Team eCommerce Next interviewed Kris Rudeegraap from Sendoso to get more insights on how Sendoso and Square are Supporting Small Businesses. Following is our interview with him:
Can you give me a brief overview of what Sendoso does?
At Sendoso our mission is to help customers drive deeper and more meaningful business relationships by leveraging the power of personalized corporate gifting. Since our launch in November 2016, we’ve served as the leading corporate gifting platform that inspires human connections for revenue-driven teams to stand out at strategic points throughout the customer journey. As a pioneer in this space, we offer sales, marketing, and customer experience teams a global marketplace of highly-curated vendors over 30,000 gift options, seamless integrations with popular marketing & sales tools, including Salesforce, Marketo, Outreach, HubSpot, and many others, with dedicated logistics and supply chain operations worldwide.
You just partnered with Square to integrate its Give and Get Local Directory into your platform. Can you give a brief overview of this partnership? What will this partnership allow both Square and Sendoso to do?
With this partnership, Sendoso users worldwide will have greater access to support local vendors by purchasing everything from physical gifts to eGifts. Additionally, Sendoso customers will have access to Square’s global network of local merchants to further add to the personalization of sending a thoughtful eGift. Sendoso is the only corporate gifting platform that offers this feature to date. Through Sendoso Direct, the company’s eGift platform, customers can send eGifts that drive powerful engagement and connections. Marketers and sales teams can set themselves apart from the competition now with local and national eGifts that help them stand out in inboxes and drive engagement with hard-to-reach buyers and customers. The Sendoso and Square partnership is the first step in the companies’ larger collaboration to support local merchants. In fact, I just used this feature last week and bought a cup of coffee at The Red Whale coffee, my favorite local coffee shop in San Ramon. It worked so easily and it felt good to shop locally.
How will this partnership benefit small businesses in the long term?
When we expanded our eGift catalog with Square’s Give and Get Local Directory, we opened the door for more sales and marketing teams to help small business owners overcome recent challenges with the pandemic. Our partnership will help small businesses increase their proceeds from holiday sales, sales that can potentially determine the survival of their business next year.
How will sales and marketing teams be able to utilize the Give and Get Local directory this holiday season?
With the Square partnership, Sendoso users will be able to combine support for local businesses with Sendoso’s most popular send type this holiday season. If customers have a deal on the line with an avid coffee lover, rather than sending the coffee lover an eGift to a national coffee chain, Square’s Give and Get Local Directory will let customers surprise prospects with a customized send for use at their local coffee chain for an extra personalized touch.
What do you expect will be the top corporate gifts this year during the holiday season? Based on our internal data on what has been selling well in the past few months, we see eGifts/physical gift cards, coffee, alcohol (one of the fastest-growing types of gifts), brownies, and flowers/plants selling well this holiday season.
Do you suggest people send a physical gift over a egift?
The best gift choice will always vary depending on the preferences of the end recipient. However, eGifts have remained the top gifting choice on our platform. Between July – September 2021, eGifts made up a larger percentage of attempted sends than in the prior 12 months – July 2020 – June 2020 – comprising 60% of total attempted sends versus 54%.
eGifts are always an ideal choice because they give the recipient more flexibility and the power of choice to select what they want.
What do you suggest sales/marketing teams do to pick creative gifts for their clients?
Sales and marketing teams should get creative in sourcing information about their clients’ interests and hobbies to determine the types of gifts they would most appreciate. One option to consider is manually researching recipients’ Linkedin profiles, which can offer insights into skills, passions, and education histories. A sender can then purchase a t-shirt or mug inscribed with their clients’ alma maters. Sales and marketing teams can also take cues during video calls with clients to get a sense of their tastes. For example, if a client’s wall has many indoor plants, it is probably a good idea to consider succulents as a send option!
About Kris Rudeegraap
Kris Rudeegraap is the co-founder and CEO of Sendoso, the leading Sending Platform. Kris has more than a decade of sales experience and has spent time at Talkdesk, Yapstone, and Piqora. During that time, he discovered that creating meaningful engagements through direct mail and gifting was an effective way to drive demand and increase sales—which helped inspire the idea for Sendoso. Kris is a California native and CSU-Chico alum currently residing in the Bay Area.
About Sendoso
Sendoso, the leading Sending Platform, helps companies stand out by giving them new ways to engage with customers throughout the buyer’s journey. By integrating digital and physical sending strategies, companies can increase the effectiveness of their existing go-to-market programs and improve their relationships with customers. With a global marketplace of highly-curated vendors (over 30,000 gift options), seamless integrations with popular marketing & sales tools (including Salesforce, Marketo, Outreach, HubSpot and many others), trusted by over 900 companies, with dedicated logistics and supply chain operations worldwide, Sendoso serves is an essential part of successful demand generation, account-based, and customer experience programs. Founded in 2016, Sendoso is backed by $152M in venture funding and has a global footprint, with a presence in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Learn more at sendoso.com.
