There is some expense associated with joining the promotional item industry, and any company thinking of joining the industry should be aware of those costs. However, all the contacts for this article agree that those investments soon pay for themselves many times over. Photo courtesy of San Mar

When it comes to the personalization of promotional products, many shops prefer to take care of as much of it in-house as possible. Others, however, prefer to let their supplier handle personalization, keeping their engravers and other equipment free to work on awards. Photo courtesy of PPAI

Anyone who doubts the potential promotional products have should take a good look around their office and home. They are likely to find numerous ad specialty items at each location. Photo courtesy of ASI

Promotional products help many recognition shops to maintain steady sales throughout the year, making them less vulnerable to the cycles of trophies and awards. Photo courtesy of Morgan Awards

Organizations such as ASI, PPAI and SAGE were created to help companies do better business with promotional items. Any company thinking of joining the industry would do well to contact all three for information and advice. Photo courtesy of PPAI

Apparel is by far the largest category of promotional products. Photo courtesy of San Mar

How many products does your company offer? Though the question seems simple, for a business in the promotional item industry, it could be nearly impossible to answer. That’s because promotional items come in all shapes and sizes, limited only by imagination. A client can order from a truly vast selection of products, anything from a pen to a T-shirt to a coffee mug and on and on.

This wide range of personalized items, which seems to expand exponentially, is a good thing for any business looking to expand their customer base and increase sales. However, it also raises other questions: Which products should I choose? Who do I sell to? How do I get involved with promotional item companies?

As is often the case, the answer is with the customer.

Prodded By Customers

Like most retailers who join the ranks of promotional products dealers, Fred Booher of FK Concepts, Inc., in Beavercreek, Ohio, started because, “Somebody asked me for something. I found what they wanted, and we took off from there. We somewhat fell into it.”

Michael Montecalvo of Lamont Awards Apparel in Spencerport, New York, says their business had a similar experience, “We deal with a lot of recreational leagues, and those people got us into promotional products. At first, it was a lot of little things that we wouldn’t have thought of selling, pendants and things like that. Now, that’s grown into the corporate market, and they buy a lot more than the recreational people do, though that business is still good for us. This morning alone we closed four sales on promotional items for soccer programs, key chains and pins.”

Ray Veth of Beacon Awards in Red Bank, New Jersey, tells us, “One of the beauties about what I do is I’m probably the biggest retailer for custom awards in the area. The guy who comes in for trophies nowadays—unlike the old days, when it was the plumber, the electrician—is the director of marketing or the VP of sales. Those guys are the organizers for little league now, and when they come in for trophies, they mention that they need promotional items, and it’s a natural sale for me.”

Chris Morgan of Morgan Awards in Broomfield, Colorado, doesn’t recall precisely what circumstances prompted their first order for promotional items, but they quickly realized that it would be a good addition to their business.

“In hindsight, we realized it was a necessary part of our business. It evens out our year, so we don’t have as many peaks and valleys as the awards seasons,” says Morgan.

Perhaps that is the main lesson to be learned here. None of these businesses were involved in promotional items until one or more of their customers requested them. Once they fulfilled those orders, they realized the demand that had been there all along. Your customers may not have requested promotional items—yet—but do you really want to wait until they do?

At the very least, it’s a good idea to gauge their interest. And, if demand for these products exists, take steps to incorporate those sales into your business as soon as possible.

Choosing The Products

With awards and gifts, shops often must make educated guesses as to which products their customers will want. The great thing about customers asking for the service of promotional items is that they often have specific products in mind, and, with the incredible range of items available, those products are sure to be found.

“I don’t think we had anything to do with which products were added,” says Montecalvo. “They told us what they wanted, and we went out and got it. It’s evolved to where we’re a natural source for these items. They order their trophies, and then they order their promotional items.”

Booher says his product selection was based on, “Whatever the customer wanted. Our first promotional products customer was in the travel business, and they asked for luggage tags, badges, personalized wallets and different travel-related products.”

Of course, not all clients will make it so easy on you. Morgan says most of their customers know what they want. However, for those who do not have a specific request, Morgan Awards utilizes its professional showroom.

“The showroom is most useful when someone doesn’t know what they want. Then, they can come in and look around, and they often say, ‘I would have never thought of that,’” says Morgan.

Asked whether he chooses products to promote to his customers or if they come to him with ideas, Veth says it’s a mixture of both. “Obviously some customers would come in with ideas of their own, whether it be a certain type of pen or something else. On the other hand, a customer may come in knowing they want a promotional item, but they’re not exactly sure what they want.”

Veth notes that he asks a few key questions in order to guide his customers to the product that best suits their needs. “We ask them, ‘What are you looking to do?’ Who’s your target audience?’ We steer them in a direction based on what we hear from them.”

How It Helps

Though the benefits of providing promotional items would seem to be evident, there are still many businesses that do not offer them. To drive the point home, let’s go over some of the benefits of offering promotional items.

For Veth, it’s quite simple, “It’s helped improve our sales by 20%. In this day and age, in this economy, a lot of people are folding. But for me, every year for the past 11 years has been better than the year before it, but that’s because I offer a variety of products. If I only engraved trophies, I would sink,” says Veth.

Montecalvo says that counting just the products he sells that are personalized by other companies, because Lamont Awards doesn’t want to do it, it’s 10% or 15% of their business. In today’s world, that 10% or 15% could be the difference between staying open or shutting down for a lot of businesses.

The Organizations

One reason many businesses avoid selling promotional items is that they think it will be too much of a hassle. Most would contend that “hassle” isn’t the appropriate word to describe additional sales and revenue, especially in this economy. However, there is help to be had which will alleviate those concerns, and plenty of it.

Booher says that FK Concepts is a member of ASI, PPAI and SAGE. “ASI is a subscription, and we subscribe to it. PPAI is a membership, and we belong to that. I don’t know if SAGE calls it a subscription or a membership, but we belong to that also.”

Booher remembers that “in the old days,” it was all done with catalogs and ASI has a register that listed companies.

“If you were thumbing through the register looking for balloons, you would go to the balloon companies and find 50 companies that sell balloons. Today, it’s on a database. We started using the database when it was on DVD, and of course today it’s all online, and it’s wonderful,” says Booher.

He’s not the only business owner of that opinion.

“We belong to PPAI and ASI. PPAI helps us with education and their tradeshows. They have a good-sized show that comes to Denver in the fall. And, ASI helps us through their search program, which we use frequently. They provide a number of companies for each product, providing us with a lot of options,” says Morgan.

Veth, another ASI member, is a fan of the shows as well. “I’ve been doing it long enough that I know how ASI best helps my business. I like the shows, which are always pretty good. There are always new products introduced, and you get to meet the vendors. They also have a directory that we use every day. They have quite a few vendors who are as good as gold.”

Montecalvo says that not only do they have vendors as good as gold, they have a system for finding who those companies are.

“We’re members of ASI, and we’re going to join PPAI. One of the services ASI provides is a rating of their supplier companies. In our early days of promotional products, we got burned pretty good a couple of times, but that doesn’t happen anymore. We’ve locked in with 15 companies, and that’s where we go. If it’s a new product or company, we go to the ASI rating,” says Montecalvo.

In-House Or Outsource?

When considering whether or not to offer promotional products, shops must also decide whether or not to personalize those products in-house or to outsource them.

“The majority of our promotional products are outsourced. It takes all sorts of different equipment to personalize such a wide range of products. Coffee mugs require certain equipment, the pens another type. We don’t have all of the equipment in-house, but even for items with large orders that we could engrave in-house, we sometimes choose to let the supplier work on them while our equipment is working here,” says Morgan, adding that it’s more efficient that way.

Booher takes care of his promotional item business with both outsourcing and in-house personalization. “If it’s something like a leather folder, we don’t do that in-house. But, if it’s something that we can engrave or put a plate on, we do that in-house. We have engraving machines, a vinyl cutter, and we have a heat press.”

Commenting on the division between in-house products and those that are outsourced, Veth echoes a similar sentiment, “The mugs and pens, things of that nature, I have somebody else do that. If it’s something I can do in-house, let’s say it’s a nice piece of glass or acrylic, in that situation, we do that here. I have a New Hermes laser engraver, so we do a lot of that, and in terms of clothing, we decorate that ourselves, too.”

Lamont Awards is a very diversified business. For that reason, Montecalvo says they do as much in-house personalization as they can.

“Right now, I’m working on a decal order, and that’s something we just added to our line. We bought this new Roland printer-cutter, and we’re doing our own decals, which has been tremendous for our business. The Internet has had an affect on us, too, and we’ve diversified to maintain and increase our revenue as a result,” says Montecalvo.

Consider This

Although adding promotional items to an awards shop’s services and product lines seems like a no-brainer, there are some things to consider first.

According to Morgan, it’s critical to understand the artwork. “You need to be very detail oriented when you place your orders. If you forget one little thing, it could ruin the entire order, and you may have to start from scratch. It’s also important to have the ability to pay the factories while you wait for the money from your customers.”

“I would say that they need to make sure the products they’re distributing meet their customers’ needs. Make sure it fits their agenda. Also, don’t extend yourself too much. If you can do it right, it’s a real nice plus for your business,” says Veth.

Speaking of caution in regard to overextension, Booher notes, “There is some expense involved with it—anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year—if you join the organizations or if you subscribe to their service, which is the best way to do it, such as ASI’s ESP or SAGE. If you want to be more economical, SAGE provides more bang for the buck.”

Booher adds that discounts on FedEx and UPS shipping are also available, and sometimes they’re significant enough to cover the cost of subscription or membership.

Quality Control

Another critical consideration is the quality of the products. Since many awards businesses that offer promotional items choose to have their supplier personalize the items, that means they’re also putting a lot of trust into the supplier’s standards for excellence and quality. How does an awards shop handle quality control in such a situation?

Morgan says, “We’ve narrowed a lot of our common products—pens, mugs, USB drives—down to certain vendors we have developed a relationship with over the years. We try not to go by price; we want companies that are going to do a good job for us. If time allows, almost all of the factories offer free proofs, and nowadays, some of those are virtual. We also make sure that we check our proofs thoroughly. Most of our orders are delivered to us, and then we deliver or the customer picks them up.”

Despite those precautions, mistakes are sometimes made, says Morgan. “There have been situations where something went wrong, a poor imprint, for example. But, a good factory takes care of that right away, replacing anything they made a mistake on, and we remember that.”

Veth acknowledges that quality control in the promotional item industry does take quite a bit of follow up.

“We have forms that we’ve developed over the years to help with that. We also have a graphic artist on premises, so we make sure the artwork is set in the proper format. If we don’t receive an acknowledgement, my two managers then generally follow up to make sure the product is moving along and will meet deadlines, that sort of thing. Occasionally, we’ll get something that comes in wrong, but most of the companies we work with are pretty reputable. We have a solid core of companies that we deal with,” says Veth.

Booher says that after 25 years, he also picks companies he knows will do a good job. “I use those companies almost exclusively. I try not to shop around too much on price because it’s not worth the risk. Our business has been a little strange in the fact that most of my customers are dealing with worldwide corporations, and they can’t have any mistakes. I’ll try some new companies here and there. If I hear something good, I’ll check through SAGE or ASI to see what other people are saying, see what rating they’ve got. If the rating is three stars or less, I don’t use them. I just can’t take the chance.”

Make The Choice

In a tough economy in a competitive market, it’s best to take advantage of every opportunity available, and in an industry with approximately $20 billion in annual sales, promotional items present one heck of an opportunity. Make sure it doesn’t pass your business by.