When choosing a promotional gift, you need to consider three things to determine what type of gift you should be giving: your audience, your budget and your companys image.
Identifying Your Audience
Nobody knows your audience better than you (ideally!). But before ordering and sending promotional gifts, you need to determine who you will be approaching, and what you want from them. In the case of prospects or potential clients, you are probably trying to start a conversation, so a smaller gift like a pen or calendar will keep your name in front of them.
You also need to consider demographic factors. If you are a software company with suites designed for non-technical users (recipe software, quilting software, etc.) then sending a jump-drive or blue-tooth headset wont create a good image of your company. But an embroidered pot-holder or iron-on patch surely would.
Setting Your Budget
How is it that Google can afford to send branded digital picture frames, lava lamps and computer-mice to people who are already customers? Because they know that their customers will tell others that they got a great gift for spend x-thousands of dollars this...