The key point in selecting promotional items to be given as gifts is to ensure that you balance the relationship between the client and the promotional item. If you have a loyal customer who’s been buying from you for several years, then sending him or her a T-shirt or a mouse mat might not have the required effect – in fact, you might cause that customer to wonder if you really value their custom!

In such cases it is better to give either a gift of more substantial value, such as a really good briefcase, or to supply a wider range of smaller, cheaper promotional items that the customer can distribute to their workforce – baseball caps are ideal for this purpose as they are small, easily transported and fun.

Then again, you have to balance the costs of your promotional campaign with your projected returns. There’s not a lot of point giving sweatshirts to people you’re trying to persuade to buy chewing gum!

Remember the range of ways that promotional items can be used: you can use gifts to launch or promote a new product, in which case the gift as to reflect the product and create interest in it. Bags with your logo and ‘designed to hold X’ where X is the name of your product are an ideal example.

You can also use promotional merchandise to support your customers. If you make kitchen equipment, why not give a free apron with every order over a certain amount? That encourages your clients to buy from you, gives you a free promotional activity in their workplace and allows the staff to keep their clothes clean – everybody is a winner which creates a happy buzz around your brand image in their minds.

You must also ensure the promotional gift will be useful for a long time. Durable high quality items reflect well on your company, but shoddy clothing or bags that fall apart don’t. Always buy the best T-shirts you can afford, for example and be sure that the printing won’t fade or crack as you don’t want your image to look old, tired and dated. A good supplier can advise you on the best printing options for your promotional campaign.

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Interestingly, your grandparents, and possibly even your parents, depending on how old you are, will be able to remember a time when the ubiquitous sweatshirt didn’t exist!

Despite being invented in 1925, and marketed in grey and grey only by the Knickerbocker Knitting Company in the USA, the sweatshirt didn’t appear in the UK until the early 1970s, when The Bionic Man popularised it for men, by appearing in his opening credits wearing a jog suit, which was what we used to call a set of matching trousers and sweatshirt top, worn during the 1970s craze for jogging. He managed to break a treadmill by running too fast in his.  Fashion designer Norma Kamali also began using the stretchy pastel fabric to make women’s trousers and zip up fashion jackets as well as sweatshirts, all of which were a huge hit.

Back in the USA, sweatshirts had become emblazoned with university names in the 1960s, a trend that continues to this day. But the sweatshirt has never become a crossover item between business wear and sportswear in the way polo-shirts have, it’s remained firmly in the casualwear category, and – right now – is one of the most popular items being purchased online, as the cold weather hits home to those who can’t afford to turn up their heating!

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