Can Your Business Benefit From Printed Catalogs?
Are printed catalogs necessary? Can your sales continue to grow if you stop sending them? What can you do to find out?
An article in the Winter 2016 issue of TotalRetail asserts that catalogs are indeed necessary for direct response businesses, and that discontinuing them in favor of only internet marketing could reduce sales. In addition to explaining why, the article provides helpful tests and important questions to ask before eliminating or cutting back on catalog mailings, to help determine which move is best for your business.
Catalogs benefit businesses by attracting new buyers, they help to sustain repeat buyers, and are typically less expensive than paid search advertising. Testing is the key to knowing if and how your business can benefit from continuing to use them (or discontinuing them). Consider these tests and questions before you decide whether to change or continue your catalog distribution:
- Compare the number of new buyers resulting from catalogs versus sales from non-catalog sources.
- Determine the difference in sales from customers who receive catalogs and those who don’t.
- Determine the opportunities for profit using internet marketing, and how they compare to profits from catalog sales.
One of the points in the article that caught my attention was that catalogs have “… a lasting presence around the house …”
At the very least, catalogs accomplish a big marketing goal. It’s pretty powerful to say your brand is present in a customer’s house!
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