Most corporate Christmas gifts have a shelf life of about a fortnight.
The chocolates are gone before New Year. The bottle goes home with whoever was in the office that day. Nothing wrong with either, but by the time your client is back at their desk in January, there is nothing left with your name on it.
The gifts that work hardest are the unglamorous ones. Things people use at a desk, every working day, for a year. A calendar. A notebook. A pad they scribble phone numbers on. Not exciting, and that is exactly why they last.
This guide is for anyone buying client or staff gifts for a small business: what to choose, how many you need to order, and which ones we would actually pick.
What corporate gift do clients actually keep?
The ones they use. That sounds obvious, but it rules out a lot.
Picture the gift on your client's desk in March. Is it still there, still doing something? A desk calendar is, because March is on it. A novelty gadget has probably gone in a drawer.
The best gifts also come with a built-in reason to be kept. A calendar is useful every day until the year runs out. That is also why calendars and planners are worth ordering before Christmas rather than after. Nobody wants a 2027 calendar in March.
Desk calendars: the one we'd start with
If you only buy one thing, make it this.
Our desk calendars are wiro bound along the top edge, so the pages flip over cleanly from one month to the next. You get 28 double-sided pages on 250gsm silk, which is enough for a cover, all twelve months and a few supporting pages. Everything is printed in full colour, so you can use your branding, your own photos, or a different picture for each month.
There are five sizes: A5, A6 and DL landscape, a 148mm square, and a wide 297 x 105mm format.
If you are wondering about the minimum order for a branded calendar, it is 30, and you can order up to 1,000. That covers most small businesses' key clients, with a few spare.
Or a wall calendar, from just one
If your clients work somewhere with a wall rather than a desk (a workshop, a kitchen, a reception), a wall calendar does the same job. All three of ours can be ordered from a single copy.
- Wiro bound calendars hang from a drilled hole, with a whole page each month. A4 or A5, portrait or landscape, or 210mm square, up to 1,000.
- Thumb cut calendars hang from a loop and show one page at a time, so they don't take over the wall. Six sizes from 148mm square to A4, 16 or 28 pages, up to 1,000.
- Promotional calendars have 28 lighter pages, two for each month, and are easy to post or hand out. Four sizes, up to 200.
Wiro bound calendars · Thumb cut calendars · Promotional calendars
Wall planners: for clients with an office wall
Printed promotional calendars, sometimes called advertising calendars, come in two shapes. The desk version sits next to the keyboard. The wall planner goes up in the office and gets written on all year: holidays, deadlines, who is off when.
Our folded wall planners are printed at A1 or A2, on 130gsm or 170gsm silk or gloss, then folded down to A4. That fold matters more than it sounds. An A4 planner slips into a mailer with a card, rather than needing its own tube.
If people will write on it through the year, choose silk, which takes pen and pencil better. Gloss gives stronger colour. You can also have the print outside, so the planner arrives with your design on the front.
The minimum is 125 planners, up to 2,000. That suits a longer client list or a run of events. If you have twenty clients, a calendar is the better fit.
Deskpads: the gift nobody thinks of
A branded deskpad is a tear-off notepad that lives on the desk. Phone-call notes, to-do lists, the number someone reads out too fast. Your logo sits underneath all of it.
They come in A6, DL, A5, A4 and A3, portrait or landscape, with 25, 50 or 100 sheets glued along the top edge to a backing board. There are three papers, 90gsm or 170gsm Premium Smooth White or 120gsm Uncoated, and all of them are easy to write on.
The print is full colour across the whole sheet, so a custom deskpad can carry a week strip or a month-to-view calendar as well as a notes area. Keep your logo in the header or footer and leave the middle for the person using it. Fill the sheet with branding and it stops being useful, which is the one thing it has to be.
You can order a single pad, up to 500. So try one on your own desk first.
Notebooks: for the people you sit in meetings with
A decent notebook gets carried into meetings. A flimsy one stays in a drawer.
Our A5 notebooks are casebound with a soft-feel textured cover in fourteen colours. Inside there are 96 lined sheets, a ribbon marker and an elastic closure. Your logo is printed in a single colour inside a 55 x 55mm area on the cover.
So use the simplest version of your logo. A busy, full-colour mark won't translate.
The minimum is 25 notebooks, up to 2,000. They make a good staff gift as well as a client one, because your team will actually use them.
Christmas cards: still worth sending
A card doesn't last all year. But it carries your message, and it is what goes in the envelope with everything else.
Our greeting cards come in A6 portrait, A5 portrait or landscape, DL portrait and a 148mm square. There are three stocks: 300gsm Greetings Card Stock, 350gsm silk, which can take gloss lamination on the outside, and 350gsm Recycled Uncoated, which has a natural surface that is easy to write on. They arrive flat and creased, and envelopes come with every order, in red or white.
I'd go for the uncoated if you are handwriting them. And you should be handwriting them. A printed signature on a client card tells them you didn't have five minutes.
The minimum is 25 cards.
Wrapping paper: the first thing they see
Before anyone sees the calendar, they see the parcel. Branded wrapping paper makes a client gift look like it came from you, not from a shop, and it works just as well for retail orders through December.
It is printed with your own pattern or branding, right to the edge of the sheet, in A2 or A3. Choose 90gsm Premium Smooth White or 115gsm silk, printed on one side or both. A repeat logo pattern is the safe choice. The minimum is 25 sheets, up to 2,000.
Small add-ons in small numbers
Our mugs are 11oz ceramic, dishwasher and microwave safe, in white or with a coloured inside, and you can order just one. Printed pens have a full-wrap colour print and a soft-touch grip, from 5. Neither is the main gift, but a pen tucked into a notebook makes the notebook more useful on day one.
See the mugs · See the printed pens
How many do you need?
Count names, not budget. List the clients you would hate to lose, the suppliers who have bailed you out, and your team. Add a few for the people you will remember on the 23rd. Then match the number to the minimums:
- Fewer than 25 people: wall calendars, deskpads and mugs from one, pens from five.
- 25 or more: notebooks, Christmas cards and wrapping paper (25 sheets).
- 30 or more: desk calendars.
- 125 or more: wall planners.
For most small businesses, a desk calendar and a handwritten card for each client, with notebooks for the team, covers it.
When to order
Calendars and planners have their own deadline. They are no use once the year has started, so sooner is better than later. We won't put a date on it here, because it depends on what you order and where it is going.
Ordering for Christmas? Tell us when you need it and we'll tell you straight if we can make it.
Every file is checked by a real person before anything is printed, so a logo that is too detailed for a notebook cover, or a date sitting too close to a calendar's wire, has a far better chance of being spotted before it is on paper. And every order plants a tree through our Print A Tree project.
Chocolates get eaten. Calendars get looked at. Pick the gift that is still on the desk in March.
