A Conversation With ... Brian Wilmsmeyer

What is Elite Promotions’ purpose?
If we’re talking to a potential customer, we tell them, “It’s our job to get your name to your clients or to the people you want your message sent to.” And our medium in doing that, basically, is promotional products, whether it’s a trade show giveaway, a service award, maybe for somebody who’s spent 10 years at a business, or a screen-printed or embroidered apparel item. The quick synopsis is that you can walk into Walmart, and anything you see, we have access to and can get your logo and put it on it so you can brand yourself to your customers, clients and employees.

What are this year’s promotional product trends?
For trade show items, hand sanitizers, lip balm, your traditional pens and notepads are always going to be popular. The big thing that we’ve seen a ton of difference in in the last couple years is people using their items to target people a little more. In other words, if it’s a hospital, they’re typically going to give away an item that’s a health related item. It may be hand sanitizer to promote being germ-free (or) a small pillbox to remind you to take your medicine or your vitamins.

Technology is also starting to take over on a lot of our stuff. Flash drives are extremely popular, and they’ve come down in price a lot in the last year and a half. Anything related to technology and cell phones – a lot of companies now are pushing the screen cleaners. Social media has become a very big deal, and we’ve had a lot of requests to put the Facebook icon or a Twitter icon on the items to get people to also check them out on Facebook and not just the websites. I think QR codes are a great idea for trade shows, because if somebody wants to offer a discounted coupon or direct traffic to their websites, if they’ve got a QR code, we can print that on just about any item, though it’s got to be large enough and flat enough that (people) can scan it with their phones.

What promotional products might you discourage companies from using?
I’m personally not a big fan of candy. I think candy’s fine if it’s something you go buy in bulk somewhere and put on your table. We have some folks who want candy that has a wrapper (with) their logo. Well, you’ve got a very short lifespan on paying for printed candy. Somebody’s going to walk by your booth, pick it up, look at it, open it up, put the breath mint or whatever in their mouth, and they’re going to throw away the wrapper. So you probably spent a little extra money to print that wrapper that really, in the long run, doesn’t do you a whole lot of good.

How should companies distribute promotional products at trade shows?
You’re going to have some folks come by, and they just want free stuff. They don’t really care what you do. They want a free pen or a free mug or a free squeeze ball or whatever. I always tell customers that it’s nice to have those low-end, maybe 50-cent or 75-cent items to give away to the masses. Put your company name, phone number and website on there and make that a part of your giveaways.

But when that important prospect comes by, have something behind your booth or under your table that you can reward that person with that’s a little bit nicer.

What changes are on the horizon for promotional products?
I think technology’s going to continue to evolve. Anything technology-related is still going to be big. Our big industry show is in January each year, so January 2013 will be the next big show.

I’ve gotten a couple of trade magazines, and it looks like it hit this year, but I think next year, even more so (will be) digital printing on promotional products. A lot more factories have invested in technology and can do full-color digital prints on items that you couldn’t before.