If you’re still creating, printing and sending printed catalogues to your reps and distributors – you really need to examine this bad habit, as it costs you more than it should and produces less than your marketing dollars spent elsewhere, like going digital.
“But people like to read catalogues!”
Maybe some do. Some like touching paper and flipping pages. Some people use phonebooks to look up phone numbers and use typewriters to type out what they find on their yellowed Rolodex cards to later dial their rotary phone to call their friends. If those are your Customers, no need to read the rest of this post.
But maybe, just maybe they’re reading your catalogue because you’re not giving them any other (better) options? Humour me for a moment and think about this:
What else does the printed catalogue do for you?
Spoiler: Not much.
There are many things your catalogue cannot do for you. Things that provide critical business intel for you.
- Analytics and statistics
You have no way to track or analyze anything. Your catalogue will not tell you what your catalogue recipients look at, how long they look at it, what they look at before or after – the time of year / month / day – all of which could you valuable insights how to market your business better. There are many reasons why web analytics and statistics are a multi-billion dollar business. You cannot be competitive without them.
- Sharing content with others
Your catalogue recipients cannot easily share the exciting things they find in your catalogue. They can lend it to someone to never get it back, but that’s about it. At best it can be shared with a few – it can never “go viral”.
- Correcting mistakes / updates
If you have a typo or a mistake on this year’s run of 50,000 or more catalogues, the fallout may result in anything between a minor embarrassment and the next chapter of Brands Gone Wrong – just ask IKEA.
- Cost
Finally, there is cost. Between creating, proofing, printing, updating and delivering – year over year, the costs can be huge. The more successful your catalogue, the more it costs you.
It’s time to retire the catalogue, once and for all. Do the World a favour and take it behind the barn.
Most of the above is pretty obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated.
So what do you do?
Here is a start: Take your entire catalogue budget, cut it by 50% and let us create a website network for you and each of your distributors.