10
3 Catalog Design Rules
Posted by Karl | Posted in Tips | Posted on 10-07-2009
For retailers and resellers, a good-quality catalog is a major selling tool – a 24/7 shop right in your customers’ homes.
Good catalog design follows some simple rules so we’ve collected together our practical experience for you here and give you 3 for free!
Sell to Lifestyle Aspirations
People may buy something they need but usually, they are buying something they want!
What they “want” is something they perceive as making themselves feel or look better – there is a deep-seated emotional driver which determines the buying decision – logic is used only afterwards to justify the expense.
With this in mind, position your products, the descriptions and the images around the lifestyle you are selling to your prospects. For instance, if you are selling clothes, look for plenty of verbal and photographic imagery with the clothes in the settings which will instil the lifestyle your prospects are aspiring to – sharp suits in serious business settings; fashion wear in exotic locations; childrens wear in the park or at a birthday party.
Format the Catalog for Your Audience
Selling to the public and selling to other businesses will require different approaches. Adjust your design and format for yoru target audiences – it will be pointless offering discounts for order levels over 5,000 widgets to Mr & Mrs Smith of Powhattan VA and Microsoft is not going to be interested on buy a coffee-maker and get a mesh filter for free.
Similarly, if your market is youthful – pitch the catalog at that market – if they’re baby-boomers, adjust for their lifestyle aspirations. Always be very careful in respecting the demographics of your target audience as well as the trends and fashions affecting them.
The Product is King
There is a sales maxim – Always Be Selling!
Apply this to yoru catalog – the product is the centerpiece of your display and so it should be on every single page of the catalog barring the index or the (very) brief introduction and how-to-use the catalog sections – on every other page, product, Product, PRODUCT!
Make the photographs of the product as large as you can and try not to skimp on the photography by taking shots of groups of products – this reduces sales and there is a direct correlation to size of image to sales and number of products per image and decreased sales.
