Assessing Your Catalogs For The New Year: The Criteria |
Article Submitted by: Andrew Michaels
Friday, 05 February 2010
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What do you think your grade is in terms of catalog printing? Are
your print catalogs the top of the class with a successful track record
of sales? Or do you have absolutely no idea if your print catalogs even
had an impact with your market? Well, in this article, I will teach you
how to assess your color catalogs for the new year. Below are the
crucial criteria in judging a catalog's performance and a few
suggestions on how really to judge it.
• Catalog Impact - A catalog's impact is basically measured in
terms of the reaction or reception on people. Do they go wide eyed with
excitement when they see your color catalogs, or do they just appear
bored? Do they throw away the catalogs immediately or do they keep it
for later reference. Try to observe this as you distribute your
catalogs. It is subtle but you can easy determine if your catalogs have
a good or bad impact. Of course, try to correct it immediately if
things always look bad.
• Sales achievements - Of course, catalogs should have sales
achievements. Catalogs are direct sales tools and you should try to
determine which part of your whole sales figure comes from catalog
promotions. This should really help you see if your catalogs are
effective at making the sale, or if it your other materials that are
doing it. You can easily set this up by adding a survey question in the
order form for your products, asking customers where they saw the
product first. If you always get catalogs as the answer, you will at
least have a general idea of where most people get their product
information.
• Originality - You should also judge your catalogs in terms
of the originality of approach. Are your catalogs really unique and
different enough from other rival catalogs or do most of them look the
same. While it does pay to use something that works all the time, if
your designs are just almost the same as the others then you are not
really maximizing your competitive advantage. It is always best to have
a distinction that makes your catalogs look different from the rest.
Readers will remember that original catalog much better and will
probably order from it more. So grade your color catalogs in terms of
originality. If it flunks, you have lots of work to so.
• Value for money - Finally, money still talks in catalog printing
and even if your design looks the best and most original of them all,
it must of course cost in a way that is efficient. The printing cost
for catalogs must be way down than the total impact it has on your
sales. That is why it is good to keep catalog printing cheap and
affordable when you can. Don't print expensive catalogs unless what you
are selling is expensive as well. You don't want to spend more in
promotions than what you are getting from the sales of the products.
So those are the major criteria that your color catalogs must
be judged with. This should help a lot in your redesign of catalog
printing for the next year. It is important to continually improve your
catalogs to make things look fresh and new every time. Hopefully the
explanations above can help you get those ideas faster. Good Luck! Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com |
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