What Makes An Effective Product Catalogue?
Catalogue marketing is an essential sales initiative. Catalogues are used to showcase a company’s services and products as well as make direct sales. Catalogues provide accurate information to customers when they are not online and often have a longer effective life than non-printed materials (e.g. PDF catalogues or web pages).
So, what does an effective catalogue look like? What does it contain? This article provides a brief overview of all you need to know.
Components Of An Effective Catalogue
An effective catalogue is not necessarily the most over-produced or expensive. It is one that effectively engages your target audience by addressing their needs and positioning your products as viable solutions to the challenges they face. By aligning your messages to your customer’s needs, the catalogue achieves the goals of increasing sales and brand awareness.
A) Attention-Grabbing Cover
The appearance of a cover determines whether or not a buyer will open the catalogue to see the content. If a catalogue has a poorly designed cover, customers may not be willing to open it, and they may not know what your business sells. Therefore, it should be attractive as well as eye-catching. Apart from attracting interest, the cover of an effective catalogue should include enough relevant information to draw in the prospective reader. Any good cover should also feature information like address, phone, email, and a short description of the products offered.
B) Cohesive Theme
The colour scheme on any catalogue should match a company’s brand identity: the colour palette and font style within the document are both important. When creating catalogues for our customers, we do in-depth research to come up with a theme that is not only relevant but also one that aligns with their brand identity.
C) Compelling Content And Imagery
A good catalogue should capture a customer’s attention in a short time while making every word and image count. Content can be designed to address different needs within the same catalogue, acknowledging that individual readers will be at differing stages of the buyer journey / decision making process. For example, we use specific attention-grabbing words, headings, quote boxes and comparison tables for bite-sized summaries, and make important points stand out by using different colours and bold fonts. At the same time we can include in-depth analysis or technical information elsewhere on the page. This approach conveys the core messages clearly for customers in a hurry, while drawing attention to detailed content for readers looking for more information.
D) An Influential Call To Action
The main role of a catalogue is to help improve the sales of a business. A powerful call to action will attract people to visit a company’s website, consider purchases, or even to advocate the brand to their colleagues and associates. A call to action helps readers know what the owner of the business needs them to do. When creating catalogues, we are keen to ensure that the layout and design sit perfectly in line with the content goals. We use the right headers and sub-headers to catch the eyes of readers and guide them to the right decisions. Furthermore, we include enough white space within the pages to ensure the catalogue is easy to read.
Our Design Philosophy
Our company has a wealth of experience when it comes to designing and printing effective catalogues. We work hard to ensure the catalogue’s elements - logo, colour, font, and imagery-support the customer’s brand and purpose.
The catalogues we design will not only build your brand but will also tie in perfectly with your other marketing streams - whether you use email marketing, Google AdWords, social media, or a combination of strategies. To learn more about the quality of service and types of items we provide please download our free eBook – The Catalogue Print & Design Guide.