FIVE MINIATURE CATALOG TAKEAWAY TIPS

1. Target insert programs to your audience. Anita Priest, a supervisor at uniform merchant UniFirst Corp., cautions other catalogers that the insert media/miniature catalog program you select should be geared specifically to your target audience.

2. Check the calendar. UniFirst doesn’t insert miniature catalogs in December, because, “Customers are overloaded with other media and insertions at that time of year,” Priest says.

3. Add editorial to give the miniature longer shelf-life. Motherwear International, which mailed its first miniature catalog last year, included both editorial content and product offerings. Among some of the non-selling features was a breast-feeding guide.

4. Try versions. Motherwear created two versions of its miniature, one for newly pregnant women thinking about breast feeding and the other for women in their third trimester who already had decided to breast feed. The products and editorial content in each version were geared specifically toward those audiences. And Kothman placed the versions in insert media programs appropriate to each demographic.

5. Watch printers’ costs. While total costs to print and distribute miniatures are less than those for traditional catalog mailings, watch the bottom line closely, says Debra Goldstein, senior vice president of the list management division of Leon Henry Inc. Page size, paper stock and page count, along with the costs to include the miniature catalogs in insert media programs, all add up. “But even with the extra fees,” she says, “it’s far less expensive to place miniatures as inserts than to mail prospect names with a traditional-sized catalog.”

—Donna Loyle