12 Creative Tips to Pump Up Catalog Sales and Cut Costs
1. Place more emphasis on your exclusive merchandise.
2. Exploit the “collectible” mentality that may be inherent in your product.
3. Emphasize guarantees, security policies and anything that makes your customers feel safer shopping with you.
4. Promote special offers, freebies and premiums that make your customers feel special.
5. Mail an exclusive, smaller-sized catalog to special customers introducing them to a new or special niche product.
6. Include Web sales drivers to encourage browsers to look at your entire assortment.
7. Incorporate a slim-jim format for sale or clearance items rather than changing the size of your main catalog. This can serve as a temporary, but still viable option for early 2008.
8. Mail postcards with a clear offer and actionable message to prospect for new customers. Postcards cost 15 cents to 25 cents to mail — a far cry from the cost of a full-blown catalog.
9. Use variable data printing to speak and sell directly to each customer.
10. Save weight by eliminating the bind-in order form. Incorporate it into a catalog page or drive shoppers to your Web site to order.
11. “Wrap” your catalog with a heavier stock and reduce the basis weight on the interior pages.
12. Outsource cost-heavy production necessities like clipping paths, silhouettes and shadows offshore to save time and money.
