Scaling thoughtful corporate gifting: How Sprout Social transformed gifting into growth

Sprout Social is a leader in social media management, empowering global brands to connect with their audiences through powerful social engagement tools. Designed for everyone from social media managers to marketing executives, Sprout Social’s mission is to enable emotionally meaningful, human-centric interactions that drive lasting connections. 

We sat down with Chris Long, Outbound Marketing Strategist, and Angie Villalba, Field Marketing Manager, to learn more about their journey with corporate gifting and Reachdesk.

The challenge: Scaling personalization across teams

As Sprout Social expanded into the enterprise segment, the team prioritized the implementation of a new streamlined strategy for corporate gifting, that empowered reps to personalize the sales cycle and engage multiple stakeholders.

Meanwhile, the customer marketing team was exploring efficient ways to create and deliver customer onboarding kits at scale, and the field marketing team was seeking a more dependable solution for sourcing and managing creative swag for events. For Angie, finding  “a solution that could grow with us and keep up with our pace”  was critical to Sprout’s success.

The solution: Reachdesk’s unified gifting platform

The search for a corporate gifting platform began with clearly defined priorities:

• Integration: Seamless compatibility with the existing tech stack, especially Salesforce. 
• Ease of use: A simple and intuitive platform for the team to adopt extensively. 

• Scalability: The ability to grow alongside Sprout Social’s expanding needs.

Reachdesk checked all the boxes.

Sprout Social implemented Reachdesk in December 2023, beginning with a phased rollout for their North American team. They introduced a corporate gifting strategy focused on thoughtful and compliant outreach, ensuring:

• Clear guidelines: Angie and Chris partnered with sales operations, enablement, and legal teams to establish clear rules around gift timing and value, ensuring adherence to industry regulations.
•  Pre-defined budgets: Strategic pre-approved budget allocations were made for BDRs and AEs, striking a balance between empowering power users and preventing overuse.
• Team enablement: Comprehensive team-wide training sessions demonstrated how to responsibly and effectively integrate the platform into their outreach efforts.

When asked about those first few months of Reachdesk implementation, Chris mentions:

The impact: Corporate gifting as a growth driver

Introducing Reachdesk revolutionized Sprout Social’s outbound strategy. Even Chris, who was initially unfamiliar with corporate gifting, quickly became one of its strongest advocates.

After implementing Reachdesk, gifting evolved from a sporadic, ad hoc effort to a strategic and integral part of the team’s sales and marketing operations, driving impressive results across:

• Pipeline: Within nine months, the team established meaningful connections with customers contributing to over $1.4 million of MRR. 
• Adoption: Corporate gifting activity skyrocketed, with the BDR team increasing from 44 gifts sent in January to over 700 by August. 
• Engagement: Thoughtful corporate gifts helped re-engage and foster relationships with their key personas, “from social media practitioners to the C-suite—showing them we truly care.”

One standout example of the impact of corporate gifting at Sprout Social involved a sales rep who learned that a prospect was expecting a baby. The rep sent a Sprout Social-branded onesie featuring the company mantra, Always Be Growing. This thoughtful gesture helped establish a personal connection and build rapport before the sales cycle even began, setting the stage for a successful engagement.

Looking ahead: Scaling thoughtful connections globally

Looking ahead to next year, Chris is excited to unlock Reachdesk’s full potential and explore new ways to engage prospects, including:

• Virtual experiences: Providing personalized activities, such as cooking classes, for key accounts to create memorable, interactive engagements.
• Enhanced branding: Doubling down on custom gift bundles that embody Sprout’s unique values and brand voice, strengthening the company’s identity.
• Global expansion: Building on the success in North America, Chris plans to scale corporate gifting initiatives to EMEA and APAC teams, ensuring a consistent global approach.

Sprout Social’s journey with Reachdesk highlights how thoughtful, strategic corporate gifting can strengthen business relationships. By blending creativity with scalability, they’ve transformed a simple concept into a key element of their go-to-market strategy. This approach fosters trust and joy in every interaction, staying true to their mission: to be a joy to do business with.