Creative

For the good of your customers and company, staff members in merchandising, marketing and creative must learn to work synergistically. In my years working with direct marketing clients, I’ve worn all three of these hats. I’ve also directed collaborative efforts from a strategic management position. So I know these three catalog tasks can be done in a collaborative manner — and I know the outcome often is customer delight. Here’s how you, as a catalog senior manager, can encourage such efforts. 1. First, get everyone in the same room. Doors, walls, cubicles and continual e-mails can unintentionally create silos among your employees. Face-to-face

Catalogers who outsource their catalog creative and production often ask themselves the following questions: *How can we work together better? *How can we build a smoother creative process for our catalog? *How can we control our schedule and creative budget better? *How can we produce a better and more compelling catalog? *How can we be more consistent in our creative presentation to customers? *How can our catalog enhance the company’s niche and brand better? The road to building and maintaining a smooth relationship between a catalog company and its creative agency is often marred with pitfalls. Here are some best practices for building and maintaining a harmonious, mutually respectful relationship between

Most Internet users don’t read the majority of what they view online, says John Morkes, a usability expert and director of the Human-Computer Interaction Group at Trilogy Software. In fact, he continues, 79 percent of all Internet users just briefly skim most of the material they see on the Web. In her book, “Web Copy That Sells” (American Management Association, www.amacombooks.org, $21.95), Maria Veloso gives five tips on how you can write copy that takes advantage of your customers’ method of viewing your Web site. 1. Use bulleted lists to summarize content. 2. Highlight selected keywords or phrases by using bold or italic

1. When pinpointing your catalog’s target demographic, strive to know everything there is to know about your ideal customer, including gender, age, ethnic background, hobbies/interests, even personal characteristics (e.g., active, curious, intellectual, humorous). “Then find a picture of someone who meets that ideal, and hang it up so your staff knows exactly for whom they’re working,” advises Sarah Fletcher, creative director of Catalog Design Studios, a Charlestown, R.I.-based catalog agency. 2. When deciding how much space to allot for each product in your print catalog, “Don’t picture all merchandise the same size and square inch,” says Fletcher.”You’re losing money that way. If you offer

How long does it actually take to produce a catalog? The answer depends on if you’re trying to do it the textbook way or the other way … March 20th. The phone rings. New cataloger: “Hi, I just printed my first catalog, so now I need some lists. Can you get me some lists so I can mail my catalog by the end of this month?” “You want to be in the mail in 10 days, and you’re starting the list process now?” “You bet. I wanted to leave you plenty of time.” Producing a catalog basically is a two-part process,

If you work among the creative staff at your catalog company, you may hear the following discussion from time to time: Merchant: “I need this item to be pictured a little smaller for it to pay for itself.” Art director: “If we just cut the copy, we probably can make the picture a little bigger and still take up less total space. People don’t read anyway.” Copywriter: “I’ve already cut the copy three times, and now there’s barely enough room to give even the product dimensions and SKU number.” Many people say nobody reads anymore, so you might as well show bigger pictures

If you work among the creative staff at your catalog company, you may hear the following discussion from time to time: Merchant: “I need this item to be pictured a little smaller for it to pay for itself.” Art director: “If we just cut the copy, we probably can make the picture a little bigger […]

quare inch analysis (SQUINCH) is an extraordinary tool for consumer and business catalogers alike. Sorted and executed the right way, a comprehensive SQUINCH can serve as a creative road map to your catalog campaigns, just as your contact strategy defines the plan from a marketing perspective. A comprehensive square inch analysis allows you to evaluate product sales and placement to determine whether the right product, price point or category is given the appropriate amount of space in the right location in your catalog. And by basing the analysis on customer behavior, as culled through transactional data, you can keep your “gut feeling” from being

Many business-to-business (b-to-b) catalogers fail to periodically refresh their creative elements and end up making common mistakes in copywriting, photography, layout and design. To discern if you’re guilty of stale or ineffectual catalog creative, ask yourself the following questions. “Am I employing copy that’s appropriate for b-to-b customers in particular?” “B-to-b products tend to be more practical because they’re meant to help customers solve business problems,” says Sarah Fletcher, president of Charlestown, R.I.-based Catalog Design Studios, a catalog consultancy. You can’t sell on emotion in a b-to-b catalog like you can in a consumer catalog, she continues. Gina Valentino, vice president and general manager

Problem: Office supplies cataloger Corporate Express Canada needed to centralize its copy and images to enable easier multichannel publishing. Solution: Executives implemented a content management system that allows product data to be repurposed across multiple marketing channels. Results: Corporate Express Canada streamlined its processes by, for example, reducing its number of applicable databases from eight to two and reducing its head count. Corporate Express Canada, the Canadian division of U.S.-based office supplies cataloger Corporate Express, needed an easy and efficient way to manage its product information. Executives at this business-to-business catalog wanted the ability to store images and merchandise descriptions