Selling Gift Baskets to Corporate Clients

The corporate sector is the most lucrative market sector in the gift basket industry, making up an estimated 40% of total sales. Let's take a look at why this is such a great area of the market to target and how you can go about selling gift baskets to corporate clients.

Why Corporate Clients are Worth Targeting

What makes corporate customers so great is that they will buy from you repeatedly, consistently, all year round as opposed to the general consumer market whose participants are only occasional buyers and 'holiday buyers'.

A gift basket is well suited to corporate clients. In business, relationships are often not so close in the personal sense and there are many situations that arise when a gift would be a nice gesture yet so little is known about what type of present the recipient would appreciate. A gift basket business solves the problem of not knowing what to buy and offers an easy solution for selection, payment and delivery.

There are many occasions in the business world when gift giving becomes an obligation or a necessity. Gifts are usually given to employees who leave the company, celebrate anniversaries with the company or achieve outstanding results for the company. They are also needed to help build stronger relationships with valued customers or to smooth over mistakes, issues or problems that arise between a firm and their clients.

How to Sell Gift Baskets to Corporate Clients

Work on developing a finely tuned sales and marketing process for going out and getting new leads and turning these leads into accounts. Try to perfect a sales presentation that you can give to these valuable prospects and try to come across professionally as a business person as opposed to a 'work from home' hobbyist.

When meeting with clients don't forget to listen to their needs and requirements before you start ranting on about what you can offer. Try to see how the client in question is unique from your other clients and try to create a unique solution accordingly.

When the time is right though you do need to know how to close the deal and finalize the details of the new account. Most companies have a casual relationship with a gift basket business rather than entering into contracts with them.

Realize the importance of having clear lines of communication with prospective clients and existing ones. Impose some strict service standards upon yourself and your employees and make sure that phone calls and emails are answered or responded to within short time periods.

Most companies choose one business to deal with for all their basket requirements. Scoring a corporate client can be an amazing accomplishment for your business as it is likely that you will have their 'high volume' business for many years if you treat them right. For many gift basket businesses, the corporate sector can make up over half of their annual revenue.

Once you have attained some great corporate accounts you have to work on keeping them and that means that you have to be a perfectionist, getting every order right and delivered on time. Don't accept errors, and if they do happen go out of your way to explain and apologize to the client. Make sure that you keep a detailed file on each client so that you can note down any changes or any specific preferences that they have.

Targeting and dominating the corporate market has been the secret behind many successful gift basket businesses. Deciding to go after corporate market with your gift baskets could prove to be very rewarding for you if you go about it wisely and professionally.

Additional Articles -

How to Market Gift Baskets - Our Gift Basket Marketing Plan

How to Price Gift Baskets - A Gift Basket Pricing Strategy

Gift Basket Dropshipping - Becoming a Dropshipper or a Vendor

Gift Basket Advertising - How to Sell Gift Baskets

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