I have just been introduced to a brilliant eco friendly promotional gift. A regular customer contacted me to purchase some Christmas baubles as he does every year. We got to speaking about whether he needed them in a hurry so that he could post them out to his customers or if the standard longer lead-time was OK. The longer lead-time was fine as he would be hand delivering them again as he did last year. You see, last year he took them to his key customers together with a small live Christmas trees which he purchased from a local farmer. He knew his customers would be hoping for the same gift again this year.

Promotional desktop plants are quite popular as they are small and can easily be posted. This was a different kettle of fish! The Christmas trees he purchased were quite small, about three to four feet in height. As many of his customers were within a short drive of his office, he was able to put them in the back of this car and take them together with his personalized Christmas baubles to his customers. He told them to save the bauble he gave them last year as they could collect them each year for their trees.

"So what did you customers do with the Christmas trees last year?" I asked. Many were taken outside and planted somewhere near their offices. Winter is the perfect time for planting trees, after all. A few were taken home and planted while others were donated to schools by his customers for the children to plant. For those who replanted their trees at work or at home, the trees become a reminder on a daily basis of who gave them the tree in the first place. The pine trees are not even printed but they do the same job as printed merchandise and they are eco friendly! Now that is one brilliant promotion which is certain to grow his business and promote his company's eco friendly message.

It is worth mentioning, that each of his twelve employees also received a bauble and a tree last year. There is no way my customer will not give them to his employees this year as it went down so well last Christmas. By the way, good luck finding promotional Christmas trees from your promotional gift supplier. Chances are they will just stare at you blankly. Some things are better left to farmers.