Custom Printed Mugs - 3 Reasons to Market With Them

Many people receive custom printed mugs.  Some of them are small business owners.  Some of them market with promotional products, some even with custom mugs.  But a large number of them do not.  And that’s a shame; custom printed mugs are among the top ten best promotional products; promotional products are a great way to market.  Here are the top 3 reasons to use custom mugs in your marketing efforts:

1.     Custom printed mugs cost little

Custom printed mugs are an inexpensive way to deliver your message to your current or prospective customers, to re-enforce relationships.  Advertising with them cost $5 on average (US), get you 1,307 impressions over their useful life (6.6 months) at a cost of $0.004 per impression.

Why do custom printed mugs come with such low costs?  The answer takes us to the second reason why you should use them:

2.     Coffee mugs are useful items

CBS News says that more than 50% of people in the US drink coffee, most of them more than 3 times a day (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/14/sunday/main529388.shtml).  So, the number of people who’ll find your custom printed mugs useful is more than half of the US population.

If you’re not ready to embrace custom printed coffee mugs, here’s the third  reason why you should:

3.     Custom printed mugs lead people to buy from you

The same survey that found out that custom coffee mugs and their friends cost $0.004 per impression have also found out that a good number of the people you’re going to give them to will have a better opinion of you as a result.  To be precise, 30% of the people surveyed had a better opinion of the advertiser on their promotional product after receiving the product than before and 11% had a much better opinion. 

Why are better opinions important?

Because they lead to the third reason why you should use custom printed mugs, namely, a large number of the people you’re going to give them to will buy from you.  By large, I mean 60%.  I go with 60% because that was the average for all promotional products.  I, probably, could have said a larger number.  Custom printed mugs cost $0.004 per impression, overall promotional products cost $0.005 per impression.  It’s not illogical to conclude that, since custom printed mugs did better than average in the cost-per-impression arena, they probably did better in other arenas. 

But the survey authors did not address this, so I’ll just go with their averages.

Of course, you could improve on averages.  You could buy less expensive (per item) mugs or you could better match mugs and intended target audience.  Or your delivery method.

Even if you do not, or, God forbid, you’re among the below-average marketers when it comes to custom printed mugs, marketing with them still puts you in the winners’ group. 

How so? you ask.

You’re still spending a lot less than you would have had had you used other media.  Radio spots, for instance, get you impressions at $0.058 per impression, national magazines at $0.045, newspapers at $0.029.  (Those are averages, and local papers would have a smaller price, but still much higher than the price of custom printed mugs).