Tactics > supercharged marketing
Redefining catalogue Y
communications By Paul Fifield
What you need to know to supercharge your catalogues in the multichannel, multidevice digital age
our business is under threat. Margins are under pressure, marketing budgets are being squeezed and God knows where the overall economy is heading. But before you turn the page, this is no doom
and gloom piece, far from it. There are a number of ways you can dramatically improve your reach, achieve unprecedented levels of engagement, increase conversion and improve on-going loyalty around your brand. If you are already investing heavily in the printing and distribution of catalogues, you can achieve all of the above by spending less and maintaining print catalogues as part of your overall communications mix. So where do you start? Well, first of all it’s important to ask yourself why you are producing a catalogue. Is it to drive engagement and inspiration or purely a sales tool? What outcome are you looking to achieve; physical footfall or online sales? Or is it because that’s what the person in charge has been doing for years and so that’s how it will continue?
Whatever the answers, you need to also be asking questions about your audience. Who are you targeting? What devices are they using? How are they currently interacting with your brand and where are they spending most of their time? Which digital marketing channels are they most responsive to and what are your competitors doing? You should consider exploring the breakdown of the buying process and looking at what is happening at each stage—awareness, interest, evaluation, conversion and repeat— and thinking about how you can enhance each point in that buying journey and importantly improving the post-sales experience. Armed with the answers to these questions, you are ready to start the journey.
Redistributing the cash I’ve made a bold claim that you can migrate
your catalogue communications into the digital age, and keep a print element and reduce your overall spend. How? You’ve probably guessed— dramatically reducing the amount you spend on print and distribution.
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Whilst I believe there can be a role for the print catalogue in the overall communications mix, it should be one that is highly targeted and ideally, personalised. Maybe the top five percent
Some clients are seeing visitors from iPads creep towards 10 percent of their overall website traffic.
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of customers by spend should receive something through the post—they are clearly very engaged with your brand and would value getting something “extra special”.
Content, content, content If you know what your consumers like and
who you are targeting, you can create relevant quality content and start building digital experiences from the ground up. Never take print content and just shoehorn it online. The user experience is completely different. Content can come in many forms and creating really good content needn’t be expensive. You are of course already making content around your products, or being supplied content by the manufacturer. But think about taking the money you’ll save by reducing your print quantities and investing it in making far better product content.
Why not consider using video to create 360-degree product shots, for example? You could even film product experts giving a one- minute roundup of a certain product, or show the product in action and definitely make sure you have multiple product shots. Unlike the restrictions with print, each product in an interactive catalogue can have its own image
Paul Fifield is chief executive of content marketing platform Ceros.
gallery, video and even spread. No longer do you have to think about which will be your hero product. They’re all heroes in digital! Then there is relevant, good quality editorial content, which will drive genuine engagement. Much has been written about how retailers are becoming publishers and vice versa, and it’s an area I feel is about to explode. Examples include Net-a-Porter and Asos. And it’s not just fashion that lends itself to this approach, almost any product category can be editorialised—think of what you can do in verticals such as sports, DIY, baby, toys, electrical or gadgets. Indeed, a vast amount of TV programming is based on these very areas.
Format and frequency So now you have all this great content, what
next? In a digital environment you have depth, rich media, interactivity and personalisation all at your disposal, but it’s important to remember that the beginning, middle and end format is still just as important. Design bespoke, carefully crafted, rich catalogue experiences. The real “killer feature” with interactive catalogues is that you are no longer constrained by low frequency. In the print model, catalogues are annual, biannual or quarterly because of obvious cost limitations. With a well thought through digital production process, good content and clever distribution, there is no reason why you can’t completely rethink catalogue communications and create monthly, fortnightly
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