Every business whether big or small has one main motive – to increase sales. With so much competition in the market, it has become vitally important to reach out to new and potential customers. Even in this digital era, where people make use of emails and newsletters, catalogs have proven to influence buying decisions among consumers. They play an essential role when it comes to giving detailed and specific information about the products and services that your business offers.

In addition to that, businesses also make use of catalogs to reach out and build relationships with existing as well as new customers. Since the past few years, printed catalogs have been slowly making a comeback to help businesses grow. Catalog printing adds value to your brand and improves brand awareness. At the same time, catalogs also enhance the buying experience of a consumer as a whole. To better understand how print catalogs still hold a place for your business in the age of e-commerce, here are some of the top reasons why.

Catalogs Help Grab Attention

Print catalogs are a great way to engage customers with the products and services that you offer.  People easily connect with tangible things and catalogs are used for that very purpose. Customers find it convenient to skim through the pages of a catalog at their leisure. This gives them the opportunity to properly understand the various products and services that you have to offer. Catalogs are mainly designed to give a voice to your brand or business. In short, a well-designed catalog can attract the targeted audience towards your business. Plus, it is also an excellent way to enhance brand identity.

Redefines the Shopping Experience

E-commerce giants have a lot of products and services to offer.

However, with so many products available in one place, it often gets too confusing to make a proper choice. Usually, shopping online ends up becoming a stressful task as you keep coming across more and more products. You end up making transactions without giving them proper thought. On the other hand, catalogs allow consumers to understand your brand and everything that you offer. Product catalogs are especially aimed to educate and guide buyers. This completely redefines the shopping experience. Owning a printed catalog for your offline or online business can be a great tool to redefine the shopping experience and help buyers pick the right products.

Increases Brand Awareness

Catalogs have the ability to reach potential customers who may be looking for the exact same products and services that you offer. Printed catalogs are one of the best and most effective ways to showcase your brand. Professional catalog printing is all about adding fonts, graphics, elements, logos, colour palettes, and typography that will look visually appealing. All these elements give your catalog a unique identity and allow a buyer to understand what the brand has to offer. If you manage to create an impactful catalog, it increases your chances of communicating and reaching out to a wider range of consumers. Additionally, if your catalog manages to highlight your features and USP’s it automatically becomes a successful marketing tool.

Longer Shelf Life

A single catalog issue can last for months without getting old; this increases the likelihood of people coming across your catalog. You will most likely come across catalogs placed along with magazines and newspapers in common areas, reading lounges, libraries and coffee tables. This automatically gives printed catalogs a longer shelf life. They constantly remind buyers about your brand and your services.

These are some of the benefits of a printed catalog for your business. On the other hand, if you are planning on printing a catalog for your business, then there are certain aspects that you need to keep in mind to create an impactful catalog. Catalog printing is more than just displaying your products. Here are some things you should consider:

Follow a Structure

The basic purpose of any catalog is to enhance the sales of a business. All the business catalogs that you will come across will be designed and structured in a similar fashion. Following are some of the important things that you need to get in place for a complete catalog:

• Front and back cover
• Introduction pages
• Table of contents – this can be placed based on alphabetic order, photographic TOC or page number
• Product pages – this will include product layouts with descriptions
• Order form

Proper Product Descriptions

If you are designing a product catalog for your business, make sure that you give all the proper and apt product descriptions. Product descriptions should are basically meant to offer the value proposition of a particular product to the customer. These descriptions will highlight all the benefits and features of a product. If you have proper and informative product descriptions, they can play a major role to help generate overall sales. Keep in mind to specify all the key features of all your products in the descriptions.

Correct Product Information

Once you have your product descriptions in place, the next thing to focus on is the correct product information. Offering accurate information for every single product plays an extremely vital role in your catalog. Usually, product information consists of all the details that a potential customer will require. This consists of important things such as – item number, the name of the product, price, category, features and barcodes. Your catalog is incomplete without these above-mentioned aspects.

Order Form

The whole and sole purpose behind a business catalog are to generate and increase the sales of a business. Your catalog can complete that purpose only when the products listed are easy to order. Order forms make it easier for interested buyers to directly place an order for the products listed in your catalog. However, there are certain things that every order form consists of. These forms usually include sections for placing multiple orders, a section for the buyer to add their number, a section for the shipping address and one for the payment options. The entire purpose of printing a catalog to improve the sale for your business is incomplete without an order form.

Author Bio:

Adam Smith is a marketing director at Mixam who loves to motivate entrepreneurs and startup holders. He writes for magazines and blogs on topics pertaining to leadership and success. While not at work, he is either on vacation or binge-watching series on Netflix.

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