You may recall our recent campaign talking about how the holidays are going to look different this year, how to reallocate funds from cancelled events, and how to deliver a memorable experience from a distance. If you missed it, no worries – you can still find the 3 holiday blogs chock full of info here.
We also recently showcased our custom INM Holiday Demo Shop, just to show an example of how we can take a brand and turn it into a super cool and trendy online holiday gifting program. To be honest, we’ve been creating online client shops for years – but this year, it’s becoming more important than ever to convert merchandise concepts into an online shop with the click of a button.
“That’s real nice and all, but how would an online shop help with my specific business goals?”
Good question. We truly believe that everyone can benefit in many ways, but here are just 5 of those reasons: 
- Rewarding teams for hitting goals: encourage them to stay on track, even if the direction has changed for the time being.
- Employee appreciation and engagement: with more people working remotely now, it’s proving a bit difficult to connect and engage.
- Creating brand ambassadors: when you provide your team members with logo merchandise for their personal use, you’re creating mini company billboards all over the place – at grocery stores, social-distance neighborhood driveway happy hours, youth softball leagues, etc.
- Client gifting: because most of your client’s need some encouragement, support, and gratitude for their loyalty during this time, too.
- Complete brand control: eliminates the need for that one employee (or two…or more) that orders some sketchy merch from the street vendor – you decide the products and the branding, and with a partner that honors your brand guidelines.
If you’re still not sure, think about how many of your sales goals have completely changed over the past few months, and how well your team has pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and persevered. Sure, it’s their job – but an online gift incentive can keep that motivation flowing to encourage them to keep working toward the next milestone achievement!
As another example, a recent study indicated that 69% of employees are experiencing burnout while working from home, and that ongoing engagement efforts can be something as simple as a compliment or a gift of gratitude. Now imagine taking that concept and sending them a link to the online corporate gift shop and giving them a password or coupon code to use to pick out a gift of their choice – just to show appreciation for all that they do for the company. The gifts are pre-approved, but are readily available for each manager to use as necessary – and limited to their budget, of course.
These are just a few of the benefits that an online company shop can offer. Stay tuned to our blog for more insights each week as we dig deeper into the bigger questions like what type of shops do you offer? and how do I sign up?!
