Tactics > print production
Because print works I
Jane Revell-Higgins
f we had a £5 note handed to us every time we heard a member of the digital community pipe up and say that print is dead, we’d have bundles of them, but we’d be nowhere near as rich as those businesses that understand, acknowledge and leverage the power of
print. The simple fact is that print drives sales and will continue to drive sales. All kinds of print deployed in all kinds of environments works. That is not to say that we damn digital media. We can
all embrace those too. But what we acknowledge is that all media, all channels, are equally valid until proved unworkable or uneconomic for our own businesses. For most of us it is all about achieving the perfect blend of media and measuring each medium not merely by its cost but in the return it delivers on our investment in both the short and the longer term. Back to print specifically. We ask those who damn
print, what about the branding at football matches and other sports fixtures—all those billboards, programmes, tickets, the packaging for the merchandise? Shop window and in-store posters selling lifestyle images, special offers, new season’s merchandise, back-to- school, Christmas… you name it. Don’t tell us that this promotional print doesn’t draw the eye and encourage shoppers to enter, browse and buy. Catalogues fulfil the same role as retail stores without requiring the customer to drive, park, walk, battle with the crowds or carry the merchandise back to the car. Leaflets, fliers, catalogues abound at point of sale—would they be there taking up prime space in these super-professional retail outlets if they didn’t generate extra sales? Hardly.
“As a niche business, selling to collectors, our catalogue is extremely important and we know that we sell better to those customers who have received a catalogue. We need the catalogue to educate, inform and inspire as most people are not aware of the vastness of the world in miniature, or for example, the many options available with a dolls’ house. Customers need to have this information in front of them to peruse: this is not something we can easily lead them through and convey on our website, even with videos. We’re not selling products that everyone knows about and are merely comparing price or customer service, when a catalogue may be superfluous. We’re selling a brand and a creative vision, and this requires a catalogue which, together with our customer service and monthly offers, means repeat purchases, whether online, in our shops or through our call centre.”
Jackie Lee, managing director, The Dolls House Emporium
Walktall returns to print
“Walktall specialises in selling footwear and clothing to tall guys with big feet and, as such, the market is naturally more internet-shopping friendly. Indeed, on buying the catalogue business we soon moved it to being purely online for reasons of cost and the ease to manage. This was a big mistake. Even though initial sales were good, customer retention suffered badly, which seems crazy for such a niche market. Where do these guys go? Greater demand was being put on recruitment, which we all know is getting increasingly costly and tricky. Our feedback told us that a catalogue or some printed call- to-action was necessary to prompt
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purchase. One customer told us that when the catalogue stopped coming, his partner no longer sat him down to discuss what he needed before placing an order online. It is a question of out of sight, out of mind. We started mailing early season catalogues with mid-season updates as new product arrives. There is no question that print acts as a turnkey to sales, even for purely web ordering businesses like ours, and as a result our retention levels have increased by 25 percent.”
Andrew Peirce, managing director, Foot Shop
Direct Commerce Catalogue e-business
www.catalog-biz.com
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