful examples that show how businesses can use eCards to share appreciation for customers:
These eCards were created by California Wines as part of a holiday customer appreciation campaign. In their campaign, customers chose to send one of two wine-themed eCard options, then received their gift: a virtual recipe book filled with holiday cocktail recipes.
As part of a Valentine’s Day marketing campaign, Raising Cane’s offered customers the gift of free Valentine’s Day cards. Anyone could add their own personal message and send their loved ones these creative Valentines.
This example shows how your business can use eCard gifts to let your customers share their own appreciation. With these eCards from American Patriots Unsung Network, customers can send personal thanks to veterans and service members.
How to Get Started with eCards
Now that you’ve seen the possibilities, getting started with eCard appreciation gifts is easy. Using the right software, all you have to do is sign up, create your set of eCard designs, and add the widget to your website. Then launch your appreciation campaign and let customers know about their gifts!
Other Inexpensive Customer Appreciation Gift Ideas
To create a robust gifting strategy, consider these 19 other ideas for inexpensive customer appreciation gifts. Remember to keep our tips in mind and align each choice with your business’s budget and audience preferences.
2. Thank-You Cards
General thank-you cards may be a basic option, but they can still make a difference to customers. Besides eCards, you can send thank-you cards through email or direct mail. Handwritten, mailed thank-you messages are one of the most personal customer appreciation gifts you can send.
3. Coupons
Emailing a coupon or discount is an easy, inexpensive way to give a small gift to select customers. You can personalize these gifts by sending discount codes for products you know an individual customer likes based on their purchase history.
Make it clear in the email that this is a gift and specify the reason you’re sending it. To make it even more valuable for the customer, don’t give the coupon an expiration date.
4. Gift Cards
Similar to coupons, gift cards are easy to send out and are often a customer favorite. After all, if the customer is loyal enough that you’re sending them an appreciation gift, they’ll be excited to buy more from your catalog using a gift card.
Plus, when customers buy items with a gift card, they’re likely to spend at least a little bit more than the card’s worth. Gift cards quickly and clearly lead to more spending, making them one of the most effective customer appreciation gifts in the short term.
5. Small Branded Merchandise
Branded merchandise, commonly referred to as “swag,” is another traditional customer appreciation gift that works well as a tangible reminder of your business. T-shirts, mugs, notebooks, and any other small items with your brand name on them serve as easy advertising. Be careful not to rely solely on branded merchandise gifts, however, as they can seem less genuine if they’re all a customer receives from you.
6. Coffee or Tea
Many customers prefer gifts that are useful for their everyday lives over branded items or trinkets they won’t know what to do with. If you want to send gifts you know your customers will use, opt for bags of specialty coffee or unique teas. For the holidays, hot chocolate can work just as well.
7. Themed Gift Basket
You can’t go wrong with a gift basket, as long as it aligns with your business and audience preferences. Make your gift basket more cohesive by choosing a theme, such as:
- Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or another major holiday
- Pet lovers
- Spa day
- Seasonal themes
You can also align gift basket themes with any of your current marketing campaigns. For example, if you’re promoting a new blackberry wine, send out berry-themed baskets and include a coupon for the new wine.
8. Virtual Recipe Books
Remember our earlier example where a business gifted cocktail recipe books to customers who sent each other eCards? This idea can work well for any business related to food, drink, or health. Virtual recipe books are budget-friendly and encourage sharing, making it easy to expand the customer appreciation gift’s reach.
9. Self Care Box
This is an obvious gift for businesses that sell health and wellness items, but they can work well for any company. Everyone needs a little self care in their busy lives, and your customers will appreciate you supporting their wellbeing. Order curated self care boxes from a gifting company, or create your own by combining items like candles, bath supplies, and books.
10. Stickers
Send branded stickers as gifts or consider partnering with a popular artist to send out their sticker designs as gifts. Stickers are small and inexpensive, but they’re highly popular, especially with younger audiences.
11. Virtual Cooking Class
Invite your customers to exclusive virtual classes for an experience gift that’s still cost-effective. Cooking classes are the most common option, but you could also send invites for painting classes or any other skill that would resonate with your audience. With branded eCard invitations like the example below, you can even let select customers invite their friends.
12. Social Media Shoutouts
Social media shoutouts may not be as tangible as other gift options, but they can still effectively show your appreciation and benefit your customers. These tend to work best for clothing and jewelry brands that can easily feature customers wearing their products on the business’s account.
13. Exclusive Access
Everyone loves an exclusive opportunity! For your business, this gift could look like early access to new products, pre-sales for tickets, or access to exclusive behind the scenes content. Be sure to let customers know they’re receiving this access as a gift for being a loyal customer.
14. Overstock Items
If you have an item that’s not selling as well and needs added promotion, consider sending some as gifts. This will alleviate some of your surplus, promote the product, and encourage customers to buy more items when they receive their gift.
15. Donations in Their Honor
Your customers are likely philanthropic and want to make a difference to causes they care about. You can use customer appreciation gifts to help them back that difference by donating in their honor.
To let customers know about the donation you made on their behalf, send an eCard like the example below from Harbor’s vet appreciation campaign:
16. Snacks
When in doubt, you can’t go wrong with a classic. Cookies, chocolates, or boxes of snacks won’t go unappreciated as customer gifts. As long as you can relate the snacks back to your business, this is a good option.
17. Items from Local Businesses
Support local businesses and boost your own business at the same time. Reach out to a relevant business and ask if they’d be willing to partner with you. They’ll donate items or coupons, you’ll send them to your customers, and both of your businesses will benefit. Plus, your customers will appreciate being introduced to a new local brand.
18. Puzzles
Puzzles make a unique gift, and they’ve been gaining popularity in recent years. Choose a relevant image to turn into puzzles that will keep your business at the top of your customers’ minds while they complete them.
For example, if you’re promoting a tv show, you could send out a puzzle of the main characters or a well-loved scene.
19. Giveaways
Traditional giveaways are an inexpensive opportunity to promote a product and show your appreciation for customers. Give customers the opportunity to participate in a giveaway for a few new items, then give the lucky winners the gifts.
Did you know you can combine two quality customer appreciation gifts by using eCards as a way to enter the giveaway? This example from Worx shows one creative way to do so:
20. Collection of Free Samples
Another good option if you have a variety of overstock items is to combine a few into free sample collections. These make great customer appreciation gifts because they give customers a taste of many products at once.
Wrapping Up
As you can see, there are plenty of creative, inexpensive customer appreciation gifts that can help your business thrive. Once you’ve chosen the best options for your business, determine the most appropriate time to send surprise gifts. Use our tips and ideas to help you decide, and don’t forget to ask for feedback on every gift.
Want to learn more about the possibilities of using eCards to recognize customers and your own employees? Check out these additional resources:
- 11 Top Corporate Gifting Companies & Platforms to Consider. Need advice choosing the best company to order customer appreciation gifts from? Take a look at our top choices.
- Employee Gifts: A Complete Guide + Top 10 Gift Ideas. Learn how to bring the concept of customer appreciation gifts into your workplace with employee gifts.
- 41 Corporate Gift Ideas Employees & Customers Will Love. Still unsure what to gift your customers? Don’t worry, here’s 41 more appreciation gift ideas to consider.
