5 Tips to Make Your Catalogs Stand Out

Print marketing is NOT dead. Although, it’s not what it used to be, catalogs are still an essential part of a B2C sector. And even in 2021, you can name at least 3 local businesses that still print their ads. Right now, on top of your head.

Local pet store? Maybe plumber from across the street?

In this article we will take a look at one of the key elements of print marketing – catalogs.
We will share 5 essential tips for creating a successful catalog, whether digital catalog or print, with basic marketing and copywriting skills.

Recommended: Turn your catalog into a interactive flipbook

The fact that catalog marketing deals with a printed medium doesn’t mean that it cannot perform well online. After all, digital marketing involves more than one type of channel. From a simple social media post to a flashy landing page – your catalog will have more than one chance to shine.
That’s where Publuu comes in.

All you need to do is to upload your catalog to our flipbook generator.

How to do that?

Simply ask a person who designed your catalog to share it with you as a PDF file. Regardless of what software they used to make it, there’s just gonna be a feature for PDF generation.

What will you get in return?

A successful catalog, ready for reaching wider audiences. With Publuu’s flipbook feature every page of your catalog will have a nice, slick animation of a turning page – with sound effects and everything! With Tik Toks and video marketing dominating our social media, it’s a smart move to make your catalog interactive.

Publuu’s company presentation example

View more examples

MAKE YOUR OWN

On top of that, You’ll get the chance to experiment with your catalog and see what’s working. With Publuu’s PDF tracking feature, you’ll see which pages attract attention – and fix those that don’t do so well.

Curious? See how it works HERE!

Start with buyer persona!

Assuming that you didn’t get into catalog marketing head first, you are reading this article because you are planning on making a new catalog for your business. Great! You are probably sitting in front of a blank page, scratching your head and thinking “what should I do first?”

We’ve all been there.

First and foremost, before makign any kind of marketing content you need to ask yourself: who are my customers?

And if you think that you have already answered that question with something like: “young professionals aged 25-34, making more than 50k a year and living in Wisconsin” then I have a bad news for you: You don’t know your customers.

It’s a very common mistake, than can be easily fixed. Search online for “buyer persona template” or use one of the existing apps. Next, carefully fill in all the boxes. There will be questions about personal lives of your customers, their preferences. Their dreams. Their fears. You don’t need to necessarily know all that – just write whatever you think would be realistic.

What’s the point?

It is to describe what kind of people your customers are. Are they outgoing? Family orientated?

Your buyer persona will determine HOW will you communicate with them. What kind of products will your catalog show first. What kind of language will it use. Buyer persona is the very cornerstone of every marketing strategy.

Forget about plain product photos

We are all about the visuals.

We buy certain cars because they look pretty. We repeatedly watch TV commercials of big brands, knowing full well, that we are nothing more than potential customers to them. We often buy something, because we like what we see.

And that’s what you are hoping to achieve with catalog marketing: to present your products in a way that attracts attention.

So what about your product photos? Did you take them yourself, or did you hire a professional?

Either way you probably ended with something like this: clear image of your product on a plain (possibly white) background. It’s good. It’s professional. Maybe it’s even high quality. It’s the exact type of photo that your catalog needs.

But is it something your customers would want to look at?

Flip the script. Do something that your business haven’t done before. Fill your catalog with images that your customers haven’t seen before. Do you sell buckets? Make a photo shoot next to local lake. At dawn. What if your business sell tires? Show them next to the vintage cars.

In catalog marketing, a little creativity can go a long way.

Think about User Experience and how you can improve it

In digital marketing user experience (called UX) deal with websites, or apps, being easy to navigate – both from desktop and smartphone. Good UX is a when customers describe interface as intuitive.

What about catalogs? It’s just pages that can be flipped – is there a room for improvement?

There is. But it’s not going to deal your catalog or marketing as such. User experience for your catalog is about a business side of it.

If you want your customers to visit your store, you must make it easy to find it. Don’t add just an address – add a little map as well. And maybe a short description: “next to the St. Peter’s church, by the warehouse unit”.

If the goal of your catalog is to collect orders by telephone, make sure that your number is visible. Also, add information about your opening hours. And make sure that the person handling the calls doesn’t just read from the script. Let your employees have a little chat with each caller.

Show your customers that your business treats them like people. Not just the source of revenue.

Test, test, test

Many things can be said about how to make a catalog that sells.

But until it starts bringing customers, you never know for sure. The worst part is, that if it doesn’t work many specialists will start pointing out why.

The truth is: no one really knows what is going to work. People with experience can make educated guesses. Customers can speculate. But business owners never know.

That’s why you should test every version of your catalog before you release it on a wider scale. Print 50 copies and give them away. See how many calls did it generate. Only one? Well, maybe next time put cheaper products on the front page. Print another 50 copies of that.

You can even do that on Facebook – convert your catalog into a flipbook and promote it on Facebook with a 50$ budget. See how many interaction it will get.

Do that again with a different version.

In fact, Facebook Ads has a feature dedicated just for testing. It’s a type of ad, called A/B testing.

Repeat your tests until you see that your catalog is doing better than previous versions. And don’t get too hang up on getting the perfect result. When it comes to testing your catalog – there’s a point of diminishing returns that is easy to reach.

So there you have it!

How do you like our tips? Did they help your catalog stand out?

Let us know in the comments below.

You may be also interested in:

Catalog Design Ideas
How to Make a Catalog ?
Online Shopping Catalog vs Paper Catalog – Which One Works Best?

Ola Swiderska Author View profile

Aesthetics and minimalism enthusiast. Loves to explore the world, and travel is the meaning of her life. Amateur photographer and passionate about dogs. At work, she points her energy into crafting content that reflects her interest in literature and design.