What do you think are the best business freebies?

Fridge Magnet with contact details

@OP - Are you sure you asked the right question?

Giving your customers a pen/cap/umbrella/widget is not going to get them to promote your business. Certainly a €15 golf umbrella will display your logo to a specific audience, get your company name out there periodically for a limited time, but that is developing brand recognition, not promoting your business.

Your customers already are semi-captive because they have invested in your business. Invested in it heavily, because to grow and develop their businesses their futures depend on the quality of your product/service. So, you need to give them the best quality product/service/satisfaction, etc. possible. That’s how/why they will promote your business by recommending it to others. Lots of people forget that.

When was the last time you rang/emailed your business? How long did it take to get a response? Have you tried a blind call to see what the service/product offer was like?

I could have a drawer full of pens from big name businesses…. if I bothered to collect them. I don’t. Anyway, a €3 pen or (god forbid) a baseball cap, is not going to make me loyal to or promote anything.

You wrote  ‘I'm nearly 7 years in business. Business is good’ so you certainly are doing a lot right!

It’s impossible to give precise advice because you don’t say  what you do – e.g. what I would say to a tradesman or to a bookkeeping service would be quite different. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) varies hugely by sector, for example CAC in professional services (accountancy/banking/estate agency) costs about double that for IT & Managed Services. You don't say if your customers are once-off or repeat buyers.

Logos and branded freebies are for building a brand which is neither easy nor cheap.. As a ‘one-man-band’ you don’t need to build a big brand image unless you have ambitions to grow very much bigger and take on extra staff. I think what you are tying to achieve is to grow your customer base sustainably.

If you are a tradesman you should have advertising on your van – clear contact details, a website, (spend some money on SEO). Same if you are a landscape gardener – put up a temporary advertising panel on the boundary of the property you are working on. If you are an architect, do the same on the hoarding around the building job. Things like that get noticed and used more frequently than a name/logo on an umbrella.

If you simply want to keep the work coming in and ensure that your business grows steadily, you need to concentrate on your existing customers and get them to promote you. When you finish a job give them a few leaflets or business cards ‘In case one of your friends needs me’.  Is there any way you can reward or incentivise them?

If you are using a business name it should be registered at the CRO. It costs almost nothing and gives you protection. It would be stupid to spend money on any branding without doing this.

https://www.cro.ie/Registration/Business-Name

If any of your customers are 40+, a calendar can be nice. We've had customers specifically reach out to us early 2023 regarding our calendars (they feature GAA Photography). They use them in their offices etc. and have been a hit it seems