Promotional Products Incorporated

Promotional Products are becoming a welcome occurrence at business forms trade shows.

The annual Southwestern Graphics Trade Show has graced the Texas area for more than 50 years. Targeted strictly to the printing, forms and graphic arts industry, this well-established exhibit has recently incorporated promotional products into its fold. For the past four years, Barry Dobb, vice president of DinoMar, a sales and marketing consulting firm in Golden, Colo., has been coordinating the promotional products pavilion at the show.

"We're seeing that the quick-print and business-forms industries are the fastest growing groups of new promotional product distributors," said Dobb.

Just how fast? Well, if Southwestern Graphics is any indication, promotional products will be an unyielding presence in the business forms industry.

In fact, Dobb has secured 26 exhibitors for this year's show in San Antonio, held the first week in June. That is almost a 25 percent increase from the eight vendors who set up shop in 2000—the first year promotional products exhibitors participated. This year's number of vendors is also up by two from 2002.

"The promotional products pavilion is kind of its own trade show existing within our trade show," said Laura Bates, show coordinator for Southwestern Graphics—which is owned and operated by Texas Graphic Arts Educational Foundation, a non-profit organization comprised of Litho Clubs in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.

"The promotional product suppliers have their own area on the show floor that's been set aside for them for the past four years. They even hold their own seminars," noted Bates.

Connie Gardner, publisher of Printers Exchange—a regional magazine based in Fort Worth, Texas that sponsors and conducts sales and marketing for Southwestern Graphics—added, "When wandering the floor, it's apparent that the promotional products pavilion is the busiest area of the show."

Why is this pavilion receiving so much traffic at a trade show dedicated solely to distributors of business forms and print products?

"One of the reasons we think that the promotional products pavilion is so strong at our show is because printers are looking for other areas to get into for value-added services for their customers," said Gardner. "Printers want to be able to say that they do everything turn-key, that they can be a customer's one vendor for 12 different things. We're finding that customers want more of that, they want one-stop shopping."

Bates, who sells the promotional product booth space to Dobb, noted additional reasons why these items are becoming more popular in the printing industry.

"First of all, many printers are looking for other ways to supplement slower economic times, so they are moving into the promotional arena," said Bates. "Secondly, I think that there are just a lot more companies that are handing more promotional-type business."

"Their core business is declining so they are looking for new profit avenues and promotional products fit in very well," said Dobb.

Riding the Promo Wave

For distributors just starting to add promotional products to their arsenals, what are the best items to start with?

"What we've found is that the basic promotional products—calendars, pens, coffee mugs—suit the business forms industry well and help distributors get started be-cause these are the products that everybody understands and everybody buys," explained Dobb. "As they progress and get more in-volved in the promotional business, then, obviously, they are selling many more products."

Jim Paxton, CEO and president of Rivertown Button & Ribbon, Fort Worth, Texas, concurred. "My perspective is from one type of product," said Paxton. "We make a commodity, we make buttons and ribbons, which are excellent products, but there are a lot of promotional products that fit really well with the forms industry like calendars and memo boards."

According to Dobb, some of the more popular booths at the Southwestern Graphics Trade show (in order of popularity) are calendars, pens, mugs, emblematic jewelry, plastic products and stress balls.

"I measure success on return and many of the vendors who are attending the show this year have been coming with me for four years," said Dobb. "I am always under the impression that these people are very good business people who don't spend their money if they're not getting a return."

After coordinating promotional booths for various business forms/printing events—including the Document Management Industries Association Trade show—Dobb has determined one major difference between forms distributors and traditional promotional products distributors.

"Forms distributors do not want to be involved in the industry to the point that their names are exposed to 3500 suppliers and they'd have to receive so many catalogs," said Dobb.

"They're looking to deal with almost 50 core suppliers and that seems to be comfortable for them because promotional items are not their core business. Though in some cases, we're seeing more forms distributors selling more promotional products, which are now becoming an equal part of their business."

The Southwestern Graphics Trade show, which rotates every year between San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, will be held June 5, 6, 7th at the Alamodome in San Antonio.