It can be hard to figure out new and exciting promotional business gift ideas every year. You don't want to go the lazy route and go with the tried and true, because every other business is doing that. You want to stand out, have your employees and clients looking at you in awe of your branding genius. What you need are some helpful tips to brainstorm new promo ideas.

To start off with, you are going to need to get a piece of paper and a pencil. While you can brainstorm on a computer, physically writing down your brainstorming ideas will help to cement them in your mind. Now you want to write down everything you can think of that you consider to be a unique gift idea. Don't worry about whether it's completely crazy, just empty out all of the thoughts in your head onto that piece of paper. You can set a time limit on this if you want, or you can just stop this part of it when you feel that you have enough ideas. Don't try to force any ideas – if you're stumped, then just leave it and come back later. Forcing ideas just makes this entire process harder, which is counterproductive.

Now, you'll want to take this list and just look at the promotional business gifts that you have written down. You will want to eliminate those ideas that, for whatever reason, just aren't realistic or feasible. Now look over your list again. Chances are, you've eliminated a big portion of your initial brainstorming list, and are now left with a few focused, creative ideas.

Now it's time to move to matching up your unique business promotional gift ideas to your workers or clients. It is much easier to find the perfect match for people working within the company – if you really want to make the most out of this branding and promotional opportunity, you will keep notes on the likes and dislikes of many of your employees.

Clients are a bit harder, and this might require another brainstorming session. If you have a friend or good contact within your business partner's company, it would be wise to leverage their help in finding out essential bits of information like their favorites (colors, hobbies, sports teams, tv shows, music, etc),allergies (in the case of gift baskets), and other juicy bits of personal trivia.

Of course, if you want to get really into the whole brainstorming process, you can use software that is specifically made for this purpose. While I did say at the beginning of the article that it is better if you use paper and pencil to spark your creativity, there is no reason to also try out brainstorming software to see what works best for you. Now go out there and wow everyone with your insightful, creative promotional business gifts. You might only be able to make one first impression, but you have plenty of chances for following up branding opportunities to take advantage of.