There are thousands of promotional gifts on the market to meet all budgets and requirements. It is therefore important to think about how you will be perceived by your target audience before you purchase corporate gifts aimed at them. Try to imagine your customer using the gifts you give to them to ensure that you are doing the right thing by sending it to them in the first place.

Unfortunately, many companies do not think before targeting their customers old and new with promotional merchandise. Not doing so, could defeat the whole point of the exercise and waste both your time and money. At the very least, you could be seen as cheap and at worst, you could actually end up insulting the very customer you wish to impress.

Inexpensive promoters such as plastic pens, stickers, key rings etc. are all excellent ways of getting you company name and details in front of your customers. If you send them to your customers regularly, they will enjoy receiving them and may even look forward to your next free gift. If done often enough, you may find that your business name is all around your customer's office in constant view for the next time they want to place an order. Frequent mailings of inexpensive gifts is a good habit to get in to if you want your customer to use your goods and/or services.

Budget gifts are not good, however, as thank you gifts. This may seem obvious to you but every year companies make this mistake. If a customer is spending thousands of pounds with you every year, they may well be offended if during the holiday season you send them a 30p plastic key ring to say thank you.

This is not to say that you have to spend a lot of money on every customer. Some of your smaller customers may be happy receiving an inexpensive box of two chocolates where others will find you to be very generous when you send them a budget promotional mug. Your larger customer may expect something more substantial like a crystal decanter or silver clock. If they are spending a lot of money with you, they may well be worth the extra cost involved. Generally speaking, the more expensive the gift, the longer it stays on your customer's desktop. This is a very good place for your gift to be when your customer decides to place their next order.