Everyone loves to be appreciated, and when that thanks is expressed with a gift, you'll make extra points with the gift recipient. Corporate gifts are often thought of as expensive, one-of-a-kind executive style gifts that your company sends out at holidays, but there's another level of corporate gift-giving that can mark you and your firm as a thoughtful, appreciative company with whom to do business.

The wonderful thing about thank you gifts is that they needn't be expensive, but they can pay off big in exposure for your company and product. There are literally dozens of opportunities for little thank yous in the course of doing business, and you can do it as cheaply as a few pence per item. It just takes a little planning and the foresight to develop a ?thanks for your business? marketing policy. Here's how.

Choose a small variety of promotional items imprinted with your company's name.

You'll find an enormous range of promotional gifts and items available on the internet. Choose a handful of various types of items that will your customers will find useful. If you're not sure, ask your own staff about the products that they use every day, or check your office supplies ordering history. Some of the best items for this type of programme are plastic promotional pens, memo cubes, sticky notes, calculators and paper clips ? consumables that will always be appreciated and used. Choose a few higher range gift items as well, for acknowledging especially big orders or special occasions. Those might include imprinted promotional mouse pads, promotional computer mouse novelties and USB drives imprinted with your company name. Order the minimum amount of each, all printed with your company logo, name or slogan.

Develop a ?schedule of giving?.

Decide beforehand when and how thank you gifts will be given out. Your schedule may look something like this:

Sales visit ? leave imprinted pad with secretary, prospect and/or other office staff

Order up to ?25 ? include pad of sticky notes and imprinted pen

Order ?25-100 ? include promotional credit card calculator and sticky notes

Order ?100-500 ? include promotional mouse pad and sticky notes

Referral ? Send thank you note with promotional credit card calculator

Order over ?500 ? include promotional USB mouse imprinted with company name and promotional sticky notes

Make sure that order packers, sales staff and marketers are all on the same page.

When you include a little thank you in every order that you ship or for every contact that you make, you are doing more than generating good will. Those inexpensive sticky notes imprinted with your company's name on every single page offer multiple opportunities for exposure. The pad will sit on the recipient's desk, reminding him or her of your company every time she makes a note. And every time one of those notes gets stuck to a memo, letter or communication, your business gets another set of eyes on your logo and message. That's the kind of marketing that goes far beyond the value of the few pence each the pads cost ? and the good will you generate by saying Thanks again! Is priceless.