The first and crucial step in achieving success in any kind of campaign is being clear about your objectives. Stating these explicitly will help guide all your decisions in the campaign. People frequently think of giveaways as "perks", not as a promotional campaign. Whether your objective is more sales, customer awareness or customer satisfaction, the important thing is to stay focused. By knowing your desired end result you will be able to choose the activities, products, forms of distribution, etc. that will produce the desired result.

Guessing what giveaways will generate the desired response from your target customers is risky. Get it wrong and you'll be wasting your money on giveaways that fail to meet your objectives. A little research can go a long ways towards confirming or invalidating your assumptions. Call a few of your customers or other people who are in situations similar to your customers. Find out how they react to your proposed giveaway idea. It won't give you statistically significant research results, but if they're all raising the same concern you better reconsider your idea. Even if they don't like your proposed giveaway, they may have some other suggestions based on what they have received in the past.
 

Beware of choosing promotional products based on what you like or what is trendy. Stay focused on your target audience and the success of the campaign. While a novel new item that fits the needs of your audience can be a big hit, simply choosing a trendy item can backfire if it's not what your audience needs. Understand the needs and wants of your target audience in order to choose the most effective item for your campaign. Selecting products that are consistent with your company and campaign image will also help reinforce who you are and why they should do business with you. Choosing items that address a target audience need or otherwise strikes a chord with your audience will also ensure your giveaway gets more use which will strengthen name recall.
 

Don't just go for quantity. It is tempting to go for cheaper items in order to give out the most promotional items for a given budget, but that can cost you in the long run. Your giveaways will reflect who you are. And if you don't give out quality giveaways, that will say a lot about your company. You may even find yourself at a disadvantage if your competitors give out better quality items than you do. Cheap giveaways have their place, but you will generally be better served by getting fewer items or by finding a smaller, but higher quality item for the same unit price.
 

You already defined your objectives to ensure you selected the right item for your promotional item campaign. Now, you need to determine how you will get these items to your target audience. Define possible scenarios and problems that could arise. For example, in planning for tradeshows, are you just going to hand them out or exclusively mail it to your booth visitors? Ease of shipping or mailing costs may influence your product selection decision. Items received by mail may be more readily accepted and used, whereas tradeshow attendees may be more selective in what they are willing to pack home. If you will be distributing your items at an event where you are competing for attention with other companies, you will also want to consider what competitors will be present and how they may use promotional items. Finally, having a distribution plan will guarantee you have an accurate budget including distribution costs and avoid any nasty surprises.