We would not be in business without our clients and candidates, and one of the things we have learned in three years is how much a well-chosen gift can do for a relationship. Damia is a boutique agency, which means the people we work with are not accounts on a CRM. They are people we have long conversations with. A thoughtful, unexpected gift is one of the ways we say what a good conversation on its own cannot: this relationship matters to us.
I joined Damia as Marketing Manager, and my job is to make sure our communication does not read like every other recruitment agency’s. That means I steer away from the standard corporate hamper (ham, wine, cheese, thank-you-for-your-business) and try to find something that will actually make someone laugh, keep it on their desk, or send us a photo.
The point is not the gift itself. It is that a thoughtful gesture gets remembered, and remembered people call you back the next time they are hiring. Gifting is one of the small strategic moves a boutique agency can afford to make well, precisely because we are not sending five thousand of anything.
Here are seven of the creative client gifts we have sent over the last three years, plus one bonus from 2020.
1. All I want for Christmas
Our first ever campaign. I joined Damia on 2 December 2017, three months into the company’s existence, and I wanted to do something for our first Christmas that felt different. Budget was small. Time was shorter.
In Portugal, most companies decorate an office tree at Christmas. The question was how Damia could show up on those trees.
The answer: a Christmas bauble containing a fold-up “worst possible CV” from a tech recruiter’s nightmares. Something that made our clients smile every time they walked past their own tree.
2. Yes, you nailed it
Inboxes are full of automated newsletters. We wanted our client communication to feel like the opposite of that, so we designed a set of cards that could be used for anything: a congratulations, a thank you, a just checking in, a we thought of you. A tick-box card with real intent behind it.
Our goal was a friendlier and less formal touchpoint. Less “reaching out to circle back”, more actual human contact.
3. Conference bags must breed in the dark
Damia was part of the first remote work conference in Lisbon. Anyone who has ever attended a business event knows the drill: you leave with a canvas bag full of flyers, most of which end up in a recycling bin within the week.
We wanted our contribution to that swag bag to survive the walk home. Given it was a three-day conference about remote work and we are a tech recruitment agency, the answer wrote itself. The picture explains the rest.
4. Talk, pizza and chill
For two years running we were the official recruitment sponsor of the Canopy Community Lisbon talks, better known as #demonights. Before the pandemic pushed the events online, we were the pizza sponsor.
There is a specific pleasure to closing a Tuesday night talk on engineering culture with a slice of pizza still warm in your hand. We are Portuguese and we bond over food, so the format made sense. Because we like to send people home with something small, we added a little gift on the way out. Leftovers included.
5 and 6. We just popped in to wish you happy holidays
Most business gifts spend their life in the dusty corner of a desk drawer. We tried the opposite: something practical, seasonal, that people would actually use. Food figured heavily.
We went further than just buying stock and pasting a logo on it. We assembled and customised these gifts by hand. Whether the office was open or everyone was still working from a kitchen table, the intention was to send something that would earn a smile when opened.
7. Drink up
There is no rule that says a good client gift needs an occasion. As the summer season kicked in one year, and everyone got busy planning holidays and booking flights, we sent something people could actually take with them. Damia at the top of mind, on the beach.
Bonus. Better than wine in 2020
The panic buying of toilet paper carried on through the first, second and third waves of the pandemic (depending on who you asked). The internet was awash with jokes about it.
After a difficult year for most of our clients, we sent a gift that leaned into the joke: a very carefully branded roll. It was designed to make people laugh, which after twelve months of remote everything felt like the most useful thing we could send.
What three years of this taught us
Creative client gifts work when they feel considered, not when they look expensive. They work when they carry a joke our clients get, and they stumble when they try to be generic enough for anyone. And they work best when they are consistent with everything else the brand is doing.
Consistency is the underrated part of this. A memorable brand is not one strong campaign, it is the accumulated impression of many small gestures pointing the same way. Damia’s marketing is trying to build exactly that. One bauble, one pizza slice, one roll of toilet paper at a time.
Curious about how a boutique agency thinks about relationships? Have a conversation with us, or see current tech roles at Damia.
