Catalog Doctor: Break Out of the Catalog Mold
Read What Customers Read
Conduct a survey to learn what magazines your customers read. Then subscribe to them all. Study them for type treatments, use of negative space, color palettes, copy voice, etc. Are they busier than you thought? More serene? More fun? Are there clever graphics that aid scannability, or interesting callouts or tips? Reading these magazines helps you to get into your customers' heads and see a piece of the world they see. Magazine ideas can help you update copy and layouts so they're more relevant to today's customers.
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.
