Effectiveness of print catalogs

Print catalogs are an effective way to sell your products. There is a powerful synergy between the online and print channels. One cannot replace the other.

For an interesting read on this subject, see this research conducted by Real Results Marketing with Modern Distribution Management. They show that more than 65% of distributors find print catalogs to be effective.

Using their research in combination with other sources, here’s our list of why print catalogs make sense for e-businesses:

1. A computer is not always available — a print catalog is often the most convenient source of product information.
2. Print catalogs are engaging — the customer remains focused on your products, they cannot click away.
3. Multiple channels tell the story — successful communications require more than one channel to get the message across.
4. Customers are more invested — if they printed or requested it, they will look at your catalog many times.
5. Catalogs are easily shared — customers may give it to a friend or colleague.
6. Essential for high end sales — print provides a tangible and touchable step towards making an expensive purchase.
7. Print is used in conjunction with the web — customers will page through the print catalog while navigating your site.
8. Stay top of mind — printed information about your products is sitting on a shelf within easy reach.
9. Print is useful for comparisons — people like to flip through printed pages and compare with other pages or sources.
10. Drive mobile commerce — QR codes make it easy for customers with phones or tablets to visit your site.
11. Help move low volume products — printed catalogs remind customers what you have and where to buy.
12. Brand promotion — a print catalog with your artwork on the cover, headers, etc. is a recurring reminder of your business.
13. Increased credibility — print helps you communicate professionalism and stability.
14. Communicate your expertise — mini-catalogs demonstrate that you are a product specialist and you know your customers.
15. Gain market share — especially in fragmented markets, print is a way to increase your visibility and do prospecting.
16. Relationship sales — print catalogs serve as important leave-behinds that cannot be matched any other way.
17. Measurable metrics — track which catalogs are downloaded and which products are scanned or clicked — get more data with more versions.
18. More compelling than email — opening rates of email are plummeting — print catalogs are far more likely to be looked at.
19. Vehicle for ads and messaging — use catalogs to communicate ideas about things your customers are not searching for.

Custom Print Catalogs Can Drive Retail Sales

Peter Sheldon of Forrester calls it the “brick-and-mortar renaissance”. He blogs that ”Retailers are investing in the vision of ‘Buy Anywhere, Fulfill Anywhere.’ The new digitally connected store allows them to offer up an endless assortment of products far beyond the capacity of the store shelves.”

Mark Grondin, SVP of Marketing at Shopatron expands on this. He writes “customers in many retail locations can expect a hybrid shopping experience that couples the convenience and versatility of eCommerce shopping with the hands-on, instant gratification of shopping at a brick-and-mortar store. In this new world, eCommerce hasn’t replaced brick-and-mortar at all. It’s made it even better.”

He refers to a Shopatron whitepaper: 10 Ways “Online” Will Change Life for Brands and Retailers in 2012. It states “eCommerce isn’t going to completely replace traditional brick-and-mortar sales. Rather, the two channels will evolve into a single ‘no boundaries’ experience.”

No question this is all true. But exactly how are in-store customers supposed to learn about the products that are not on the shelves? It is not enough to tell them “go online”. That is not helpful. Customers will wonder why they came to the store at all.

If the next step is to go online, it must happen in a focused way. And it needs to work outside of the store.

One powerful solution is custom print brochures with QR codes. They can be:

• Printed at the store and handed to the customer as a special service
• Linked as a PDF to a follow-up email
• Included in a product shipment

The brochure can feature the products of interest to that particular customer. It can include ads and related products. And it can be branded. Using the QR codes, the customer may use their phone to order the products on the spot. Or the customer can take the brochure to work or home, where they will share it with colleagues and friends. No matter when the order is placed, the sales person gets the credit. Every QR code in every publication is unique. Each scan is logged.

Plus you can get real-time analytics on that publication. You can see at a glance which products have received the most scans. You will learn about that customer’s preferences in a way that cannot be matched by any other tool.

Let us know if you’d like to explore using Catalog-on-Demand for this purpose. There are many variations on this theme. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss your requirements and come up with an appropriate solution.

Related Posts

• Accelerate Cross-Media Marketing with Custom Print Catalogs
• Print Catalogs Become a Powerful Research Tool with Real-Time Reports
• Print Catalogs With QR Codes Give Measurable Results
• QR Codes are Second Highest in Mobile Market Budgeting

Number of different types of media in direct marketing (Original source: Capturing the Cross-Media Direct Marketing Opportunity, InfoTrends 2010)

Regardless of the size of your business, you will benefit by delivering your product and service information in more than one media.

You will be at a disadvantage if your marketing strategy is based solely on your website. Savvy marketers know that they also need print.

This message is well-articulated by Barb Pellow, Group Director at InfoTrends, in a white paper titled “Cross-Media Services… Beyond Personalization“. It can be downloaded at the Océ site for no charge.

As she states in the introduction, “One thing is certain—effectively using cross-media communications delivers better business results. Delivering multiple impressions and giving prospects a variety of ways to respond can have a dramatic impact.”

This paper does not directly address the challenge faced by businesses with many products, which is most acute in B2B. The obvious issue is that not all products are of interest to all customers. As Barb says, “In today’s market, customers don’t have the time to deal with irrelevant information.”

You must have a way to deliver specific sets of product information to each customer. The one-size-fits-all catalog or brochure doesn’t cut it anymore. Not only is it wasteful, but it doesn’t do the job. Why hunt through a print catalog when you can go online and find it faster? And even the online experience is not that much better. Customers are lost in the noise.

This is where the custom print catalog fits in. It gives you an opportunity to educate your customers about products that matter to them. Moreover, it tells the customer that they are important to you. It says that you all about personal service. You are there to help solve their business problems. It gives you a way to engage them when they are not online in a way that would otherwise be impossible. And as icing on the cake, the publication works as a market research tool for you.

We encourage you to explore how Catalog-on-Demand can help meet your cross-media marketing needs. Contact us to discuss your requirements. We’re always glad to explore ideas!

Related Posts

• Print Catalogs Become a Powerful Research Tool with Real-Time Reports
• Print Catalogs With QR Codes Give Measurable Results
• QR Codes are Second Highest in Mobile Market Budgeting

Example of a print brochure made from a simple data file

Do you need a nice print brochure or catalog for your top-selling products?

Getting started is a lot easier than you think.

1. Begin by making a simple data file. It can be either Excel* or tab-delimited. Here are the most basic 7 columns:
1. itemNumber — Your SKU number. (required)
2. itemPrice — Do not include the currency symbol. (optional)
3. productName — Up to 100 characters. (required)
4. productDescription — May be plain text, or contain simple HTML, including lists (bullets). (optional)
5. productGraphic — URL to your product image. You will get best results if you link to your zoom image. (optional)
6. productLink — URL to the product on your store. This is needed for the QR code and online clicks. (optional)
7. Category — Each category level must be separated by #$#. For example, Toys#$#Games#$#Board. (required)
2. Post your data file to any public URL. Dropbox or something similar works fine.
3. Register for Catalog-on-Demand and sign up for the 30-day free trial to Catalog Edition.
4. Follow this FAQ on connecting a data feed to Catalog-on-Demand.
5. Click on New Publication. We suggest starting with Brochure. There is a little less to configure than for Catalog.
6. Personalize with your own cover graphic, header graphics, and colors.

This will get you going. Next you can start taking advantage of more advanced data features, such as SKU family tables, product attributes, multiple hierarchies, and much more.

If you have any questions or problem, please sure to contact us. We’re glad to help!

*Note: If you use Excel, save it in the 97-2003 format.

Related Posts

• Make a Print Catalog from Scratch Using Your Own Product Data — Part 1
• Multiple Ways to Connect Product Data to Make Custom Print Catalogs

Now Print Catalogs Can Give You Real-Time Action Reports

Marketers — here is a new tool in your arsenal. We are calling it a “Real-Time Catalog Action Report”. On a per publication basis, you can see how many downloads, how many scans & clicks, and which products received the most attention.

You will look at print catalogs in a new light. It completely changes their value proposition. No longer are they solely for demand creation. Instead, print catalogs and brochures with QR codes can serve as very cost-effective market research tools — while selling at the same time. They are part of the marketer’s toolkit for testing critical concepts, including messaging, product name, images, pricing, product mix, attributes, and much more.

Your research can be as granular as needed. The objective might be as simple as “learn which products are of greatest interest to our top 500 customers”. Send each of them a unique catalog. Then use the report to learn which products get the most scans or clicks.

The more versions of the publication that you send out, the more data you collect. If you are a printer looking for new services to offer, you should be talking to every one of your e-business prospects about this new tool.

The Action Reports can be easily embedded on any web page. For example, place it on your company dashboard.

Try out Catalog-on-Demand for yourself. Send out a few catalogs to your customers and begin receiving useful real-time market information. Please contact us anytime if you have any questions along the way.

Touchcode looks promising for making print catalogs more interactive

Touchcode is an interesting new way to link print catalogs with other content, media, and mobile sites. We are glad to see it. Touchcode offers an alternative to using QR codes for the same purpose.

One advantage of Touchcode over QR is its invisibility. This will be important in some cases, both for aesthetic and practical reasons. The QR code can take up valuable space on the page. On the other hand, seeing a QR code is a call to action. People know what they are being asked to do when they see one. With Touchcode, some page real estate will be required for the call to action.

The Touchcode works by embedding a thin layer of capacitive material in the printed material, such as a print catalog. Smart phones can read this by touching it to the display. The phone or web app then takes over with whatever information was transmitted, such as a URL.

According to a discussion comment by print industry consultant Cary Sherburne, “the Touchcode technology cannot be produced on a digital press at this time”. Let’s hope this issue is resolved. Otherwise, that shortcoming that will limit its usefulness in custom catalogs and brochures. The idea of targeted publications is that they will be produced in short runs — which is what the digital press is all about.

We will continue to follow and investigate the Touchcode technology for use with Catalog-on-Demand. In the meantime, you can already use Catalog-on-Demand to create interactive print catalogs with QR codes. Please try out Catalog-on-Demand today. Let us know if you have any comments or questions.

QR codes are the second highest mobile marketing investment, after apps

Econsultancy has published its Marketing Budgets report for 2012.

68% of companies and agencies are increasing their digital marketing budgets. As you would expect, most businesses will give top priority to building mobile apps. Next up: “QR codes represent the second most popular mobile technology, with just under half of companies (48%) saying they intend to invest here in 2012.”

The report summary does not delve into how QR codes are likely to be used. Our prediction is that print catalogs will become one of the primary delivery vehicles for QR codes.

This makes sense with today’s ability to create print catalogs that are tailored to specific markets, events, and even individual companies. Marketers can use QR codes in print catalogs to drive mobile users to specially designed landing pages. Custom catalogs and landing pages can be produced together as components of a single campaign.

Catalog-on-Demand can make as many different print catalogs as you need. Each product in each publication has a unique QR code. All scans are tracked for analytic purposes. Try it out today. Please let us know if you have any questions or issues.

Making a parts catalog is simple. Your customers will love it!

Selling replacement parts is a competitive business. One of the best ways to differentiate yourself is to make it easy for customers to order the right part. Help them with a quality PDF catalog that includes only the parts they need. They will appreciate it and remember you!

Making a parts catalog is simple. Start with the data and images from your online store.

You will need to put your data in the format shown in the attached Excel file (be sure and save it as “Excel 97-2003″). Put the file in a public place (Dropbox works great). Under Data Import Setup (on your Account page), select “Catalog-on-Demand data file”. Enter the URL for your Excel file and click Save. To get things started, click Import Now. The file will auto-import every day.

Once your data is in good shape, the catalog makes itself. You can brand it with colors, cover art, and other configuration options. Include the QR code to help drive traffic to your online store. Indexes and table of contents are automated.

Use the Always Fresh feature to automatically keep your part catalog up-to-date. It will be updated within 24 hours of a data update.

If you want the catalog to be public, put the link on your website. If it is custom, give the link to your customer. The link to the catalog does not change. It remains the same whenever the catalog is updated.

If you have any questions or problems, be sure and let us know. We’re glad to help!

Marketers can use print catalogs with QR codes to get useful analytics.

Matthew Parker, printing consultant, has made some interesting predictions for 2012. We’ve mentioned one already in an earlier post. His second prediction is that we will hearing more about ROI for print. This is a big idea. As Matthew says, “Now that print will drive prospects to other channels, its success can be properly measured.”

If there is one thing that gets marketers out of their chairs, it is data. They must be able to measure each facet of a marketing campaign. As we have all heard a thousand times, if it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed.

No question that has been a past weakness of print. How many people saw that printed piece? How many took action? What happened after that? There were not enough answers. Any marketer doing his or her job will eliminate tools that cannot be accurately measured.

QR codes change everything. Now you have objective information. Now you can assess value.

Every QR code in a brochure or catalog produced by Catalog-on-Demand is unique. When a reader scans that code, Catalog-on-Demand instantly “knows” which publication and which product correspond to that code. Everything possible is recorded for every scan. The date, time, publication ID, product ID, IP address, browser, redirect URL, and more are instantly logged in the Catalog-on-Demand analytics database. Both simple and advanced analyses are available.

We are interested in working with partners who would like to couple this data with other analytics.

Give Catalog-on-Demand a try and start collecting measurable results of your own. You’ll find that the campaign variations are unlimited. Create targeted brochures and catalogs for events, conferences, seasons, and specific customers. You will learn more about your customers that was ever before possible. Contact us anytime with questions or comments.

Increased web traffic is the main reason to integrate print and digital. Custom print catalogs are ideal for this role.

A recent survey by Charterhouse shows that “the majority (70%) of marketers are using print to drive interest to their digital content.  The most common objective, stated by 61% of respondents, is to increase traffic to their website.”

This is consistent with what Catalog-on-Demand customers are saying. PDF catalogs are a way to drive more site visits, especially with QR codes.

Matthew Parker, a printing consultant who writes for PrintWeek, predicts that in “2012 print will be truly interactive”. Print will not stand on its own — it will be used in “conjunction with other channels”. Matthew goes on to say that “QR codes will become commonplace”.

There is no simpler and more cost-effective way than Catalog-on-Demand to position your own e-business in line with these trends. You can use product data and images from any source to automatically create your print catalogs. This includes your shopping cart or e-commerce system. Contact us anytime with questions or comments.