Summary: By creating a deliberate swag strategy, companies can use branded merchandise to reinforce their employer brand, attract and retain talent, and extend their marketing efforts.
Need to Skim? Key Takeaways:
- A thoughtful swag strategy reinforces a company’s employer brand by creating emotional connections and aligning with internal values, which can have a positive impact on recruitment and retention.
- Random gifting can be ineffective and lead to wasted spending. A strategic approach aligns branded merchandise with key employee lifecycle events, such as onboarding, promotions, and anniversaries, to make a meaningful impact.
- A successful swag strategy is a part of a broader brand strategy, where merchandise choices reflect the company’s culture and values. This requires alignment across different departments like HR and marketing.
- While a strong corporate gifting strategy can help retain talent internally, it can also be used as a marketing strategy to engage external audiences like job candidates and partners.
Table of Contents
- What is Employer Branding and Why Does It Matter?
- How to Make Branding Strategy Work Internally
- Why You Need a Dedicated Swag Strategy
- How to Build a Brand Strategy that Includes Swag
- Building a Corporate Gifting Strategy that Attracts and Retains Talent
- Extend Your Employer Brand Externally with Corporate Gifts
- Metrics: How to Know Your Strategy is Working
Your business runs on the hard work of your employees. Their needs are your charge. Their goals are your fuel. So when it comes time to thank them for all they do, why not go above and beyond?
In this guide, we will walk you through how to build a swag strategy that supports your brand as an employer. By following these steps, you can ensure you differentiate your business to prospective new hires, keep your team engaged, and continue positive brand associations with your company for years to come.
What is Employer Branding and Why Does It Matter?
Employer branding is how current and potential employees perceive your company. It’s a critical component of your overall reputation and has a significant impact on recruitment, retention, and company culture. When you build a strong employer brand, you create an emotional connection with your team, which can be reinforced through regular brand experiences and a thoughtful swag strategy. One example of a recurring brand experience is curating and providing onboarding gifts for new hires, an impactful way to welcome people to the team.
How to Make Branding Strategy Work Internally
A successful branding strategy isn’t just about external messaging; it must resonate with your employees as well. To learn how to make a branding strategy work, you must align your brand voice, visual identity, and core values with the internal employee experience. Swag can serve as a powerful extension of your employer promise, reinforcing key messages, celebrating milestones, and underscoring your company’s mission.
To see this in action, you can explore how to build a brand experience strategy.
Why You Need a Dedicated Swag Strategy
There’s a significant difference between random, ad-hoc gifting and a thoughtful, measurable swag strategy. Inconsistency and a lack of planning can lead to wasted spend and employee disengagement. Instead, you should introduce the concept of aligning swag with key lifecycle touchpoints, such as onboarding, work anniversaries, and promotions.
To help with the practical side, we have resources on how to set your swag budget and information on our IEX platform to help you get started.
How to Build a Brand Strategy by Including Swag
Once you’re ready to embed swag into your broader brand strategy, you need to define the steps to get there. This is how to build a brand strategy that feels cohesive and deliberate:
Identify your brand values and tone
You should already have a solid foundation of your brand’s identity, including your values and tone. These elements help build a company swag strategy that accurately tells your brand message and attracts the right attention.
Choose merch that authentically reflects your company culture
Your company swag should reflect your company culture. Think, what products best fit our brand image? Are they minimalist? Sustainable? High tech? Traditional? Keep your brand at the center of your decision making process.
Standardize your design and quality benchmarks
Establish consistent specifications and quality criteria for your company swag. This ensures consistency, improves reliability, and enhances efficiency by reducing errors and inconsistencies. By setting benchmarks like industry leaders or competitors, you can better refine your process. Read about how we standardize design and quality in our in-house design and production operation.
Build cross-functional alignment between HR, marketing, and operations
When it comes to building a successful swag strategy, you must eliminate “silos” from your teams. Cross-functional alignment between HR, marketing, and operations is crucial for a seamless, on-budget, and on-time merch initiative.
Building a Corporate Gifting Strategy That Attracts and Retains Talent
Go beyond basic welcome kits to create a value-driven, meaningful, and personalized internal corporate gifting strategy. Consider memorable swag moments, such as branded wellness boxes or virtual unboxing experiences, and tie these gifts into your employer brand pillars like diversity, wellness, and innovation. This approach can enhance recruitment and retention.
You can also review our helpful guides:
Extend Your Employer Brand Externally with Corporate Gifts
Beyond the positive impact on your existing team members, your internal gifting can become a powerful external marketing tool. Use corporate gift marketing strategies to engage with candidates, alumni, and partners. Swag can be a key part of acquisition and recruiting campaigns, career fair activations, or referral programs to enhance your brand’s reputation.
By maintaining brand consistency between internal and external audiences, you can leverage a cohesive, streamlined marketing strategy for corporate gifts. For more on this, we have a helpful article on our corporate gifting platform and a guide on brand touchpoints.
Metrics: How to Know Your Swag Strategy Is Working
A thoughtful swag strategy isn’t complete without tracking its effectiveness. To measure the success of your corporate gifting strategy, you should track vital engagement metrics like social shares, referral impact, and onboarding feedback. Additionally, monitor retention rates and internal NPS (Net Promoter Score) after you’ve implemented your swag initiatives. Establishing KPIs tied to talent and culture metrics is crucial to ensure your swag program is a worthwhile investment.
When done strategically, brand experience marketing, both internal and external, can catapult engagement, visibility, and success for your brand. Read more about brand experience marketing and the many ways it could work for you.
Ready to build a strategy that makes a real impact?
Build a brand experience that lives on.
