Catalogues Drive Direct Commerce
The Product Marketing Company has been working with retail, niche mail order and trade catalogues for many years.
As a catalogue design agency we understand how to design pages that sell products, we know what pictures will sell well and we are sure of what copy will tell the right story. We have worked with many leading mail order companies in the last 10 years, and have experienced massive changes in the market place.
This article will provide some insight into what benefits digital and social media can provide to mail order companies and retailers that work within the direct commerce sector.
It has become apparent that nowadays catalogues do not work in isolation, rather to maximise their potential, they must work in an environment which is multi-channel. We have all been a part of the Internet revolution and seen how ecommerce has changed the way we do business. The funny thing is, when people first understood how powerful the Internet was, many of them said 'that’s it – the end of print, the end of catalogues'. The Product Marketing Company knows that:
a) our customers want choice, and
b) they do not shop in isolation through only one channel.
We know that catalogues are still one of the best drivers of targeted traffic to a website. Not only do we see a spike in site visitors but we also see a spike in site sales.
A direct mail catalogue is often the initial vehicle bringing a brand/product/service to a targeted audience. But as we also now know, Google is the biggest price comparison tool on the planet and so a good catalogue by itself would land up encouraging most customers to go online and buy the product or service from the cheapest competition.
The Product Marketing Company knows that customers interact in different ways. Some like to talk in a shop, some like to read and some like to go online. More and more consumers are going mobile – in fact during this year’s Christmas shopping season, 15% of people in the UK logging-on to a retailer’s web site are expected to do so through a mobile device (cloud analytics-based findings by IBM). Ultimately, we all use a combination of channels to communicate and shop.
The benefits to catalogue marketing using all channels include:-
- Increased brand awareness
- Increased sales opportunities
- Mobile enables immediate and 24/7 customer communications
- Online information is persuasive in decision-making
- Better multi-channel customer service provision
- Traditional media can go interactive through QR codes, short codes etc
- You Tube can add to the brand personality and video dimension
- Facebook and Twitter can build advocates of your brand
- There are fantastic viral opportunities
- Social media builds trust and engagement
- Social media will drive targeted traffic to your website
- Organic search engine optimisation can put you right in front of your customers
- Pay Per Click advertising is a manageable way of developing a customer database
- Email marketing keeps your customers up-to-date
- Articles and digital press releases can deliver highly targeted customers
- Vimeo, Flickr and other social sites are online galleries for your product pictures Google’s keyword finder tool tells you what people are looking for and where you can find them
These are just a few of the techniques that the team at The Product Marketing Company has seen become more successful over recent years - helping our mail order clients build multi-channel sales and new customer databases.
