Reeling in customers
The obvious benefit of a promotional product is that consumers using the product will become increasingly familiar with the brand. This will make the company more recognizable and memorable to consumers.

Popular promotional products, like a t-shirt with the company name on it, may become a man's casual shirt that he wears to play basketball with his friends. Every time he wears that shirt, his friends see the logo and will recognize it later when they are looking to fulfill a need in that business. The friend will not recall where he saw the logo, but familiarity with having seen it before will give that company an edge. Or, think of promotional pens. Each time a consumer pulls it out of her bag to jot a note, she is engraving that logo into her memory a little bit further.

Showing customers you appreciate them
While promotional products help increase your companies' brand recognition, and opens doors to new customers, your current customers are a critical part of the promotional product process.

When the competition gets fierce, your customers are more likely to stay with you because you have treated them so well. That could lead to referrals. Also, remember that if you have a special group of customers that gives you far more business than your average customer, you should consider giving them a better product than the other customers, especially if those customers are aware they are especially generous customers.

What are the best products today?
You are generally better off choosing products that will be used frequently rather than shoved in the back corner of an office, or thrown away after only one use. The greater likelihood the product will be used often, the more opportunities to increase brand recognition.

Though there are some obvious promotional products, like pens and t-shirts, carefully consider your clients and the nature of your business when making a selection. For example, Google gave web customers a wireless computer mouse in one of their promotional packages. This would not be appropriate for a gardener, but is highly useful and highly likely to be reused frequently by a web client.

Also, make sure you choose a product that does not fall apart easily, or a pen that is prone to leak. You want your customers to be able to say to their friends, "Oh this cool pocketknife? The company that does such-and-such gave it to me."

Wearable items make up over a quarter of the promotional products industry, followed by writing instruments like pens, but there is no black and white "wrong" and "right" promotional product.

Make your decisions wisely, and boost your companies' image with your existing and potential customers.