Following the introduction to a range of promotional gifts that relate to the health and fitness of the recipient, it is only sensible to look at other areas that may be seen as excellent giveaways. This time of year is ideal, given the fitness drive and the host of exercise DVD’s on the market, to ensure these are put to good use and continue to be used time and time again to keep your brand enforced.

Within the travel and leisure section is one for promotional sports bottles and these are a great gift that can be certain of future use. There is no restriction to where they fit into a person’s active lifestyle and can be useful for numerous sports and activities. Requiring a drink during whatever recreational activity you participate in is almost a given, and to promote your company with an item that can be used to quench that thirst is a very clever marketing tool.

With the gym membership featuring on many people’s domestic budgets these days, the kit that people have with them will more often than not include something to have a drink out of. Single use bottled water is OK, and for high impact advertising it does work. These are mainly purchased rather than given and an alternative to the constant purchasing of bottled water is the sports bottle. It can be filled up beforehand, looks neater, wont crush when stuffed into the gym bag and can pretty much be used forever!

There is plenty of choice of promotional sports bottles, with the plastic options offering considerable colour choice of not only the bottles but also the caps.  There are several size options, which include the traditional 500ml, 800ml and 1000ml. Budget wise, the low end is catered for, as well as the premium styled bottles also being available. The running style plastic bottle, with hand grips or handles can also be branded.  The print areas are good with modern roller printer techniques allowing print to wrap a fair way around.

Becoming very popular are the reusable aluminium sports bottles, which are more robust than plastic and are considered even longer lasting. There is a jump in budget, especially when you start looking at the SIGG bottles, but now there some unbranded cheaper alternatives, which do exactly the same job. Seen as not only as a standard sports bottle, these metal versions fit nicely in with the outdoor pursuits participant, again another area of fitness which is booming. Advanced printing techniques have enhanced the perceived value and there is now 360degree full colour process wrap print using dye-sublimation – allowing photographic quality reproduction. Couple this with either a brushed, white or aluminium supercolour finish, and you are looking at a product that will have the WOW factor and almost certainly will replace any existing drinking vessel.

Sports bottles are a fantastic promotional giveaway and whatever the budget, design or quantity, there is certainly a product available that will work for you long into the future.

OK, so maybe the title is a little dramatic, but it grabs the attention don’t you think?

For the smaller enquiries, which are, as always greatly received, there are sometimes a few issues to iron out and once explained can result in an alternative route being taken or an adjustment in the initial requirement.

A client who requires a small quantity of T’shirts for example – straightforward, no nonsense with screen printing machines geared up to coping with this type of work as well as the larger runs.

It can get a little bit more tricky when looking at a low value promotional pen – required in small volumes, lets say for argument 100 or 250 units. The machines that print these pens are for mass volume printing, and therefore although it can be done, there will be min print charges to consider and it can almost be worth spending a fraction more and receiving double or triple the quantity of pens.

Then there are items like carrier bags and car window stickers. Particularly on carrier bags, these are printed again in large volumes and the machines simply aren’t set up to do small quantities. Even at 1000 units, these often require hand fed machines, adding to the factories production time, adding to their costs – It is still possible, but at a price!!

Finally it is worth looking away from some of the standard everyday promotional items. What springs to mind as a classic example is travel sweet tins, or the little nets of chocolate coins. The branding is often done using stickers / labels (so this example covers anything that requires this). A recent enquiry for bottled water in reusable glass bottles came under the same bracket. The item can be supplied in low quantities – these are off the shelf after all. However, the labels / stickers need to be purchased on a min quantity run basis, which can be as many as 500. This therefore makes for a very pricey small run of items. Sometimes a client will proceed, sometimes the quantity is increased to take account of the above and sometimes a different route altogether is decided upon.

Providing information, being helpful and passing over the knowledge is something we feel we do well at Steel City. A member of our experienced sales team is always available to discuss your requirements and help guide you into the right product at the right price.