It's no secret. More and more buyers are shopping online. The trend hasn't yet reached its peak nor has the number of online catalogs. More and more sellers and buyers are using the Internet to complete their transactions.
What does this mean to you as the owners of a catalog?
Online shopping means three things for catalog owners:
1) You'd better have your catalog online.
2) Your direct mail catalog should point to your online catalog.
3) Your online catalog copy must do more than just make the sale for the reader.
Let's take a closer look at each of these three items. While direct mail will remain a portion of the catalogers' incoming retail sales, for most catalogers the online sales will far outweigh the offline sales. With increasing postal prices, some catalogers are making the decisions to do less direct mail. Does this mean you should delete your direct mail? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
IT does however mean that to stay competitive you must make changes to your catalog in both content and style. Gone are the days of the general interest catalogs. Many direct mailers are now realizing that in order to obtain and retain market share their catalogs must be much more specific. No longer will catalogs similar to the Old "Sears" or "Penny's" style be effective. In fact, finding and marketing to the niches of your niche market is the best likely choice for success...online or off.
Direct mail catalogs must be must heavily point heavily to your online store. Think of your printed catalog as the attention grabber, while the online store closes the sale. That's what we're hearing more and more from major catalogers. Once a potential buyer reaches your store online, you must provide easy navigations, do lots of cross promotion, and make the checkout process easy. Fail in any one of these areas and you will lose sales.
Designing your online catalog must also include optimizing content for the search engines. Yes, your direct mail catalog will send visitors to your online site. Still you don't want to overlook those coming from the search engines.
By maintaining product descriptions that are optimized for the search engines and by omitting duplicate content where you find it, you'll get your products organically listed on the search engines without additional cost. Duplicate content can be difficult to eliminate, especially when there are several items that are the same product, yet in different sizes, colors, or models. In these instances, it is a good idea to have a catalog copywriter make suggestions on the best way to eliminate the duplication.
In summary, the internet is forever changing the world of direct mail and the catalog industry. As long as you accept those changes and make the necessary adjustments, your catalog business will thrive. Ignore and you're doomed.
