The Post with the Most: How free gifts supercharge your promotional marketing
After several years of economic hardship, 2025 is the year to surprise and delight your customers. Free gifts are a fantastic way to do this, giving people a tangible item to hold.
That doesn’t mean breaking the bank. Promotional gifts can cost just pennies each, but their perceived value to customers can be significantly greater.
But what factors influence consumers’ reactions to receiving gifts by mail – and how can you maximise the effectiveness of your direct mail free gift campaigns?
A growing channel for marketing
Despite being a long-established channel, evidence suggests that direct mail marketing is currently growing in popularity.
In 2022, a LinkedIn survey by the Data & Marketing Association[1] found that 57% of marketing professionals were already using direct mail, while another 8% planned to start using it soon. That’s nearly two thirds of marketers in total.
Direct mail gifting can take many forms while still fitting through the letterbox in a standard envelope. Some options include:
- Paper/card gifts e.g. calendars, bookmarks
- Thin/flat promotional items e.g. socks
- Free samples of new and promoted products
Even a small surprise can delight consumers, if it has perceived value. The end goal is to achieve positive return on investment, not necessarily to make a lavish statement.
How to make connections count
‘Surprise and delight’ is another name for connecting with your customers on a level that counts – and has a positive impact on their day.
In 2024, the insight agency Hall & Partners published a major survey, Value: Relationships Under Duress[2], based on qualitative and quantitative data from Europe, Asia and the USA.
The agency said of the report[3]: “People need daily doses of hope, encouragement and reassurance – comfort to keep them going. From daily grind to moments of belief, how can brands provide moments of joy to individuals and communities?”
Direct tangible mail is one way to do exactly that. A blog post by Fiona Blades for Royal Mail Marketreach[4] noted how the balance has reversed over the past two decades, as consumers have received more and more email marketing (including fraud and spam).
“In a world where it is very easy and relatively inexpensive to send an email, a physical mailing from a brand represents an investment in the customer relationship,” she wrote.
She added that a Marketreach study found physical mail nearly 50% more memorable than email in marketing campaigns.
Creating memories with free gifts
Giving something for free sits at one end of the price promotion spectrum, alongside marketing resources like discounts, coupons, BOGOF and ‘extra free’ campaigns.
All of these can work together to increase uptake of new products and increase customer spend. But research shows that free gifts have a unique effect on consumers’ perception, and on the way they remember the value of a received item.
The Journal of Consumer Research published a study[5] that found consumers are more likely to pay for a product after receiving it as a free gift, than after a heavy discount promotion.
That’s because the discounted introductory price sets a value benchmark in their mind, making the full price seem disproportionately high – an important reminder of the fine balance at play when designing promotional campaigns, and of the Power of Free.
The impact of Equity Theory
The effect of free vs. heavy price discounting is an example of Equity Theory, where the perceived value of the promotional item can influence the consumer’s perception of the cost of the full-price product.
In a 2021 study published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science[6], a team looked at how perceived inequity can drive product testers to leave more favourable online reviews after receiving a product for free.
“If product testers view the outcome-to-input ratio as favourable, they are likely to strive to reestablish an equitable relationship by providing more positive product ratings and higher quality reviews,” they wrote.
This is an effect that can be applied across direct mail gifting campaigns, where emphasising the value of the gifted item could help to create purchase intention in the recipient’s mind, as they feel an obligation to restore the equitability of their relationship with the brand.
What does value look like?
Remember, the perceived value of the promotional items you send out depends not only on the monetary cost of the item, but also on the balance of equity in the relationship.
One of the most successful campaigns of recent years is the ‘surprise and delight’ direct mail marketing undertaken by BAM bamboo socks.
The brand sends free socks in the post to selected recipients every few months. Some are preexisting customers, but others like author Paula Andrews appear to be chosen at random.
“Do BAM just like me?” she wrote on her blog.[7] “Do they think I deserve new socks? … Is this a normal part of the company’s marketing strategy? … I have to admit, I am developing a slight bamboo habit.”
There are countless similar examples across lifestyle blogs and social media posts of unsuspecting recipients who were genuinely delighted to receive their free BAM socks in the post.
Socks don’t always rock
In contrast, there are times when receiving socks by post can have much less perceived equity for the recipient.
A People’s Postcode Lottery draw on December 13th 2024[8] included no cash prizes, but instead sent a “letterbox prize” of two pairs of festive slipper socks to winners in more than 61,000 postcodes.
Unfortunately, this meant thousands of people received an envelope telling them they had won the People’s Postcode Lottery, only to find it contained two pairs of socks, rather than the expected cheque for tens of thousands of pounds.
As always, campaign planning needs to keep the recipient in mind, as well as the item being sent. We have also seen chocolate bars left out in direct sunlight on hot summer days, and toilet paper in biodegradable cardboard packaging left out in heavy rain.
These faux pas highlight the importance of working with a promotional marketing expert with experience in end-to-end fulfilment, right through to the customer’s letterbox or doorstep.
Yours brands and your promotions
MRM are the experts in multi-resource marketing, combining loyalty programmes and coupon campaigns with despatch and delivery of tangible promotional items to recipients’ doorsteps.
Our innovative software platform Lodestone simplifies complex planning and execution for more efficient delivery – optimising your promotions across all channels and maximising your ROI from direct mail gifting and other campaigns.
Contact MRM today to find out more about how we can help to optimise your sales and marketing tactics, with the logistics support you need to deliver physical promotional goods.
[1] https://www.theidm.com/blog/why-direct-mail-should-form-an-essential-part-of-your-marketing-mix
[2] https://cspace.com/thinking/value-2024/
[3] https://hallandpartners.com/news/human-approach-to-business-has-never-been-more-necessary
[4] https://www.marketreach.co.uk/blog/rethinking-customer-experience
[5] https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/40/4/644/2907488
[6] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-021-00770-6
Sources
MRM ‘surprise and delight’ article:
https://mrm.co.uk/3-ways-to-surprise-and-delight-your-customer-in-2025/
MRM ‘The Power of Free’ article:
https://mrm.co.uk/the-power-of-free-and-what-it-means-to-consumers/
https://www.theidm.com/blog/why-direct-mail-should-form-an-essential-part-of-your-marketing-mix
Offering items for free encourages subsequent purchases by not devaluing the product, whereas offering items heavily reduced sets a low ‘anchor price’ for that product in the consumer’s mind.
https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/40/4/644/2907488
Postcode Lottery socks
BAM bamboo socks
https://paulaandrews.co.uk/bam-bam-at-the-door/
Equity theory (more positive reaction if gift feels more valuable)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-021-00770-6
https://www.marketreach.co.uk/blog/rethinking-customer-experience
https://hallandpartners.com/news/human-approach-to-business-has-never-been-more-necessary