Have you ever been given a “free gift” by a company or church or whatever? (Is there any other kind?) It’s nice, right? Except that you most often don’t need/want the gift you’ve been given.
That’s what happened to me today. I won’t name the company because I don’t want to hurt their business, but they sent me a “free gift” as a promotional.
Their plan backfired, for several reasons.
First of all, I’ve never deal with their company directly. I’ve only bought from their Amazon store, so I was more than a bit confused when I got a package in the mail with their label on it. I instantly thought that my Amazon account had been compromised. Once my panic subsided, I was able to think through the chaos and track down the company’s customer service number where a nice lady informed me that I had received a “free gift.”
Secondly, the gift is a Kodak proprietary USB adapter.
This would be really helpful … if I owned a Kodak camera.
I don’t. This is a big failure on the company’s part. The only products I have purchased from their Amazon store were cases for an iPhone 4s. They should have sent me something that would have been useful to an iPhone owner, which they could have safely assumed I was based upon my actual purchase history. By sending me this random accessory, they have communicated to me that they had a surplus of obsolete garbage they could pawn off on their customers.
Church Gifts
Now, poor corporate marketing aside, does your church hand out “free gifts” to guests? We do. We used to hand out travel mugs. Now, we hand out 1 gig USB drives with info about your church on them. (You can format the drives to make them actually useful.) If you come back a second time, then we really seal the deal with … a travel mug … full of candy!
There’s nothing wrong with this plan, but we’re always looking for new ideas. One idea was to hand out t-shirts which read, “I visited (Insert Church Name) and all I got was this t-shirt.” I’ve suggested having a selection of gifts ranging from gift cards to family devotionals. We’re not sure what we’re going to do, but we have decided on a few things.
Our “free gift” shouldn’t be a “white elephant.”
A white elephant is a gift that you wish you hadn’t received. To paraphrase the late Mitch Hedberg, we don’t want to hand a guest their gift and have the subtle message be,
“Here, you throw this away for us.”
That’s what this company did to me: we can’t do it to our guests.
We need to “know” our guests.
It wouldn’t have taken that much more effort for this company to have cross-referenced recent customers with what they actually purchased. If they had, I might have actually received a gift I could use. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like the idea of handing out t-shirts. Our church generally attracts families with a healthy (i.e. large) number of kids. How is one t-shirt going to communicate “We’re loved having your here today” to a family of six? Granted, you’ll never make everyone happy, but you can at least try not to disappoint everyone.
With a little bit of effort and a good deal of strategy, a “free gift” can help your church—or company—stand out as thoughtful and inviting. However, simply offering a gift won’t necessarily help you.
What does your church offer guests as a gift?
Have you ever received a white elephant as a free gift?
[Top image via MCSimon]
Mark Robinson says
We give away chocolate in our welcome bags!
People love em!….and so do kids – a bit too much! 🙂
Eric Dye says
You’re making me hungry! 😀
Phil Schneider says
We used to use more candy, but we had a major meltdown (gross) and scaled back.
I’m always in favor of more junk food.
Jeremy Reger says
I would think you could at least use it to charge something.. lol
Phil Schneider says
Nope. I sure can’t. Proprietary is a beast that must be stopped.
Paul Clifford says
In the 1800’s when books were the cost of a working person’s weekly salary, the church gave away books and tracts. We should figure out how to overwhelm people with gifts, not give them trash. I know that most churches can’t afford an expensive gift, but creative thoughts can make less expensive things more valuable.
Isn’t that what an author’s business model is? Why is a blank journal $3-$6, but a written book with the same number of pages is $14.95-$49-95? Adding creativity turns paper into a book. What creativity can you add to something you can afford as a gift that turns it into a MUCH more valuable gift, something you could sell for 5x as much?
Phil Schneider says
Great comment, Paul. Creativity is what makes the difference. We don’t have to spend money, but we do need to spend time planning and prepping.
Tyler H says
if the free gift of salvation isn’t enough, a travel mug is definitely going to do the trick? i understand meeting people’s needs, like, say, feeding them is a nice thing to do, i just don’t understand how marketing tricks are going to help people’s souls.
Phil Schneider says
It can be marketing, Tyler, if we give them the gift just to grow our brand and increase our audience. But if we’re just trying to show the person that we value them and that we want to be a good neighbor/friend, isn’t that ok as well?
I agree completely that the Church often leans too much on programming and not enough on God’s power, but there is nothing wrong with being as “wise as serpents and as harmless as doves,” especially if the intent is to be hospitable and welcoming.
Markus Watson says
I’m the pastor at my church and I’ll always send a personally written card thanking them for visiting, along with a $3 Coldstone gift card. It’s not much, but people who now are actively engaged members of our church will tell me they still remember being pleasantly surprised by that card and gift card!
Phil Schneider says
That’s great, Markus. That’s exactly what I’m shooting for with our church. Thanks for the comment.
Ryland says
I stole this idea. We made a cd of solid independent christian artists songs (with their permission of course) onto a cd called “Wake up and Worship”. It included a brief message as the first track thanking them for joining us in worship. Then we gave them a bag of “custom blend” coffee with it.
Phil Schneider says
Very cool, Ryland. Do you have a lot of indie artists in your area or do you have to track them down?
Ryland says
Being an indie artist myself i already had a good group of contacts to pull from. But honestly, artists are pretty flexible and willing to let you use their music when it’s not being sold. It’s free exposure, plus their info was on the cd also.
Phil Schneider says
Wow. That’s a really creative idea. Thanks for sharing.
gregg farah says
Great post! Thanks! We’re wrestling through this now. LOVE this quote from your post: “Here, you throw this away for us.”
Phil Schneider says
Thanks, Gregg. We’ve done been doing this so long that we’re looking at starting from scratch and finding a “new way” to give gifts, and we’ve been looking at what Steven Furtick does at Elevation Church. He’s written a few articles for Outreach Magazine that might be helpful.
And I love that quote, too. Mitch Hedberg was one of the funniest comedians I’ve ever heard.
Thanks for the comment.