Catalog Covers - Lessons of the Holiday Season (828 words)

What happens when a household receives not 39, but 10 or 15 catalogs in a day? Your catalog cover had better stand out or it's going to go bye-bye. We need to think about the role of covers and how different the roles are for two groups of people: customers versus prospects. The latter group, sometimes called cold prospects, is where catalogs need to work the hardest. I have heard it said that a prospect catalog has about a three- or four-second "window of opportunity" to get noticed and potentially be opened. If not, it is tossed or put into the inevitable "catalog pile."