Driving Online and Offline Sales With Printed Catalogues
by Blair Cariss
The traditional & powerful catalogue continues to be a big part of the marketing arsenal of businesses big and small. Catalogues drive an enormous amount of traffic to boost both online and retail sales for the businesses that use them.
The Catalogue Marketing Association of Australia found that:
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66% of Australians aged 14+ read catalogues every month.
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Australians aged 50+ are the strongest consumers with 73% reading print catalogues but just 8% viewing online.
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65% of consumers expressed a preference for receiving catalogues in their ‘letterbox only’ versus 17% preferring email catalogues.
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Retailers know how powerful home delivered catalogues can be and that's why they continue to use them. Purely online businesses are now turning to catologue print marketing to drive their online sales.
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Consumers tell us that they are now retaining catalogues longer and using them more often when making their household purchasing decisions.
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Catalogue advertising is one medium that has provided spectacular and continued growth over the last decade – currently representing an expenditure of $2 Billion by advertisers.
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In 2012, over 8 billion catalogues were produced by retailers.
Why do print catalogues work?
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They make an emotional connection with your customers.
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With good content and design they become like a reference material – something a customer will go through just to see what else they can buy from your business.
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They allow the consumer to shop at their own pace – we all like buying, nobody likes being sold to.
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Use catalogues to acquire customers, make more from existing customers or bring lapsed customers back into the fold.
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Catalogue sales are easy to track and measure – use tracking URLs, barcodes, catalogue codes or even discount coupons to track sales back to specific catalogue marketing activities.
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Drive traffic into retail stores or to your online store effectively. Website sales spike when print catalogues are delivered.
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Follow up first purchases by mailing your new customers a print catalogue with a discount with next purchase.
Regardless of your business being bricks and mortar or online, the print catalogue can be a serious revenue boosting tool.