Hopefully, you've had a few promotional items that have been total failures, ones that you thought were totally fabulous but turned out to be complete flops.

What, you're asking, I'm hoping you've had some failures in the promotional items area? What kind of person am I, anyway?

I'm a person who wants you to have some experience being sold promotional items and products that never work so you won't be taken by them again, but are, instead, ready to break the mold and hit it big with your promotions.

Which also happens to be chief tip number one! Break away from the promotional item pack, and be a leader instead! I love pens, but the truth is, I have at least a hundred right now with different company names on them, and if yours is one of them, I most likely couldn't find it to call you if I searched all day and night. And I'm no different from everyone else out there. But if I had, say, a notepad handy with your name and address on it, well, that I could definitely put my hands on-which means I would be able to call you!

So the very first tip is to do something different with your promotional items that's different. And as for tip number two, that would be to deliver your promotional items in a different way. For instance, instead of mailing 1,000 whatnots, have 300 or so hand delivered. I can guarantee that hand delivering promotional items will earn you enough business so that you can afford to hand deliver the next 300 and so on.

Now, the third tip is to let the professionals handle it. And I don't mean promotional item manufacturers and bulk distributors. I mean hire some real advertising and marketing people at a real advertising agency to advise you and develop your promotions and promotional ideas for you. Yes, you'll spend a little more money upfront, but you'll have a promotion where all the pieces and parts work together to get your message and call to action across to your customers-which means your customers will be more likely to call you rather than the other guy.

And that's tip number four. Remember that there is more to an effective promotion than handing out one item. There are pieces and parts to it. It takes a consumer an average of six to seven times of seeing and/or hearing your promotional message before they “get” it and take action of any kind-even saying no thank you. No, it's not because your target audience is stupid: it's because they're constantly being bombarded with marketing promotions from all sorts of businesses.

Which brings us to tip number five. Know your target audience. If your promotion is for teens and young adults, for example, don't give them refrigerator magnets-they don't usually have refrigerators! At least not of their own yet. Give them a cool key chain or CD holder, or even better, a CD instead.

No matter how wonderful and unique a promotional item is, if it's given to the wrong target audience that has no use for it, they will have no use for you.

Cindy Carrera has dominated the art of giving promotional gifts. Learn the secret to choosing dazzling tradeshow giveaways that will knock their socks off!