Catalog Doctor: Avoid the ‘Lazy Syndrome’ Epidemic

PATIENT: Doc, when the economy tanked in 2008, my catalog turned from well to sick — we had declines in 12-month buyer counts, reactivation, average order and prospect response. How can I make it well again?

CATALOG DOCTOR: You may be suffering from “lazy syndrome,” which has become an epidemic. But there’s a good chance of recovery.

Through our long boom, I watched many catalog/multichannel merchants get lazy. They fell away from cataloging fundamentals and adopted the approach, “Put it on paper, they’ll buy.” In a boom period, that may be enough. During a bust, it’s not.

In a bust period, you — and your whole catalog team — must think more and work harder on catalog fundamentals; you’ll be surprised at the gains. This month, let’s look at sales fundamentals.

I say “sales” instead of “marketing” to highlight a fact we tend to forget: Your catalog is a salesperson. In fact, catalogs originally served as replacement salespeople. They had to do all their same work. Today, many books don’t perform the fundamental tasks that can turn a sale. Try these five prescriptions, and call me in the morning.

1. Answer this product question: What will this product do for me, and why should I care?
There’s way too little product analysis from the customer’s standpoint, and you can see the consequences in weak, unconvincing copy. With today’s tight dollars, customers need a lot more convincing to open their wallets. The analysis needed to write effective copy is hard work, but the results are worth the effort.

Prescription: List all the product’s features, then all its benefits. Look at your list and imagine the customer saying, “So what?” It’s your job to answer “so what” and overcome each objection — overcoming objections has always been key for salesfolks.

After this process, you have an entire page of product features and really convincing benefits. Now you need to prioritize it all and condense it into a powerful headline/subhead with maybe 35 words to 100 words of copy. Think it can’t be done? See Vermont Country Store or Levenger. Even fashion has function, and copy needs to address fabric, fit, comfort, care and why your customers will look good.

2. Answer this brand question: Who are you, and why should I care?
Customers may love your products, but they may not love you. Your catalog needs to convince them why they can and should love your brand and buy from you. They may see competitive products for the same price or less, so your catalog needs to convince them to buy from you instead of that other guy.

Prescription: Analyze your company the same way you analyze products. Think about your company’s experience, special knowledge, product quality, service, guarantee and special programs. Make a features/benefits list, and again, imagine customers asking the question, “So what?”

Your result could be an intro letter or short copy blocks about special areas of interest. The right motto can say a lot. So can small, relevant editorials sprinkled throughout the catalog. And don’t forget that you can weave your expertise or other differentiators into product copy, too.

3. Help customers see all your products by using eye flow.
Good eye flow is a catalog fundamental that’s getting lost, and that translates into lost sales.

Prescription: Every time your customers turn a page, the next spread should have a visual “anchor” to grab their attention — big product, bright color, big headline, scenic, etc. Once you grab their attention, the other graphic elements need to guide their eyes around the spread and back so they see every product effortlessly. Avoid wrong guiding — if a model in the upper-right corner of a spread is looking right, customers are likely to look right, too, and lift the corner of the page and turn to the next spread without noticing the products on the left page at all.

4. Keep your customers focused on buying, with quick connections of copy to images.
When your customers have the catalog in their hands, would you rather they focus on confusions — like, “Where’s the copy for this product?” — or on wanting to buy (thinking, “wow, that’s cute, and handy, too”)? The quicker the copy-to-image connection, the quicker your customers start focusing on your products.

Prescription: Try to eliminate the need for key letters. Those little A/B/Cs that match copy with product are an extra slow-down step for customers. Ask yourself, “Can I reorganize this spread clearly enough to eliminate the extra step of key letters?”

Don’t know how? Look at Norm Thompson’s Solutions catalog of organizers for the home, where the layout always visually connects copy to image, or the high-end steaks catalog, Allen Brothers, where good layouts combine with photo captions for clarity and scannability.

Taking the work off your customers’ backs means they can focus on buying.

5. Help customers scan for products they want with layered communication.
What I call “layered communication” means graphically treating copy and other design elements so your quick-scanning readers can sift and identify what’s most interesting to them.

Prescription: Layering includes the following: grouping similar or affinity products (like four chicken-themed kitchen items or a head-to-foot fashion outfit); strategic use of spread heads/subs, group heads/subs and product heads/subs; internal subheads for long copy; putting supporting editorial lower on the readability scale (reverse italic) than product copy; and boilerplate that’s in a different font from the primary copy.

Layering lets customers quickly find and focus on what they’re most likely to buy, which increases response for you.

Do fundamentals work? A cataloger I’m familiar with launched a book so budget-conscious it only had fundamentals — two-color printing, owner-written copy, owner-taken photos — but with clear, convincing copy, and organized, easy-to-use layouts.

It did so well, the budget was increased to add color photos, four-color printing, better paper, and other bells and whistles. Sales increased nearly 10 percent; 90 percent of the sales came from doing all the fundamentals right.

Susan J. McIntyre is founder and chief strategist of McIntyre Direct, a full-service catalog agency and consultng firm based in Portland, Ore. You can reach her at (503) 286-1400 or susan@mcintyredirect.com.