By the time an executive reaches a senior position in management they will probably have received around 50-100 promotional pens. At first glance it appears that using pens as a promotional gift for executives would be a waste of money and time, but in fact these simple gifts can be used to promote your brand to your high-powered staff and important clients in other companies. There is only one challenge: make your pens better than anybody else’s that year. If you manage to get an executive or an important client to use your pen for only a few weeks you will have achieved a great deal of brand promotion.

The thing about executives is that not only have they received dozens of promotional pens in their career, but they also probably have a favorite pen. This could have been given to them by their spouse or children, or they could have spent a large sum of money on it themselves (some designer fountain pens can retail for over $5,000). If you want to compete with this, you are going to have to bring something fairly special to the table. If you can get someone like this to use your pen instead of their favorite, even for a few days, every cent you spent on it was worth while.

Why is this? It is because that executive thought that your pen, with your logo on it, was good enough to forgo using their favorite pen for a while. To find promotional pens that have this effect, it is important that you try many different types yourself. Write with them, hold them in your hand, and try to see if they would appeal to not just your own taste, but a broader universal taste. If you are buying for many different executives it is a good idea to buy a range of roller balls, ball points and fountain pens so that you can give people the types of pens they prefer to use.

If you are buying promotional pens for executives, there is only one thing you need to avoid: plastic. Executives shun plastic goods as if they carried disease, and are only impressed by high quality stainless steel pens. They must have a satisfying weight in the hand, and feel smooth and strong when you write with them – like they are never going to run out of ink. If possible buy refillable pens and include a set of refills with the pen.

There are loads of gimmicky promotional pens with funny characters on the heads, laser pointers, twists in the stem, air bubbles trapped inside a liquid etc. Avoid giving these to executives, as they have probably seen a similar pen before. Go for classic cold steel and high quality rather than gimmicks and you will be sure to impress any executive with your promotional pens.