Gifting is just noise unless it's personal.
Last week I was listening to Pavilion's Topline Hotline podcast episode and the topic was gifting.
Essentially, is gifting to fill top of funnel worth while?
My thoughts around it were essentially, does it provide signal, or is it just noise.
Yet another coffee cup, is noise.
A well researched and personalized gift sent to a strategic prospect to kickoff an conversation causing surprise, and delight?
Probably allows you to be signal.
I personally love thoughtful gifts.
I love if someone knows my hobbies and buys me gift cards to stores that support them.
I love if someone found my Amazon wish list and purchases an item off of it.
I dislike when someone finds some random piece of junk on Amazon Prime day and buys it, stores it, and pulls it out when they need to gift me something.
So your random coffee cup, or pen, or whatever other chotchky probably isn't going to make a difference.
But something personal, thoughtful, and surprising absolutely can.