Time for a New Design or Just Bored?
PATIENT: “Doc, I'm so bored with my catalog design. I see familiar photos and lookalike layouts daily until I'm sick of them. I thought I'd spice things up by having our creative team do a completely new look. What do you think?”
CATALOG DOCTOR: “Being bored with your catalog design is a really terrible reason for a redesign (although more companies do so than you would imagine). Frankly, your feelings don't count. What counts is your customers’ feelings. To help learn your customers’ feelings, start by asking yourself these questions … ”
- Are overall sales trending up, down or flat on similar circulation?
- Are customers coming back to purchase again?
- Are prospects converting well?
- Is your 12-month buyer count remaining steady? Growing? Shrinking?
If all indicators are good, that means your customers are mostly happy. An old rule but a good rule: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
- Categories:
- Catalog Design
- People:
- Susan McIntyre
Susan J. McIntyre is Founder and Chief Strategist of McIntyre Direct, a catalog agency and consultancy in Portland, Oregon offering complete creative, strategic, circulation and production services since 1991. Susan's broad experience with cataloging in multi-channel environments, plus her common-sense, bottom-line approach, have won clients from Vermont Country Store to Nautilus to C.C. Filson. A three-time ECHO award winner, McIntyre has addressed marketers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, has written and been quoted in publications worldwide, and is a regular columnist for Retail Online Integration magazine and ACMA. She can be reached at 503-286-1400 or susan@mcintyredirect.com.
