Sendoso changed a poorly performing holiday outreach campaign into a colleague-recognition initiative, according to a December 16, 2024 account by growth marketing manager Mary Matton. The revised Sendoso Elves Workshop campaign received more than 330 letters and sent more than 300 gifts. [S01]

Changing the invitation

The original approach produced no replies from 300 emails. Its LinkedIn activity also generated limited response. The team then invited people to nominate colleagues for recognition, replacing the original prospecting message with a specific person and reason to give. [S01]

Sendoso said it assembled the revised campaign in under a week. The published account reports participation and gifts sent, but supplies no closed-sales figure or controlled comparison linking the pivot to revenue. [S01]

Participation is a result, not the whole result

The change is useful as a campaign-design example because it altered what the recipient was asked to do. A request to consider a vendor and an invitation to recognise a colleague have different motivations. Their response rates should not be treated as interchangeable measures of purchase intent.

The number of letters shows engagement with the nomination process. The number of gifts shows fulfilment activity. Neither number on its own establishes whether the programme created a commercial return, strengthened a relationship over time or reached the most relevant buying audience.

For B2B gifting teams, the practical lesson is to define the desired action before measuring success. Recognition can be a coherent objective in its own right. It becomes harder to evaluate when participation is presented as a substitute for an outcome the campaign did not measure.