Wondering how to afford printed small business catalogs? Finding ways to successfully reach potential customers can help your small business grow into a big one. A business’s marketing plan might include all kinds of digital and print efforts to connect with the ideal customer, create solid branding, and build strong relationships with current customers.
Small business catalogs offer small businesses a way to do all three of these in a beautiful format that is guaranteed to have the potential for a long-lasting impact. For small businesses, implementing print small business catalogs may seem out of the marketing budget or not a good use of those limited funds.
But integrating a catalog of your goods and services may be just what your marketing plan needs to help your small business grow.
Does Your Small Business Need Printed Small Business Catalogs?
Marketing strategies are created to grow your business’s sales or brand awareness, and print small business catalogs will help your small business accomplish those goals in at least three valuable ways.
- Catalogs will help you create new prospects to fill your sales funnel by reaching your target customer. Research shows that consumers are much more likely to open a physical catalog than a digital one, increasing the odds that your marketing and sales efforts will hit their mark with your target customer. And since emails can easily be diverted to spam filters or remain unopened and unseen, print small business catalogs are a more reliable way to get your business’s name and brand in front of potential customers.
- Print small business catalogs will help you build your brand. The tangible nature of printed marketing and sales materials like small business catalogs helps to build consumer confidence and loyalty while driving sales.
- Another key benefit of using print small business catalogs is that your company can create targeted content to reach specific customers. Catalogs can be developed to grow specific markets by focusing on a specialized range of products rather than trying to appeal to every potential customer with each catalog.
4 Tips for Small Business Catalogs on a Limited Budget
Small businesses and startups are often on a tight budget, but that doesn’t mean that print small business catalogs are out of reach. With careful planning and a few strategic decisions, effective small business catalogs can be created without spending all of your print marketing funds.
1 Work with an on-demand printer like Dazzle Printing that uses digital processes to print marketing projects like catalogs. On-demand printing allows you to order and re-order smaller quantities, saving you money on printing costs.
2 Use a printer that offers transparent pricing to avoid being surprised by high printing costs. Cost calculators can help you stay on budget throughout the process of creating and printing your small business catalogs.
3 Decide which aspects of the catalog creation you can do in-house and which tasks require an expert to complete. For small businesses with only a few employees, investing in a professional who can bring the highest quality content to your small business catalogs might be necessary.
But some small businesses may have enough talent on staff to put together a professional catalog without investing in a professional designer, photographer, or another expert. Just be sure that focusing on cost-savings doesn’t result in lower-quality small business catalogs that could turn off potential new customers or impact brand trust or confidence.
4 Create a catalog that focuses on one product line to limit the length of the book. Your catalog can include helpful features like QR codes linking directly to your company website or an ordering link. By crafting shorter, more targeted small business catalogs, you can save printing costs while still connecting your customers with your company’s online content.
Creating Effective Small Business Catalogs
The purpose of a company catalog may not be just to increase sales, although that is usually the primary reason for creating one. But creating a beautiful, brand-enhancing catalog takes more effort than simply listing out the products your company is selling. A few strategic steps will help you transform your company’s marketing and sales goals into a beautiful catalog that your customers will love so you can increase sales and build brand confidence.
Do Your Market Research
Before you begin the process of making your small business catalogs, take a look at what your competition is sending out to their customers. Complete a full market survey to see how others in your industry promote their products or services, the way they communicate with potential customers, and the kinds of formatting and style used to produce their catalogs. Not only will you get a good idea of what your customers are used to seeing, but you can also help your catalog stand out from the others by creating one that is unique or fills a niche that the others do not.
Define Your Marketing Plan
An effective marketing strategy should include what you want to occur as a result of your efforts. One goal will be to increase sales, but it may also be to bring awareness to a specific line of products or services that serve a specific niche within your market. Your strategy may be to use a catalog to help get your company’s name out to a new target customer or even to increase your trustworthiness as a brand. But defining and understanding the primary purposes for making the catalog will help your design team better meet your marketing goals in the long run.
Choose Your Content
Next, decide what content to include in your catalog that will help you meet your marketing goals. While it may be tempting to put every product in your small business catalogs, you don’t have to put everything in a single catalog. Choosing to focus on products that appeal to a specific customer, like a catalog for Father’s Day gift-giving, allows you to show a wide variety of products that solve a customer’s problem and provide instant value to them.
Or you may choose to focus only on your newest product lines, seasonal products or even your most popular products. The products that are not included in the catalog can still be linked for customers to view through tools like a QR code that links directly to a page on your business’s website or just the inclusion of the website address where customers can search for more information or products.
Use Effective Visuals
Once you have chosen the products or services you want to include in your catalog, focus on creating images that will appeal to your potential customers. Just like a well-designed book cover that catches the eye of a potential reader and influences them to pick up the book to learn more, the photographs and graphics in your catalog will capture the attention of potential customers as well as reflect the quality of your brand.
- Professional Photography: Using beautiful photography in your catalog is a must. A professional photographer can help you showcase your products with high-quality pictures that can be used now or in future marketing efforts. And a pro will use high-resolution photography so that your pictures will appear crisp and gorgeous in your catalog.
- Branded Graphics: A catalog is the perfect place for your customers to connect with your brand. Using a graphic designer to integrate your company’s branding, colors, and general look can help with brand consistency and promote the professionalism of your company with new and potential customers.
Write Engaging Text
Gorgeous photography is only part of the story, so crafting engaging but informative text for your products will give potential customers the information they need to buy your products or services. And since a catalog featuring holiday gifts for children may be a different audience than one with gardening tools, remember that tailoring your text will help your publication appeal to your targeted consumer.
- In-house vs Hiring an Expert: Your small business may have in-house talent as well as the time to create a well-written catalog. But for those that need a little help, consider hiring an expert writer to help you bring your catalog concept to life by hiring a professional content creator on a site like Fiverr or Textbroker.
Print Catalogs for Your Business
Putting together an attractive catalog that brings in new sales and builds your customer base is something that companies both large and small can do on a budget. Learning about what other companies in your market are producing, deciding on what role you want your catalog to play in your marketing strategy, and selectively choosing content for your catalog all are key steps in producing a beautiful, cost-effective catalog for your business.
And working with a quality printer like Dazzle Printing can also help you keep costs down by offering digital printing and transparent pricing. The process of dreaming up the ideal catalog, collecting content and pictures to include, and turning all of it into a beautiful catalog that your customers will love may seem daunting. But just like many other marketing strategies, a print catalog is worth the effort and print’s long-lasting nature means your potential customers may be flipping through the pages of yours for days, weeks, or months to come.
