Curated Gift Box Business Marigold & Grey Discloses Progress on 2019 Business Goals

If you've been following along for any period of time, you'll already know that we take time each year in January to announce our upcoming goals as well as give ourselves a report card on the goals from the previous year. Before we announce our goals for 2020, we want to reflect back upon 2019 and reveal to you exactly how we did relative to each 2019 goal we set and made public to you. There is no sense in setting goals and making them public if you don't hold yourself accountable. These blog posts are a big part of how we hold ourselves accountable so here we go!

We vowed to establish more partnerships.

We formed a major partnership in 2019 and are almost on the verge of one more but since the second one won't be announced until 2020, we'll that one a secret for now.

In late 2019, we formed an official 14-month partnership with the Executive Assistants Organization (EAO). We've been selected as their preferred vendor for curated gift boxes and have been introduced to their network of over 30,000 high-level experienced Executive Assistants all across the country. We'll also be attending and speaking at their conferences as well as creating monthly gifting-related educational content exclusively for their membership!

When founder and CEO Victoria Rabin and I initially spoke over the summer to learn more about one another and our business models, I instantly felt a special connection to her and her organization. It was immediately evident that we both share a strong belief in serving our clients and members exceptionally well, in the same way that EA's work tirelessly to serve the leaders they support. After having so many EA's as clients over the years, M&G truly understands the pressure that they are under on a daily basis and the magnitude of their role within their organization. We understand that details matter and they have to be right. Here are M&G, we believe that the gift giver deserves the same amazing experience as the one receiving the gift. With EA's spending so much of their time supporting others, thanks to this new EAO x Marigold partnership, we’re excited for the chance to make sure they're the ones feeling supported for a change! For full details of our partnership, visit here. 

We vowed to launch higher end gift options in our online shop.

There can be a tendency to fear introducing even higher-end products for fear that your existing client base won't pay those prices and you'll be stuck with thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of inventory that won't move. However, in examining trends since relaunching the entire website and collection in late 2018, we knew we needed to do this. The data spoke. One of our most popular ready-to-ship gift designs of all time was over $150 so not sure why I was even afraid. We've gone on to launch several gift designs over the $150 price point and this risk was the right decision. You can see some of them here: Lemon Heaven, Ultimately Lemon, But First Coffee, Relax & Recharge, and Thinking of You. 

Speaking of "higher end gift options", we also launched our 'Add Your Own Logo' Program allowing our clients to remove the M&G branding for the gifts and instead include their own branding in the form of branded gift tags as well as we branded logo notecards. With a low minimum of 5 or more, this is a great way for business owners, especially small business owners, to get artisan gifts reflecting their brand yet in very small quantities. Get started here. 

We vowed to launch free digital resources.

It's no secret that we've learned a lot about gifting over the last 4 years and committed to sharing more of what we've learned with you! Some has come in the form of traditional blog posts that are educational in nature but aimed to include some video resources as well as free downloads! We haven't done the best job marketing these (yet) because we spent months designing them but for now, here they are. You can download them for free right here: Official Guide to Client Gifting, Official Guide to Corporate Event Gifting, Official Guide to DIY Gifting, Top 10 Trends in Wedding Welcome Gifts, and The Gifting Checklist for the Engaged Couple.

We vowed to launch a Rewards Program.

Rewards Program...check! We launched this over the summer of 2019 and are still just as excited as the day we launched. We've named it the "Gold Level Gifters" Loyalty Program whereby our clients can earn points for making purchases in our online shop (and also for sharing us with family and friends) and cashing in these points for actual discounts on future purchases in our shop. Check out all the details here. 

We vowed to give back.

As you may recall, one of the major goals we set for ourselves going into 2019 was to find and execute ways to give back. Early in the year, we sponsored gifts for an event for Safe Shores, a local DC children's advocacy group dedicated to helping children and adolescents affected by trauma and violence, by providing brightly colored welcome gifts for every single attendee! We were even invited to attend the event as a team and it was an incredibly gratifying experience. But another opportunity to give back came to us more spontaneously back in September when we experienced our building fire. At that time, we vowed to give a portion of our online sales for the last quarter of the year directly to the local fire station and then even vowed to double our donations for all orders we received on Giving Tuesday! In the end, we were able to make a $5000 donation to the very fire station who literally kept us in business. We would not be here without them. Don't worry though, we also brought them a gift box! 

Stayed tuned for our 2020 goals that we'll be announcing soon. We love being completely transparent with our goals each year because ultimately the business is here to serve our clients. If we don't have clients, we don't have a business and so being held accountable by the very people we serve just makes a whole lot of sense to me. Drop us a comment with what you think or reach us here. We always love hearing from you! Happy New Year!

Image credit: Lissa Ryan Photography