CATALOGUE & PRINT WEB VERSION: Click Here
Steady revival of Catalogues : DM : Print
In case there was ever any doubt, the latest word from many quarters is that ‘good old DM’ is back with a vengeance. Note: DM = direct marketing for those whose experience is confined to digital. Can’t help but feel pity for those who work in businesses which, during major digital transformations, determined that the sooner they could ditch ‘old fashioned’ print marketing and its associated costs, the better their financials would be, for the first year at least.
M
any businesses which glibly kissed goodbye to mailed
catalogues also said farewell to established loyal customers who, in many cases would order from every catalogue they received. Established catalogue brands were abandoned completely or, sadly, migrated to a web-only offering which, for many older customers was either completely inaccessible at worst, less attractive, or simply difficult to use.
A direct knock-on effect of this has been the growth opportunity created for those who really ‘get what customers want’ and have been able to take significant market share. These savvier companies understand that many customers enjoy receiving print catalogues and carefully considering the products featured in their pages. The catalogue stays in the home for ongoing reference too and this love of catalogues is not exclusive to an older generation by any means. Just look at the latest research from Royal Mail’s Marketreach and JIC Mail if you need any convincing.
Surely you recall the furore when Argos announced that its main ‘book of dreams’ catalogue was
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being discontinued. What this demonstrated was that it wasn’t just mature customers who liked and used catalogues, but younger generations too, including children. IKEA, long time champion of the catalogue followed suit when it announced an end to its print catalogue recently. Willing it seems to sacrifice the huge inf luence the IKEA catalogue has always had in driving store traffic as well as online sales. The former being particularly powerful when a store estate is scattered thinly around the country, requiring a significant physical customer journey.
This year, it’s even more likely that you will have received some inspiration from a print catalogue, and in many cases been prompted by it to go to the retailer’s website to buy a product seen in its catalogue pages, very possibly at the behest of your children, or partner. In a year that has seen many retailers worlds crashing down like packs of cards with assorted lockdowns bringing footfall down to zero, that catalogue has been a saviour not only to bricks and mortar retailers who have been able to migrate some customers to direct ordering – but also to consumers,
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