Catalog Doctor: Vitamin Maybe

Definitive About Maybes
Focus on the Maybes. You’ll have to work harder to sell, but if you can convert more Maybes from prospects to tryers and from tryers to buyers, response rates and profits will go up. And look at their size: Maybes are equal to Super Cores and Cores combined.

To convert Maybes, make some changes. These changes won’t affect sales from Core customers. Rather, they’ll just increase response rates from Maybes, who just want you to make it easier for them to buy. Try these techniques:

1. Don’t assume Maybes understand your product line as well as Cores. Sales will rise when your product line is crystal clear to less-than-knowledgeable Maybes.

2. Stash Tea has a chart that divides teas into four quadrants. Within each quadrant is more detail regarding the tea — is it sweet, spicy, etc. Before the chart, non-expert customers didn’t understand the difference between “real” and herbal teas, or realize some teas had caffeine while others didn’t, or that some teas added flavors while others' flavors come from just the tea blends. Stash Tea was a groundbreaker in making the world of teas accessible to folks who were interested but not knowledgeable.

3. Light Impressions sells archival supplies to professional photographers and museums. Its product line is extensive and complex. Its catalog makes that product line accessible to a broad range of readers with a short, simple table of contents on the front cover (“Storage,” “Protective Enclosures,” “Mats,” etc.), plus explanatory intros at the beginning of each section.

Clarify Product Differences
What if you carry many products that are all similar to one another? Cores know the difference, but how can non-expert Maybes decide which are right for them?

Let’s say Bill’s catalog only works for Cores. It offers high-tech products that all do the same thing. Figuring out which models are right for them is easy for Core and Super-Core customers. But for Maybes, the catalog is hard to use and understand.