Promotional products are a well-tested strategy for building brand awareness and engaging with customers and prospects. Everyone likes to receive free gifts. Branded and customized promotional items let you enlist the help of your customers to spread the word about your business.

It does make a difference what kind of products you choose to give away. To some extent, this depends on your particular brand and industry. However, promotional drinkware is something that works for all types of businesses. You might ask why drinkware is one of the best promotional products? Items such as custom branded coffee mugs, water bottles and other types of drinkware are always popular at trade shows or any situation where you want to give away useful items. Let’s look at some of the best reasons to use drinkware as part of your branding strategy.

Why Drinkware is Popular

Drinkware includes coffee mugs, beer mugs, water bottles, tumblers and anything that people drink out of. People love to receive such items. There are several features that make drinkware among the best promotional products to give away.

• Everyone can use a water bottle or mug. Just about everyone drinks coffee, tea or at least water. That’s why these products are relevant to people in any location, industry or demographic.
• Drinkware products are highly portable. People take water bottles everywhere, such as to the gym, the office or on vacation. They’ll use their coffee mug at work. Portable items are great for promotional purposes as lots of people see them as they’re displayed in public.
• They’re highly customizable. You can print just about anything on a drinkable. In addition to your logo, you can have text printed or include a distinctive image. You can also choose from a wide variety of sizes, colors, and styles.
• Drinkware is ideal for any type of event or giveaway. When you give away drinkables at a trade show, people can start using them immediately. They’re also perfect to use as online giveaways, prizes for fitness events or any other purpose.

Advantages of Drinkware Over Other Promotional Items

While there are advantages to using a variety of promotional products, there’s strong evidence to support the use of drinkware. What makes these items more practical and desirable than many other types of promotional products? Statistics cited in this section are from the ASI Global Ad Impressions Study.

• They are long-lasting. The longer someone holds onto a promotional item, the more likely others are to see it. Promotional drinkware is kept for a whole year on average. That’s quite a bit of time for someone to display it far and wide.
• You get an excellent ROI. It’s interesting to compare promotional products to other popular types of advertising such as online ads. Pay-per-click ads such as Google AdWords are often measured in terms of Cost Per Impression or CPI. In this case, someone seeing items such as custom branded coffee mugs counts as an impression. Assuming you pay $7 for an item, the average CPI is less than one-half a cent. If you invest in online ads, you often pay well over $1.
• People are very familiar with such products. Some promotional products are basically knickknacks that don’t have much practical use. Studies indicate that the majority of people already have some type of promotional drinkware. This is true for 87 percent of Baby Boomers, for example. That’s a large majority for people who make quite a few purchases and business decisions!

Beverage Consumption is Spiking

Obviously, people have always consumed beverages. What’s changing now is that there are more choices and categories on the market. We might say that the consumption of all kinds of craft beverages is a mega-trend. People are buying and ordering all kinds of beverages these days, including coffee, tea, craft beers, bottled water and energy drinks. In fact, there’s been a steady increase in the consumption of many such beverages. For example:

• Bottled water consumption almost doubled between 2013 and 2016.
• Coffee. The average coffee drinker consumes almost one full cup of coffee per day more than he or she did in 2003.
• Craft Beers. There are almost three times as many breweries in the U.S. than there were in 2012.
• Sports drinks and protein powder. People continue to consume more of these products for fitness, weight loss, and muscle gain.

How do these and other beverage trends affect the value of promotional drinkable products such as mugs and custom branded water bottles? As consumers give more attention to the beverages they consume for both health and pleasure, they also seek creative and convenient ways to take these beverages to work, school, the gym, and other places. They also like attractive mugs to drink from at home.

Water bottles are often viewed as a more convenient and environmentally friendly alternative to single-use water bottles purchased at the store. Water bottles, of course, can be used to hold any type of cold beverage. For example, fitness enthusiasts can add protein powder and other supplements to water or juice and bring it to the gym or on their run, hike or bike ride. Consumers can drink their coffee and beer in promotional mugs. The fact is, these and other trends in beverage consumption all make promotional drinkables more desirable.

Make the Most of Branded Drinkware

There are practically unlimited ways that you can use drinkware to promote your business. Here are just some of the ways you can use these products:

• Trade shows.
• Table at a festival, block party, farmer’s market or another event.
• Give them to participants at a fitness event you’re sponsoring.
• Sponsor a local sports team and give water bottles to team members.
• Hand them out in person to clients and prospects after a meeting.
• Give them to your employees.

Promotional items such as custom branded water bottles and mugs are only getting more popular. They are an extremely versatile category that works for any type of industry. You don’t have to worry about whether your customers are old or young, athletic or intellectual. Everyone consumes beverages. It’s just a matter of finding the right design and style to fit your brand.