Should your company issue catalogues?

One of the most impressive aspects of the "direct marketing explosion" which has occurred during recent years has been the dramatic increase in the number of catalogues being issued by marketers in many types of businesses and at all distribution levels.

Since this trend seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future it behoves marketers who are not already issuing catalogues to give intensive consideration to the pros and cons of starting catalogues of their own. Some of the basic information to be considered includes:

What is a catalogue?
Testing is now being done on "electronic catalogues" and it is possible that these will be the catalogues of the not-too-distant future - especially for large marketers. At present, however - and for the foreseeable future-most catalogue marketers will use printed catalogues. Accordingly this discussion will be confined to printed catalogues. Various types will be listed in the next section of this article but our major concern [here] will be with printed catalogues distributed to customers and prospects in their homes or their places of business.

A printed catalogue consists of illustrations, descriptions, selling copy and prices (either on the same page or in separate price lists accompanying the catalogue) of multiple products presented in a physical format that permits easy handling, filing and reference. The format may be as simple as a single sheet of paper printed on both sides and folded to the desired size for mailing or carrying.

Or it may be as complex as hundreds of pages securely bound to form the big, heavy, expensive catalogues like those issued by SEARS, PENNEY, WARD, SPIEGEL, ALDENS and other major marketers. The old rule that, to qualify for reduced-rate postage a catalogue must contain 24 or more bound pages with at least 22 printed pages, has been changed, so a catalogue can consist of as many or as few pages as the marketer considers necessary to accomplish his purpose.

What types of catalogues are there?
Catalogues can be classified in several different ways such as type of products or services covered the variety of items included, who issues them and who receives them. Perhaps the broadest classifications are consumer product catalogues, consumer service catalogues and industrial product catalogues.

Consumer product catalogues. Catalogues offer many types of products of interest to
1. the general public or
2. specific groups of consumers with specialised characteristics or interests.
Catalogues of the first type are called "full-line" catalogues. The most outstanding examples are the big general catalogues issued by SEARS, PENNEY, WARD, SPIEGEL and ALDENS.

The second type is known as "specialised" or "speciality" catalogues. They cover a fairly narrow, well-defined field, such as office furniture, equipment and/or office supplies; hunting, boating and camping equipment and supplies; hardware; books; handicrafts; special foods; etc. This is the type of catalogue that is increasing most rapidly.

Manufacturers for distribution to may issue consumer product catalogues:
1. wholesalers or distributors
2. store-type retailers and/or
3. consumers
One basic catalogue may be used for all three groups, with or without modifications in the catalogue itself or in the material accompanying it to adapt it to the particular group receiving it. Or one type of catalogue may be sent to wholesalers or distributors, another to retailers, and a third type to consumers if the manufacturer so desires.

Wholesalers or distributors may issue their own consumer products catalogues for distribution to retailers and/or consumers. And more and more store-type retailers are issuing their own catalogues for distribution to consumers in order to increase store traffic and/or to generate orders by telephone and/or mail.

Both the manufacturer and the wholesaler or distributor may issue special-type consumer product catalogues for their sales personnel to carry with them when they call on "the trade." In many cases the pages of these catalogues are little more than specification sheets; the salesperson is expected to provide the type of additional information and selling "copy" that customarily is included in catalogues sent to customers.
Consumer service catalogues. Examples of these catalogues include those issued by schools, conductors of seminars, and other educational institutions or organisations which provide instruction "in residence." Variations of these catalogues are the types issued by home study schools and by organisations offering training material for use at home or in the purchaser's place of business.
Industrial product catalogues. These are specialised catalogues which usually deal with technical equipment and supplies used in the manufacturing and construction industries and other industrial operations. Major emphasis in these catalogues is on detailed product specifications and application information needed by prospects to help them make buying decisions and to select specific products. Manufacturers of some industrial equipment and supplies may send catalogues to wholesalers or distributors and/or to potential users of their products.

For what basic purpose are catalogues issued?
Catalogues received by consumers or users may be designed to perform one or more of the following functions:

Sell the product(s) or service(s) with no assistance by the marketer's sales personnel. Recipients-may include all the marketer's prospects or only those who cannot be served profitably by personnel making sales calls because of the small size of the purchases made by individual prospects and/or the sparsity of prospects within a given geographical area and/or the distance of the prospect from the marketer's place of business.
Sell the product(s) or service(s) with minimum assistance by the marketers personnel. Such assistance consists largely of processing the orders generated by the catalogue.

Personnel who take orders by phone.
Personnel at catalogue showrooms.
Personnel at catalogue order desks or departments maintained in the retail stores of large marketers like SEARS or set up as independent catalogue sales offices in small towns or suburban areas to handle catalogue orders from local residents.
Personnel at smaller retail stores who handle orders created by catalogues studied at home before the customer visits the store.

Bring more customers and prospects into a retail store.
Increase the size of order by exposing the recipient to other related and/or non-related merchandise of interest to the prospect.
Reactivate inactive customers by
1. sending them the regular catalogue with a special message inviting them back and/or offering them selected or overall price reductions or other special inducements to start ordering from the catalogue again or
2. Sending them a special smaller catalogue designed for the specific purpose of reactivating these customers.
Increase the marketer's penetration of his present market by persuading non-customers to become customers.
Expand the marketers sales territory to
1. specific local or regional areas,
2. the entire USA or
3. international markets on this continent and/or on other continents.

Catalogues received by wholesalers or distributors may be designed to supplement the efforts of the marketer's sales personnel before, during or following the sales call.

Before the sales call. The catalogue can pre-sell the prospects on the products in the catalogue and alert them to products that sales personnel might fail to discuss during the sales call for any one of several reasons.
During the sales call. Both the prospect and the marketer's sales personnel can use the catalogue as a guide to the merchandise to be discussed during the call. Having the sales story in print in the catalogue may also help to overcome any scepticism the prospect might feel if the claims were only made verbally by the marketer's personnel.

The catalogue can also enable the salesperson to use his/her time to best advantage during the sales call. If the prospect has already decided to purchase certain items listed in the catalogue this information can be given to the salesperson immediately and eliminate any necessity of discussing those items during the call.

Presenting supplies and accessories in the catalogue may also allow the salesperson to concentrate on major items instead of devoting valuable time to the small-ticket items or refer to them very briefly since the essential information will be contained in the catalogue.

After the sales call. The catalogue serves as a 24-hour-a-day representative of the marketer between calls by sales personnel.

This simplifies reordering of items purchased during the sales call and ordering additional items which the prospect was not ready to order at the time of the sales call, This is particularly true of after market supplies and accessories.

Catalogues received by store-type retailers from manufacturers or from wholesalers or distributors may be designed to:

Perform many of the types of functions performed by catalogues received by wholesalers or distributors from manufacturers as discussed in the preceding section.
Do the complete selling job to retailers who cannot be served profitably by the marketer's sales personnel because (a) their volume of purchases is too small or (b) the concentration of prospects within a specific geographic area is too thin.
Enable the retailer to afford his customers a choice of merchandise (through the catalogue) far in excess of the stock on hand permitted by the physical limitations of his building and/or the cost of maintaining a larger inventory.

Catalogues received by sales personnel of manufacturers and/or wholesalers or distributors usually are designed to enable sales personnel to present the marketer's complete line--or any portions of it--to the trade, thereby eliminating the necessity of showing actual samples. Good clear photographs of each product are essential. Easy-to-understand photographs or drawings of significant features are highly desirable. And copy should be more than bare specification information, which the salesperson must supplement with explanatory, and selling "copy." Putting such copy in print in the catalogue offers several advantages:

It informs and reminds the salesperson of the most important information to be presented during the sales call.
It prevents important information from being omitted or under emphasised by the salesperson.
It states the information in the most effective manner.
It enhances the credibility of the statements made because they are in print instead of being verbal only.

From this point on we will be talking primarily about catalogues received by consumers.

Why use catalogues instead of other media?
Catalogues provide all the basic advantages of other types of direct mail:

controlled circulation to the marketer's customers and/or most logical prospects...
use of colour and fine-screen halftones for accurate and appealing presentation of the merchandise...
freedom from the competition for attention provided by other advertising and/or editorial material on the pages of newspapers and magazines...
permanency that permits rereading, study and reference - at any time the recipient desires - instead of the fleeting exposure provided by radio and TV...
ability to describe and discuss products in greater detail than is usually practical in mass media...
and the feeling of a more private, personal communication than is possible in mass media.

Why use catalogues instead of - or in addition to - other forms of direct mail?
In addition to the basic advantages enjoyed by all or most types of direct mail (see "IV" above) catalogues offer some other important advantages:

A catalogue more closely resembles "a store in print" than any other type of direct mail. But it enables the marketer to offer a much greater range of products of a given type than is feasible for many retail stores because of physical space limitations and inventory costs.

This gives the prospect a much better concept of a variety of products and range of sizes, colours, materials, etc., available than he/she would obtain on a visit to the store which might very well be confined to one or two departments, sections or floors, with no exposure to the other products available elsewhere in the store.

Such exposure to additional products substantially increases the likelihood of additional purchases by the prospect - which is an advantage the catalogue offers over both retail stores and the types of direct mail which concentrate on one or a few products instead of the many products to be found in most catalogues.

The catalogue also enables the marketer to describe the products more fully, accurately and appealingly than is done by many retail salespersons or by direct mail pieces which may emphasise glamour and excitement at the expense of primary buying information and benefits.
Because so many products are included in a catalogue, many of them can be listed profitably even though they do not have as broad or as intense sales appeal as is usually imperative for products which are offered in solo mailings or mailing pieces of limited size.

One reason is that such a wide range of products creates orders from a much larger number of recipients than does direct mail offering fewer products. Another reason is that production and postage costs are spread over so many more products in the catalogue than in any other type of direct mail that the promotional cost for each product listed in a catalogue is considerably lower than for the smaller number of products listed in other mailing pieces.

Recent increases in production and postage costs are partly responsible for the recent increases in the number of catalogues being distributed.
One of the most important advantages of a catalogue is the marketer's ability to pinpoint the sales of each product by volume, territory and elapsed time between the distribution of the catalogue and the arrival of the first order and subsequent orders. This enables him to fine-tune future catalogues for even greater efficiency.
Another major advantage of a catalogue is that it usually is kept much longer and referred to more often than other types of direct mail. Most recipients do not consider catalogues as "advertising mail" in the same sense that they do a conventional direct mail package, flier or broadsheet. Instead they feel that a catalogue serves as a buying guide and a reference source on products and comparative prices.

Such long-life and repeated exposure can generate a much greater total response per recipient than direct mail pieces, which result in one-time orders and then are discarded or forgotten.

To what extent should catalogues be integrated with other media and other direct mail?
To the greatest extent practicable. Announcement of the availability of catalogues and follow-up promotional mailings or advertising after the catalogue has been delivered to prospects are two of the most widely used methods of such integration.

What other factors should be considered in deciding whether to issue catalogues?
Adequacy of product range...cost of carrying sufficient inventory to fill orders throughout the long life of the catalogue... production, postage and mailing costs... and availability of experienced catalogue advertising personnel to prepare your catalogues (direct marketing experts agree that catalogue preparation is no place for beginners or amateurs).

Source: Direct Marketers Notebook