You do get business exposure from the use of promotional products. These products will definitely help your business go to greater heights. You can also use these same products to get deductions on your taxes, depending on the methods you are employing and where they end up.
You can do whatever you want with your own promotional items. Most of the time they are given away to entice customers to return to the business. If you are doing this, that is fine. If you want to qualify for a tax deduction though, you will need to use them in other ways. If you buy products that different organizations will find useful and you donate to them. Like giving pencils to schools. This is worthy of tax deductions.
Your next promotion can be geared toward giving to those in need. There are a lot of families that will take all the help that you can offer them for the winter holidays. There are many different charities that work toward this in particular. There are no doubt some kids teams that can use some help near you. This is a good opportunity for giving away promo sports bottles and baseball caps too.
Whether you are giving items to clients or to the homeless, they all work to get advertising attention. While reminding your clients of your business will probably help to prod them into spending more money with you, giving to those in need makes other things happen. You will actually get more attention because you are doing something selfless for others.
You will be happy with the attention that your business gets compared to what you had to pay for it. Advertising can be very expensive and when you use promotional merchandise it gives you a lot of different options with what you can do.