How to Transform Client Acquisition with Creative Gifting Strategies

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1:03Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz. My guest today is Steve Gumm. He is a marketing consultant who started his career running an agency that worked with some of the most recognizable brands, including celebrities and professional athletes, using creative outreach to break open doors. After a successful exit, he's taken on the role of a CMO at Gilded Box, a luxury corporate gifting company that designs, builds, and delivers. extraordinary gifts to help companies open doors, close new deals, motivate employees, and build lasting relationships.

1:39So Steve, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's more than an honor, John, more than an honor. Well, so talk a little bit about your marketing journey. I mean, I gave a very brief sketch of it there, but I know in the past we talked, I think maybe a few years back, you were just, just, you were a marketing consultant, had a marketing consulting firm. What's changed for Were you, maybe in terms of like your objectives as well as like how those are coming out? Yeah. I mean, so like most journeys, right? I mean, I had my own agency and then I went into consulting and it's one of those deals.

2:13I think even as a consultant, like I've always gravitated towards, you know, some businesses you want to help, but some you want to help, of course, all of them, but some you're more thrilled about. And so I went through and was basically helping sales and marketing teams, doing the whole, you know, fractional CMO type of thing. And when Gilded Box came around, it's just something that, you know, I fell in love with And I think for everybody, you try to find that thing where it's like, okay, there's something here that just feels right. And I was just very fortunate. You know, it wasn't by design, but everything just kind of came together for me.

2:41And so, you know, I still, you know, do have other clients. They kill the boxes at least 80 % of my time now. And it's been fun. It's interesting too. Just Russell, the CEO here, we talk about it all the time, how things kind of come full circle, you know, because I was the type of stuff that we do here as a business, you know, is very similar to the stuff. I was kind of doing on my own, you know, for years to try and crack open accounts and get attention and, you know, deliver some level of, I used to call it unavoidable, right? My team, I would say, okay, let's send them something unavoidable.

3:14If we really want to work with them and we really know we can help and it would be a good fit, let's send them something that they cannot avoid. And back in the day, we got crazy going after, you know, some celebrities and sports teams, et cetera. Like we went way over the top with some of that stuff, but it works, you know, it takes time, effort, energy. I think it's more fun, but it definitely works, you know? Yeah. I wrote out about it actually in the first edition of duct tape marketing in 2007, something I called lumpy mail. And it was the same idea. I w I would send things that, you know, like box that would have a whole bunch of old keys in it or something, you know, it's like what?

3:51And then, you know, you tie it to the message. And we had one client that was trying to promote their kind of total solution for something. And so we mimicked the total cereal box. I don't think we asked post, but anyway, and we sent it with a gallon of milk, you know, which made it really, like you said, people are like, what in the world is this? It really does open doors, but I can also hear people saying, well, that costs, you know, that might've cost 40 or 50 bucks, you know, a whack. How can, you know, is that something you can do as a retention thing? Or do you feel like that's an approach you can do lead generation?

4:25I mean, I mean, both, right. So, so for me, the way I look at it is, and part of what we do here at Guild of Boxes is make things scalable, right? So, you know, around budget now, gifting is different than swag by, you really can't compare the two and there's a place for each. Yeah, I'm cool with both. But I think, you know, every business is a little different. I've always been in the B2B world. So I've been fortunate in that, you know, typically, you know, lifetime value of a customer, even the short-term value, when you actually talk to a team, and this used to happen when I was doing consulting all the time, I'd be like, what is the average client worth?

4:57And they'd, you know, usually it was a sizable number, you know, depending on, I was working a lot in manufacturing, so some of them got huge. But then you step back and you're, okay, well, what are we doing here? Like, let's get a list of the hundred that would be amazing and just try to get 20. What if that's all we did? And it succeeded. And then everyone's, you know, when you take a step back and really evaluate what you're trying to accomplish, it just makes those type of decisions a lot easier. You know, if we spend, it doesn't matter the X dollar amount, you know, you quickly realize that, well, man, we could spend all this and if we get one, it's worth it.

5:31You know? So when you break down the math, usually, especially on the acquisition side of things, it works. And, you know, once you have a client, you know, that retention side of it, you know, it's all based on value in scenarios, but I don't think you have to be expensive at all. You know, I mean, what we do here, obviously, is gifting from design and packaging and all that. But I'm also a huge fan of just handwritten letters and anything that shows me that, wait a second, this person actually took the time to think about me and they're reaching out. Like, however you do that, it's just so powerful in a day where, you know, with AI and automation, it's just, it's easier to go, okay, 50 ,000 people click and it sends out.

6:12It just seems like that would be, oh, that's wise. But when you take a step back, it can be very effective in a day where not too many people are doing that type of outreach. It's just crazy effective. Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, I work with a lot of consultants that sell high ticket, high trust is a very important part of the equation. And when they stop and think about their goals, sometimes like onboarding three new clients would actually be hard in a month. Right. And so, but we're trying to market to 20 ,000 people, right. It's like, you know, maybe 10, 10 good ones, you know, 10 good appointments, you know, what would it take to get that, you know, and I think when people start looking at it that way, they probably should start saying, yeah, I guess I better not like automate my outreach on LinkedIn.

7:01Right. Right. Right. Yeah. It's just too tempting for, you know, marketers and salespeople, it's so tempting just to like go for the big numbers because, you know, I don't care even if it is outreach on LinkedIn, like to do something legitimately authentic and personal, it takes, you know, not a lot of time, but it's not as easy as just a name and hit enter. You know, you've got to put some effort into it. But I think it really, I mean, and I know you agree with this because it's the whole premise here, but I mean, it's so easy to stand out now doing it because you know people realize you didn't automate that they realize you actually took some time or heaven forbid i you know i get these outreach on linkedin people ask me somebody literally today asked me do you still have your agency i was like that's your opener it's like if you don't know what i had for lunch today you're not paying attention you know yeah it's crazy well you probably get more of them than i do but i get a lot and so i can only imagine I'm a you get where they're just so off base.

8:01It's clearly I'm just on a database. And, you know, I'm not a picky either. You know, like when I see that stuff, you know, I see people post online all the time and they bash it. I mean, I get it. People are trying to make a living. They think it's the right solution. I'm not mad at it, but it doesn't work. Yeah. Well, I tell you, let's flip it around too, because for that person, I know you believe in kind of the whole, like, I want to work with people that we share some beliefs and purpose, you know, casting that net to thousands, how are you going to get the client you want to work with? Right.

8:34I mean, I think it's, that's as big a part of this as like, if I take the time to research and look at what they're doing and look at how we can connect and build trust together, I'm probably going to get the right client, aren't I? Yeah. And you know, you're a big point. We're a whole book on it with about referrals. You know, I think people don't oftentimes pay attention to the snowball effect of getting the right people initially. You know, if you know that these people are, hey, you can help them. You have a solution that works for what they're trying to accomplish their goals. But this is the perfect where you're like, man, if we could just work with this person for whatever reason, if you do a good job there, chances are they know people who are in, you know, aligned a little bit, at least with what they do.

9:12And so the referrals, not only are they probably come in more often, but they're way better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. It's my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast, our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with a must-have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We've been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters, and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that's affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs.

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10:34Talk a little bit about, and we can get into the mechanics of, you know, kind of how you do it at Gilded Box, But talk a little bit about the concept, because it's not a matter of sending somebody something really expensive, you know. So they're like, wow, they sent me something really expensive, right? There's more to the entire, you know, kind of campaign approach to it. Talk about maybe if somebody were thinking about this idea of, OK, I'm going to I'm going to come up with a dream 100. What would like a campaign that involved gifting look like? So you can definitely do it in multiple steps.

11:05But I think to take a step back for a second, you know, you touched on, you know, it has to be something elaborate. Yeah, we do some super high-end gifting, but it doesn't have to be at all. Like we even say internally, if we do our job right, like what's in the box of what you would consider the actual product, actually should be an afterthought. Yeah, yeah. You know, the experience that we have done here, and it's funny because as we were building this, it really was looking at, you know, what I had done in the past, what, you know, Gildbox was doing currently, and just removing friction, right?

11:37So, for example, we handle all the design because we think that's critical, right, to the personalization, the entire experience. And we know that is oftentimes a, you know, a tough spot for a lot of businesses. They don't have designers, they don't, whatever. So, you know, we take that on because we want that box, the way we engineer the boxes from the way the products sit inside. I mean, it's all, you know, we have packaging engineers here. That's what they do. And for us, it's all about that experience so that, you know, when you are doing like a gifting campaign, for example, you're going after your top 100.

12:12You know, obviously there's methods to that. Like for us, the gifting usually is not like out cold. You know, we always recommend build some rapport, share some knowledge, engage on social, get some awareness. And then when you really want to step it up, you know, you can go into a gifting program that obviously, you know, once you get a client, then the retention part of that type of effort, you know, goes into it. But everything that you would want to do to really wow somebody, we just wanted to make it as easy as possible. So the gift is one component of it. I've experienced, you know, kind of your process.

12:47And one of the things I thought was, you know, a brilliant piece, and this is carrying the personalization a step further, is that the box itself had to be, you know, completely personal because nobody else, it wouldn't have made sense to anybody else what you did. But then the note that then had just a QR code that went to a, you know, a then also personalized video. And I think that's, to me, that was a step that took it, you know, even farther than just like, oh, wow, I got this nice thing. Now you actually, what was in the box, you actually nailed. That's a brand that I have their grinder and I have their kettle.

13:20And so you said, you didn't know that part. Or at least I hope you didn't know that part. I was getting a little too close, but you knew I liked coffee. So, but you know, that again, I was getting at their components to the whole thing. It's not just like, oh, send a bunch of boxes out. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, the whole process is really, you know, who you're trying to, what message you're trying to display, right? So in that instance, in every instance, really it's about letting people know that they're being recognized. Now, when you're doing this at an enterprise level, of course, you're probably going to minimize some of that.

13:56A lot of the packaging and what's inside is very similar. But we personalize them in a way where there is still that wow factor and that, oh, they were thinking about me, as opposed to something that you're just giving out. And that really is, there's a method to the madness. And it all starts with design, which requires a little bit of research and homework on our team's end to actually nail that. Because when you receive it, even before you open it, we want you to be blown away. Our objective, and we believe this to be true based on feedback that we get, is the packaging itself. That box itself is something people keep, just like a gift.

14:35And that's when we know we've done our job right. And it's fun. It is the most fun business I've ever been a part of by a long time. Do you have any examples, and maybe you're not at liberty to share them, but do you have any examples of some kind of like crazy things? And again, I don't know if you ever see the success end of it. If the client comes back to you and says, that was amazing, let's do it again, maybe that's an indicator. But do you have any kind of case study of somebody doing something pretty cool? yeah i mean and to piggyback on that we get emails all the time which is the best where our customers telling us or even forwarding emails from their customers yeah you know like wow this is great we've done some pretty crazy stuff we had a company that was agency working with chanel and they were doing a groundbreaking and we actually did a shovel called the chevelle right and same branding and same everything and put it in a pretty big box for them and delivering of course it was a huge hit you know we were joking even this morning i was talking to russell rc over here how we've been doing this for so long some of the stuff we're not blown away with anymore like we're so used to it but when you get the responses like man that really is pretty cool you know and the personalization aspect you know certainly technology has helped that come along but you know you think about the companies that buy you know a thousand coffee mugs and you You know, they give them out to clients, coffee mug with their logo on it.

15:58Sure, I guess I need a coffee mug. I'll send it over here. But, you know, the technology is such that, like, I can have a thousand clients and send a coffee mug with their logo on it, which to me might be a lot cooler to get. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, from a gifting standpoint, it's one of the things that we're working hard on, you know, the marketing side is communicating the difference between, you know, swag and gifting. It's totally different. When you think of swag, it's more of an advertisement for you for promoting your business. And there's a place for that. We're fans of that as well.

16:27When it comes to gifting, you really want to make it about them. So if it's something, if you know something about their family or their hobbies or something where you can make it truly unique to them, that's a gift. And we always tell our clients, if you're going to do some promotion or branding of any kind, leverage the packaging. We do an amazing job at that. But what goes inside it, it should be very clear that it's been thoughtful and you put some care into what you're delivering because it just makes a huge impact. I mean, how often do you get something like that? It's very rare. To your point earlier, a lot of that old school stuff is very effective right now.

17:09But because everyone's been trained on automation technology, it takes a little bit of effort. And it's, I guess you'd call it riskier. I mean, it's more effective, but, you know, it takes much more to even send a piece of mail, you know, whatever it is, because you got to put the time into it, you got to print it. You know, so I think people just default that we'll just send these emails. But boy, is there an opportunity in creating experiences? Yeah. And I think the unfortunate thing or the at least the leap that a lot of people make is there isn't any risk in sending email. I mean, if the message bombs, if, you know, nobody responds, it's like, you know, nobody's hurt.

17:44Whereas, you know, I remember the days of, you know, you'd spend$10 ,000 on a direct mail piece or commit to a year long, you know,$3 ,000 a month yellow page ad. No idea if any of it was ever going to work. You were stuck with it till next year. Yeah. Yeah. But so, I mean, I do think I do see the people, you know, kind of have that fear of like, oh, I'm going to out, I'm going to lay out five, 10 grand, you know, what if it doesn't work? But I do think that I'm guessing you probably have anecdotal information on this. The impact may not be felt immediately. Do you find that sometimes the shelf life, so to speak, of the gift or of the idea or the promotion, you know, might be for months that, you know, somebody's like, I'm not ready right now, but that's who I'm calling.

18:30Yeah, it's for sure. I mean, 100%. It just changes the dynamic of the relationship, you know. And so I think an easy way to kind of think about that is, you know, when you've put that much time and effort and personalization into something, there's just some reciprocation there. Like if you send me something like that, and let's say I'm even the wrong target, right, which we wouldn't recommend. But even so, I'm going to be much more inclined to at least give you feedback and share where we're at and what opportunities may or may not be here, as opposed to responding to one of the 10 ,000 emails I get.

19:04Right. Yeah. So the longevity and the opportunities and the doors that it opens can't be understated. I mean, you know, I know I'm in the business, so it's like, oh, this guy's what he does for a living, but we see it time and time again. And, you know, we eat our own dog food, you know, as well. And it works. We're creating a couple of fun series coming up of content where we're going to start to share some of this just because it's very effective. And I think anybody that tries it, you know, whatever you're doing, you know, if you get more personal and outside of the tech world words more human to human.

19:34It is, I can't express the impact that you can have. It really is amazing. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Steve, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you would invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work? You can find me on LinkedIn. You know, I'm just LinkedIn, wherever those are. Steve Gumm. I've got a very uncommon last name, so it's not hard to find me. G and then gildedbox.com. So G I L D E D B O X.com. We have plenty of resources there. If you want to reach out to anybody and you're looking for stuff, you know, we'd be more than happy to help you create some amazing experiences.

20:08Awesome. Well, again, appreciate you taking a moment and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.