Bottom Line Up Front: This year, it’s more important than ever to boost employee morale, foster distanced productivity, & spread brand identity. With custom apparel & promo product solutions, your customers can do just that. We break down how to pitch them successfully here.

On March 5th, 2021, employees across the country will be experiencing their first Employee Appreciation Day since the pandemic began. They’ll likely be working from home, managing their family responsibilities on top of their professional ones, and profoundly missing the connection — the camaraderie — that being surrounded by their colleagues once gave them.

This National Employee Appreciation Day will be unlike any before it. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be powerful in its own right.

This year, employers and managers will be tasked with showing their gratitude in innovative ways. They’ll be forced to think outside of the box, and they’ll be confronted with just how much is on the line if they don’t.

Because by now, we know that showing employees they’re appreciated isn’t just a trivial display of kindness. It boosts productivity, staff retention, and — when executed right — the brand’s overall marketing power. And in a year as disjointed, confusing, and fast-changing as this one, businesses big and small can use all of the help in those areas they can get.

Wondering how to secure sales for 2021’s National Employee Appreciation Day? Keep reading — we break it all down.

National Employee Appreciation Day Orders

We painted the picture for you: employers desperate to enhance morale for their remote employees. Businesses desperate to enhance brand cohesion for their client-facing operations. Employees desperate to enhance their sense of community, despite being physically apart.

Now’s the perfect time for decision-makers to hear your pitches. To learn about the ways decorated apparel and promotional products can bring distanced people together, while furthering brand identity and awareness at the same time.

Now’s the time for you to share your expertise and intentionally-curated order options. Now’s the time for you to showcase to old customers and new prospects alike just what this year’s National Employee Appreciation Day can mean for them.

If you’re ready to compile your pitch, we recommend starting with this strategy. It involves three core elements and, when executed with earnestness, provides all listening ears with an offer they can’t refuse. Customization, ease, impact — it’s all here. Let’s dive in:

Custom Products, At Their Fingertips

Branded athleisure, coffee thermoses, Airpods, yoga mats, and even pots for succulents are some of the most in-demand items for 2021’s continued work-from-home culture, and they’re bringing brand marketing power and genuine utility right along with them. In your pitch, you want to showcase the wide range of what’s possible — but the truth is, your customers know their staff best. Use these product types as jumping-off points and encourage your customers to customize based on what their people need… and like. 

Remind them that branded apparel — whether a polished polo or a warm zip-up — shows clients and vendors on Zoom calls that they’re a united front. Remind them that branded home-office goods — like the hottest tech gadgets or the most basic pens & organizers — keep their employees associating with their brand identity all through the day. And remind them that custom lifestyle and wellness products — like wine glasses, Fitbits, or engraved books — help keep their workforce happy with their work-life balance, feeling valued in their personal lives as much as in their professional ones.

Use InkSoft’s Quotes, Invoices, and Sales Presentations to send them digitally, interactive pitch presentations, with custom mock-ups of items you think they’ll love. Include access to InkSoft’s Online Designer so that they can hold the reins in their own design process — and try out new product designs without risk. The combination of your solution-based expertise and their ability to customize any order will make the pitch hard to ignore — and easy to buy into.

Why? Because any smart employer knows the key to their business is their people. And these orders help them give thanks to their people — while increasing their brand marketing power at the same time.

E-Commerce for Empowerment

If products are the cake, then your e-commerce set-up is the tray it rolls out on — less glamorous, but just as crucial to the process. With the power of InkSoft’s Online Stores behind you, you can demonstrate the ease and convenience of your capabilities at two key points in the lifecycle of the sale.

The first? In the pitching phase, when your prospects are deciding if the order you’re suggesting is worth the investment, and how much effort will be required from them to pull it off. This is where an Online Pitch Store comes into play: by generating mock-ups of products you’d recommend and putting them into a custom Online Store (made solely for the prospect), they can examine the items and their vehicle at once. Not only will they be wowed by the professionalism, but they’ll also realize how seamless the e-commerce experience you’ll be offering to their end-consumers (employees) is — and be motivated to buy in by that smoothness alone.

So that’s the Online Pitch Store. What about the actual Online National Employee Appreciation Day Store? Here’s where you can have some fun. Once the order’s been finalized, the products have been chosen, and your customers are eagerly waiting for their employees to see what they have in store, you’re ready to make the custom Online Store live. Employees from all around the country (or world!) can click onto the site, browse the goods available to them, select their size or preferred color, and input their own shipping information. Then? It’s as simple as them typing in the code they were given at check-out — and waiting with excitement for their gift to arrive.

InkSoft’s Online Stores don’t just give employees the “buying” experience they love — but they also give employers the power of knowing the logistics are streamlined, the method is smooth, and the results are guaranteed to be great. By empowering your customers with the simplicity, reliability, and control of cutting-edge e-commerce, you’re taking the hassle out of the project. And delivering a fantastic, personalized experience for all involved parties.

Fulfilling Order Fulfillment

The #1 thought going through every prospect’s head during every pitch? Where they’ll come into the pipeline. How much effort will be required of them? How much time will they need to spend, and how much manpower will they have to allocate?

This is your time to shine. Because, with InkSoft solutions and your own capabilities behind you, the answer is — close to none. Once they’ve picked out the products, approved the designs, and given you the details about their order’s size and needs, they’re essentially off the hook. Until they start fielding thank you‘s from their staff, that is.

So make sure you make that clear by breaking down, early on, just how your fulfillment process works. They choose the goods. They choose the graphics, messaging, and media for the custom Online Store. You put those goods into that Online Store. And their employees can then click into the store — right from their couch — and select the products they like. They fill in their shipping info, that data is organized in the Online Stores platform, and you have everything you need to produce, package, and ship — while your prospects don’t have to worry about a thing.

No inventory. No shipment tracking. No sore hands from dealing with cardboard boxes. You take care of it all — and they get all of the glory.

Plus? If they’re interested in premiums like a better unboxing experience, eco-friendly packaging, or upleveled custom kitting, then you have the power to deliver there too — and increase your average order value. By emphasizing that your team is armed and ready to give them the exact, stress-free, hands-off execution process they want, you’re allaying their fears of being needed and exciting them with limitless customization potential.

Include those three angles in your National Employee Appreciation Day pitches, and we have every confidence that you’ll be closing sales left and right. But before we wrap up our pitching tips, we want to make sure we’re leaving you with one last golden rule: be flexible.

There will be businesses with big budgets and businesses with small budgets. There will be organizations with thousands of employees and organizations with a handful of employees. National Employee Appreciation Day orders can be powerful for companies of any size, no matter how luxe the order is. As long as the sentiment is there, there’s room for rewards to flourish.

So when you pitch, be mindful of where your prospect is at — with their budget, with their needs, and with their expectations. You’re there to give them more than just products; you’re there to give them solutions. So work with them to find the right ones.

The Wrap Up

National Employee Appreciation Day brings massive selling potential for decorators and print shops — but that potential isn’t limited to the national holiday itself.

The smartest businesses in our industry will use this holiday to re-engage their stagnant customers and attract new prospects, sure, but they’ll also use it as a way to prove their utility. Because even if a business makes a teeny-tiny order here — an order that’s rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things — they’re opening the door for you to leave an impression.

And when you impress them today, they’ll come back to you tomorrow. For bigger orders with bigger impact.

Companies and organizations have a constant need for achievement, reward, and recognition programs, not to mention employee uniforms and customer gift programs. So no, this isn’t a one-time selling opportunity. This is a way for you to get in the door — to show off your capabilities and leave a mark.

So when the next need arises, they think of you first. And if you’re not already familiar with the wide-reaching power of InkSoft’s Online Stores, you’re going to want to get familiar. STAT. With an intuitive interface, a feature-packed platform, and an aptitude for streamlined organization, it’s the buying experience your audience wants. And the selling experience your whole team will be grateful for. See it for yourself here.