Life’s hard, don’t let your catalog make it harder

By Susan McIntyre

PATIENT: The copy in my catalog has always been good. But the young people on my staff say it needs to be way shorter — that no one reads anymore. My older staff says I need to keep copy long so customers get all the information they need to buy. I want to keep up with the times, but I don’t want sales to go down. Who’s right?

CATALOG DOCTOR: They’re both right, but you don’t need to choose. Your copy can be short and informative. The key is to organize copy in ways that make life easier for your customers. To see how, let’s look at some typical “old-style” copy.

Stainless Steel Burner Covers
Until smooth-top ranges came along, the electric range was the least attractive feature in most of our kitchens. Burner covers were the traditional solution to protect your clean burners (or conceal dirty ones). Ours do their traditional job perfectly, plus we’ve updated them to more closely resemble a modern smooth-top range top. The low profile design rises just half an inch above the cooking surface and this, combined with the highly polished stainless steel surface, gives your kitchen the clean, modern look of a smooth-top range without the expense. In four sizes, to fit most burners.

#1234 Two each 6˝ and 8˝ $6.95
#1235 Two each 6.5˝ and 8.5˝ $7.95
#1236 Two each 7˝ and 9˝ $8.95
#1237 Two each 7.5˝ and 9.5˝ $9.95

What’s good about this copy?
• It’s clear;
• has a friendly voice;
• no hype;
• explains why burner covers are good;
• explains why these burner covers are even better; and
• says they’ll fit most burners.

What’s not good?
• Features are buried;
• benefits are buried;
• long — 99 words!;
• it looks like there’s too much copy on the page; and
• it’s hard to scan and therefore won’t draw the interest of enough readers.

Rearrange Before You Rewrite
The “old-style” copy works well for folks who have time to sit and read at a leisurely pace, who can and want to concentrate their attention on your copy. But who has the time to concentrate anymore?

So, should this copy be rewritten to half its size? Not necessarily. There’s another — easier — way to make this copy work much better for nonleisured, short-on-concentration folks: Rearrange the copy by moving key points out of the body text and into highlight elements where time-pressured, stressed readers can find them instantly at scanning speed.

The headline is a good example:
Stainless Steel Burner Covers

This is an old-style, “name-the-product” headline that doesn’t mean much to folks not already familiar with burner covers or the reasons to own them. A better headline would help answer that reader’s first question, “Why would anyone want burner covers?” That answer is already there, but it’s currently buried inside the body copy: “Burner covers were the traditional solution to protect your clean burners (or conceal dirty ones).”

If we move that burner cover benefit from the body copy to the headline, our new headline becomes:
Stainless Steel Burner Covers Protect Your Clean
Burners, Conceal Dirty Ones

That simple change cuts the body copy by 10 percent, helping reduce the appearance of excessive copy so more people read it. Even better, that change helps readers notice the primary product benefit, without effort, at high scanning speeds.

That’s a good start, and we can do more. But before exploring our other changes, let’s look more closely at why we need them by getting into the head of an imaginary customer.

Molly: the Distracted Customer
Molly does the purchasing for a small clinic from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and is a soccer mom the rest of the time. She buys from catalogs — at work and home. Today she’s home, still thinking about a sick co-worker and how to find an out-file vendor to replace one that just closed. Her mind’s also occupied with thoughts of postponing the kitchen remodeling she’s been looking forward to in order to pay for her oldest child’s braces, taking her middle child to soccer practice in an hour and finding new day care for her youngest. Plus, she’s planning four meals for her in-laws, who are visiting this weekend.

Molly’s on the couch browsing your catalog right now. She’s looking for ways to make her life easier. What do we notice about Molly? Her mind’s not on your catalog.

This is true of most people who get your catalog in the mail. Their minds are mostly somewhere else. That’s the environment in which your catalog must sell.

Help Molly
If you were sitting on the couch next to Molly, working on how your products could make her life easier, what might you say? Would you launch into a long, closely reasoned dialog that required her to concentrate hard?

No.

Well, your catalog is on the couch by Molly, and it shouldn’t launch into a long dialog or force her to concentrate either.

You can make your catalog the most helpful for Molly by pulling the pieces that are most significant out of the copy and putting them where it’s super-easy for her to find.

Here’s how to do that:

Stainless Steel Burner Covers Protect Your Clean Burners, Conceal Dirty Ones.
Until smooth-top ranges came along, the electric range was the least attractive feature in most of our kitchens, and burner covers were the traditional solution. Ours do their traditional job perfectly, with an updated look that resembles a smooth-top range. Low-profile, polished stainless steel.

Four sizes to fit most burners. 2 large, 2 small per set.
#1234 6˝ and 8˝ $6.95
#1235 6.5˝ and 8.5˝ $7.95
#1236 7˝ and 9˝ $8.95
#1237 7.5˝ and 9.5˝ $9.95

Work leftover selling points into the visuals. Image caption: “Clean, smooth-top-range look for under $10.” Callout: “Low profile: only 1/2˝ high!”

The body copy is now less than half its original size but retains a friendly voice. The appearance of shorter copy makes the page more appealing and more likely to be read by more users. All the product’s benefits are instantly accessible to even the quickly scanning reader, yet all the data your slower-reading, information-hungry customers want is still there.

Molly’s now happy about trading a new kitchen for her child’s braces, because she’s discovered your swell stainless steel burner covers for less than $10. And your new, kind-to-customer copy made the sale.

Susan J. McIntyre is president of McIntyre Direct, a full-service catalog creative agency and consulting firm based in Portland, Ore. You can reach her at (503) 286-1400 or susan@mcintyredirect.com.