Corporate Cookie
Gift Ideas
Everybody loves a good gift—your kids, your spouse, your neighbor. And gifts aren’t just for our personal lives. Why? Because people are people, whether they’re gathered around a tree on Christmas morning or sitting in the executive suite.
If you’re looking to enhance and grow your business, it’s time to build a strong culture of gift gifting. Classy and consistent gifting can help you retain customers, attract new customers, keep your employees happy, reward loyal referral sources, build relationships with vendors, and more.
Take the case of Will Guidara. He was just 26 years old when he took over Eleven Madison Park, a struggling New York City restaurant. It opened in a grand space with worlds of promise ahead, but it never could get wings. Instead, it hovered in the world of mediocre: mediocre food, mediocre service.
But things changed when Guidara took over. In little more than a decade, Eleven Madison Park would become known as the best restaurant in the world. The secret? A little something Guidara calls “unreasonable hospitality,” which is the idea of giving guests more than they could have ever expected. It works in restaurants, and it can work for your business, too.
Think about it. How does it feel when you sit down at a restaurant and the waiter brings you a basket of soft, warm bread and a crock of sumptuously sweet honey butter? Darn good! Now how does it feel when they offer you the same thing—for an upcharge? Not as good, right? There’s just something about getting the wonderfully unexpected, the thing you neither paid for nor earned.
Corporate Gift Giving on a Schedule and a Budget
We know what you’re thinking. It all sounds very nice, but you don’t have unlimited funds or unlimited time. The good news is that smart, well-planned corporate gift giving should work well within both of those constraints. Here’s how:
Make it meaningful. A corporate gift that shows a lot of forethought and care can pack a big punch. You could give someone a big fat gift certificate, or you could send a singing telegram with a song written just for the recipient. The latter might be cheaper, but of the two, it’s the one that will have the recipient talking about the experience for weeks. A meaningful gift can trump a high-dollar one every time.
Make it consistent. If you have to think of a different corporate gift to fit this client or that employee, it’s going to be a major time suck. But if you can standardize your gifts into one or two general crowd-pleasers with easy customization options, you’ve got it made.
Why Corporate Cookies Make the Perfect Corporate Gift
This brings us to the matter of corporate gift cookies, which we believe are the Holy Grail of gifts in the business world. If you’re looking for a gift that’s both easy and affordable for you and delightful for every recipient, here’s why cookies win every time.
Sentimental. Remember the homemade cookies Grandma always had in the jar? Or the chocolate chip cookies that you and your sister baked together? We’re willing to bet that most everyone has a memory associated with cookies. So, in the cold corporate world of cubicles, copy machines, and CPUs, cookies are the perfect contrast. They’re a taste of home in the middle of the office, a welcome escape from the daily grind.
High touch. Everyone knows how time-consuming it is to churn out a batch of cookies, what with the sifting, measuring, mixing, shaping, and baking. That’s why cookies have such a strong association with care and effort. Corporate cookie gifts shout, “We value you, so we’re wiling to do a little bit extra.” The very nature of cookies, with the labor of love that they invoke, strengthens the bond between the giver and receiver.
Universally Appealing. Is there anyone in the world who doesn’t like cookies? Maybe .00001% of the population, so we’d say they’re a pretty safe bet. Much safer than, say, a T-shirt that leaves you trying to guess what size someone wears. (Danger, Will Robinson.) And they’re far better than a set of branded golf balls when you have no idea if the recipient actually likes the sport.
Customizable. Corporate cookie gifts are a cinch to order. Just fill in a few form fields on your computer, and you’re good to go. But even though they’re easy, they’re anything but one-size-fits-all. You can pick different flavors and different holiday options (like a star-shaped sugar cookie with sprinkles for Christmas) to produce a tailor-made gift. You can also personalize the packaging and gift cards to include your company’s logo.
Won’t go to Waste. According to a 2019 study by the Ad Specialty Institute, only about one-fifth of corporate gifts are kept. The rest? You got it—the landfill. But cookies will never end up as a contaminant of Mother Earth. Cookie waste is not a thing! A far more likely scenario is multiple people jockeying for the last cookie on the plate.
Shareable. Corporate gifting is all about maximizing the bang for your buck. Give an expensive pen set to the president of a company, and you’ve reached one person. Give a couple dozen cookies, and you’ve suddenly reached a couple dozen people.
A gift of cookies with your logo will undoubtedly end up in the company’s break room, where anyone passing through will stop for a delightfully unexpected mid-day sugar rush. “Who gave us these cookies,” they’ll ask, the last perfectly chewy bite lingering on their tongues? They’ll spy your logo and forever associate you with goodness and generosity. We just don’t see something like that happening with a fountain pen. Cookies are the superior choice, whether it be cookies for employees, customers, business partners, or referral sources.
Easy. You’re beyond busy. The last thing you need is for a corporate gift to monopolize your precious time. The great thing about corporate cookies is that they take just a few minutes to order. Pick up the phone or pull up to your computer. Share the recipient’s address and your payment information. Hit the send button, and walk away. The best corporate cookie companies will save your information, including the text for the personalized card you want to send with each order.
Novel. Let’s think through the list of top corporate gifts: pens, coffee mugs, T-shirts, hoodies, insulated lunch sacks, key chains, lanyards. Nowhere on this list is cookies. That’s the beauty of it. Let all the other tchotchkes fade into the cluttered background as cookies take their place among the most creative of corporate gifts.
Never get old. Here’s another boon for cookies as a corporate gift: you can send them year after year after year. There is no such thing as cookie fatigue. In fact, people will come to expect your cookies and look forward to them with extreme anticipation. “What will they send this year,” they’ll ask around the water cooler. “Will it be those glorious chocolate chip cookies they sent us for the 4th of July Or those perfect star-shaped sugar cookies we got last Christmas?” Oh, the suspense!
Perfect for the holidays. You can make a big mark when your company “shows up” on special occasions. Corporate holiday cookie gifts have you covered. They can be customized to different holidays for extra impact. They’re just right for the 4th of July, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and more. You can even send them for someone’s birthday (think birthday cookies for employees or VIP customers)
Who Should I Send Corporate Cookies To?
We’ve mentioned some potential recipients above, but let’s take a deeper dive.
Potential customers. If you have a viable prospect, you don’t want to lose them. Say someone is thinking of hosting their wedding at your venue. Then, let’s say that you send them a note and a dozen cookies to thank them for touring your facility. Think you’ll stand out from the competition? Heck yeah…more and more with each delicious bite.
Prospective customers will know that if you’re classy enough to send a beautiful and delicious corporate cookie gift, you’ve got your act together. That makes them more likely to do business with you in the future. We think that’s a very worthwhile investment.
Loyal customers. Here’s a statistic worth considering: when you increase customer retention by just 5%, you can drive up profits by anywhere from 25% to 95%. Companies often spend a fortune trying to lure in new customers when it’s far more cost-effective to keep the existing ones happy.
There are lots of ways to do this with corporate cookies. Send a customer thank you cookies for making a big purchase. Reward them with an annual cookie delivery to mark the anniversary of patronizing your company. Send corporate holiday cookie gifts on Valentine’s Day, Christmas, or some other special occasion.
Whatever you choose, cookies provide an endearing, homey way to connect with your employees and keep them coming back for more.
Employees. Gallup reports that replacing an employee costs at least one-half to two times their yearly salary. Let’s go conservative with the “one-half” threshold. Say you lose an employee earning $60,000 per year. It could cost $30,000 to replace them by the time you fund ads, the interview process, skills assessments, background checks, and training to bring that employee up to speed. This is to say nothing of the stress on your organization while trying to fill the vacancy and the ever-present risk that the new person you hire won’t actually work out.
The moral to this story: it pays to keep your employees happy. And we think employee cookie gifts are the ultimate way to do this. There are all kinds of excuses to give cookies to employees:
- Anniversaries
- Major accomplishments (earning certifications or getting a certain number of positive reviews from customers)
- Birthdays
- Just because (the surprise element here is golden)
- Holidays
- Promotions
You can also think of setting up a competition with cookies as the grand prize. You could reward the person who closes the most sales, makes deadlines consistently, or gets the best feedback from customers. A little rivalry can make for some great motivation.
Cookie gifts for employees are delicious, perfect for sharing, and repeatable. (You can make employee cookies a staple of your company’s culture. Just mix up the flavors for each subsequent gifting if you want a little variety.)
Referral sources. One study of thousands of small businesses showed that 85% of local business comes from word-of-mouth referrals. Referral sources are worth cultivating! Consider setting up a “frequent referrer” program to reward customers who refer others to you. To track this, you’ll need to have new customers complete an intake form that tells how they found out about you.
When these referral sources find cookies on their doorstep, we guarantee you that they’ll be more likely to send more clients your way. Everyone likes to be appreciated, especially when the appreciation comes in the form of kickin’ cookies.
If you have colleagues that send business your way (think dentists referring patients to a trusted orthodontist), sending corporate cookie gifts is a great way to say thanks and keep your business top of mind.
Preferred vendors. You depend on other professionals to make you look good. Maybe it’s the people who supply your printed goods, the company that keeps your website in top shape, or the restaurant that frequently caters your events. It’s a real hassle to lose those relationships of trust and have to find other vendors of the same caliber. Keep your business partners happy with corporate cookies, and they’ll continue to prioritize you.
Tax Breaks on Corporate Cookie Gifts
Did you know that the IRS allows for tax deductions when you spend money on business gifts? This can apply to cookie gifts for employees, customers, business associates, etc. The limit is $25 per recipient per year. That means if you send 10 corporate cookie gifts to 10 different recipients, you can deduct $25 for each gift for a total of $250. (Note that this does not include incidental costs such as shipping, but it does apply to the corporate cookie gift itself.)
To qualify for a tax break, cookies must be gifted to an individual. If you simply send them to the whole office staff, that won’t count. So single out a recipient who you can list on your tax paperwork, even if you know that they are just going to turn around and share them with the office as a whole.
Food Allergies and Restrictions
It’s important to be sensitive to different dietary restrictions when you are gifting corporate cookies.
The “Big 9” food allergies include:
- Milk
- Eggs
- Fish
- Shellfish
- Treen nuts
- Peanuts
- Wheat
- Soybeans
- Sesame
Since there’s no such thing as fish cookies to our knowledge, you’re safe there, but milk, eggs, peanuts, nuts, and wheat are often found in cookies. Even soy can be a problem, as many brands of chocolate chips contain soy lecithin.
Beyond that, there are religious dietary restrictions. For example, a follower of Judaism may be unable to eat a cookie that is not certified kosher, and your Catholic friend may be refraining from sweets during Lent.
If in doubt, check with the recipient before gifting cookies to show sensitivity to any dietary restrictions.
Choosing the Best Corporate Cookie Company
Experience with Corporate Gifting. There’s a difference between sending cookies to your grandma and sending corporate cookies or corporate holiday cookie gifts. Make sure to choose a cookie delivery company that can deliver quickly and professionally. You want your gift to arrive on time, look amazing, taste stunning, and represent your company well.
Knock-Your-Socks-Off Taste. You want these cookies to emblazon your company onto the recipient’s psyche for years to come. That means they better not be tasting like anything you can buy at the grocery store. Ask competing cookie companies about ingredients, and walk away from anyone who uses oil instead of butter or cheap sugar syrups instead of real sugar. You’re above that!
If in doubt, order a package for yourself before gifting. Make sure that they arrive tasting delicious and fresh.
Perfect Packaging. We eat with our eyes, so these cookies should arrive looking like a million. What does the box or basket look like? Are the cookies attractive and uniformly shaped? Are they jumbled together or contained in nice, neat plastic packaging?
Customization. Every gift recipient is different, so you want to go with a corporate cookie company that offers choices. Will they let you personalize the tag? Will they let you choose an assortment of cookies to fit different taste buds?
Why Choose Chocolate Shipped Cookies?
We love making our corporate clients look fantastic. We handle corporate gifting for companies like SEO National, Utah Sites, Wee Care Pediatrics, Alpha Transport, Tanner Clinic, Ogden Clinic, and more. We make ordering easy with our “set it and forget it” online ordering. You can have cookies of all flavors and varieties heading to the customer, employee, or business associate of your choice with just a few minutes on your computer or phone.
A Taste of Home. There are a lot of cookie delivery companies, but we maintain (and our customers agree) that we’re the closest thing out there to homemade. Our company started with our mom’s famous cookies, which were like “edible gold” in our neighborhood. No one could get enough.
Mom’s cookies were so good that we all encouraged her to start a bakery in our home state of Utah. Soon, everyone along Utah’s Wasatch Front was talking about Sandra Cutler’s Cookies. Mom’s pop-up shops turned into thriving, brick-and-mortar bakeries known as Cutler’s Cookies.
Soon, people outside of our direct service area were clamoring for these taste-like-home wonders. We started Chocolate Shipped Cookies to share Mom’s inimitable recipes far and wide. You simply won’t find a better tasting cookie, and with our state-of-the-art ovens (which are engineered to cook perfectly crisp-on-the-outside, chewy-in-the-middle cookies), we’ve bested the competition.
Big Variety. Our corporate cookies are baked and packaged for long-lasting freshness, meaning that they’ll arrive at their destination tasting like they just came out of the oven.
Choose from any of our flavors:
- Classic Glazed Sugar (customized for corporate holiday cookie gifts)
- Brownie Marshmallow or Brownie Mint
- Snickerdoodle
- Peanut Butter Chip or Double Frosted Peanut Butter Chip
- White Chocolate Pecan
- Milk Chocolate Chip or Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip
- White Chocolate Pecan
- Lemon Meltaway
- Oatmeal Raisin Walnut or Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
They’ll arrive perfectly packaged in our sleek and professional boxes for a corporate gift that delights both the eye and the tastebuds. Now that’s what we call “unreasonable hospitality”!
You’ve worked hard to build your company. Let us work hard to magnify your brand and your mission with an unforgettably delicious corporate cookie gift.