B-to-B Cataloging: Catalog Nip & Tuck

Some of the most exciting layouts and page designs in the catalog industry are happening in B-to-B. And you’ll find them in some unlikely places. It used to be that B-to-B catalogs essentially were commodity lists of products. Today, however, the best B-to-B catalogs take all of the tricks used by their B-to-C counterparts and make them work harder.

Here are two quick tips to help you freshen your design and improve sales. The order of products in your catalog acts as either a welcome mat or a do-not-disturb sign to customers. For customers, the order process begins in two places — your front and back covers — and works its way toward the center of the book.

Place Best Sellers On Covers

Customers buy from you because of your products. They tell you what they’re looking for by their purchasing behavior. Listen to them, and place best-selling products on covers. Give them easy access to the products they want. Don’t paginate alphabetically, or waste valuable back-of-the-book pages with weak-selling product.

Try this trick for a rough draft of your product order. (You may want to shift one or two categories, but it’s likely the pagination you outline will be close to the pagination you use for your catalog.)
1. Begin pagination with your best-selling category.
2. Take your second strongest category and place it at the back of the catalog.
3. Place your third best-selling category after your first and fourth strongest category in the back of the book, just before your second.
4. Ping pong through until you’ve placed all categories.

Benefit Headlines

Don’t mourn the loss of the benefit-driven headline.It’s not dead, yet. Just pick up the Hubert catalog. It sells display racks for retail stores and equipment for the food services industry. Every product in its catalogs has a benefit headline; its big book is 916 pages.

Hubert strives to identify a key benefit with each product — even clothes hangers. “15 inch Chrome Slack Hanger uses vinyl cover to hold pants securely.” What more do you need to know other than SKU, count and price? Consumers easily can tell which type of hanger suits their needs. That’s one of the main reasons to show benefits — to make decision-making effortless.

Lands’ End, known for its high-powered con-sumer copy, brings the same energy to its B-to-B efforts. Its April 2007 corporate sales catalog carries the headline: “$19.50 Original Oxford: world’s greatest shirt value?” Many catalogers would have settled for “Oxford Shirts.”

Greatness is in your catalog copy. It just needs to be unleashed.

These improvements will go a long way toward re-engaging your customer base and improving sales.

*** For more of George Hague’s tips, “Boost Sales and Shopability via Photography and Merchandising.”

George Hague is senior marketing strategist at J. Schmid & Assoc., a catalog consulting firm in Mission, Kan. You can reach him at (913) 236-8988 or at georgeh@jschmid.com.