Article - Why Catalogs Work

Opening Comments

Can you identify the most important tool in your marketing arsenal?  It isn't the newspaper. It isn't radio. It isn't television. It's not a billboard. It's what you've suspected all along—your trusty old course catalog delivers most of your enrollments.

Your course catalog remains one of the greatest sources of first-time enrollments.  That same catalog is also highly effective at stimulating repeat business. Even the most clumsily executed catalog will still generate almost seven out of ten enrollments!

Your catalog has a tremendous influence over your ability to both attract and retain customers. This influence is so great that your program's success or failure can depend almost entirely on the effectiveness of your catalog.

Of all the things that you can do to grow your program, increasing the efficacy of your catalog offers the surest path to success. You probably already know this—and may have known for years. Unfortunately, it hasn't been easy to learn how to convert good catalogs into great ones.

You've probably collected some clever tips from conference workshops, newsletters, or your peers. But you can't build a thriving business on a collection of tips. You don't need random ideas—you need a strategy. You need a comprehensive, cover to cover, time tested step-by-step recipe for converting a good catalog into a great one.

If you are serious about growing your business, you must commit to the continuous improvement of your course catalog.

Introduction

Mailboxes are more crowded than ever! More than one billion catalogs of all types will be mailed this year—direct testimony to the effectiveness of this advertising medium. Business investors don't like to pour good money after bad. If a company's catalog didn't turn a reliable and meaningful profit quarter after quarter and year after year, businesses would stop spending money on them. Think about it: if there wasn't a strong consumer demand for catalogs, they'd be as hard to find as eight-track tape players, rotary dial telephones, and Members Only jackets. But catalogs aren't hard to find. In fact, just the opposite is true. Catalogs, and the companies that produce them, are rapidly multiplying in number. Why? Catalogs are convenient, portable, accessible, and easy to use. They appeal strongly to a large and rapidly growing demographic: busy professionals who have more money to spend than time to shop.

There are many reasons that help to explain why catalogs are such powerful selling tools.  Before you can build an effective catalog, you really need to understand why catalogs are so popular with both the businesses the produce them and the consumers who buy from them.

Five Reasons Catalogs Work

1. Convenience – Catalogs are complete and self-contained product ordering systems. The best catalogs act as knowledgable, courteous, and trustworthy salespeople, helpfully guiding the customer through the buying process with deviation, at the customer's own pace, and all from the comfort of their own home or office. Once received, it’s always available and instantly accessible. There is no other sales or marketing tool as complete, convenient, or satisfying to the user as a finely crafted catalog. What about the Web, you ask? Those who predicted the demise of catalogs being replaced by Web only have overlooked a key fact: you can't make sales if you can't reach your customers. Companies like L.L. Bean and others can’t afford to cut back on catalogs and rely soley on the websites. L.L. Bean report seeing a spike in online orders when their catalogs are shipped out. The reality is that all channels are intertwined. Consumers might get an e-mail alerting them to the pending arrival of a catalog, they might take a look at the catalog, and then they might go to the Web site to make a purchase.
    
2. Near-Universal Appeal – Most catalogs contain a large amount of practical, detailed information that has been selected and organized to meet a wide variety of preferences and needs. As a result, catalogs have the potential to hold something of interest for almost every reader. It usually doesn't take much to translate that interest into a sale.
    
3. Acceptance – Catalogs are not usually viewed with the same disdain and suspicion people reserve for other advertising vehicles. If a catalog looks like it might contain something of benefit, few will be able to resist a quick trip though its pages. Most will find the experience pleasurable. This causes catalog readers to drop the defenses they have developed to protect themselves from other, more invasive forms of advertising—rendering them more receptive to your message.
    
4. Sharing – People are more likely to share catalogs with friends, relatives, and coworkers than they are with any other type of marketing. This behavior enhances your credibility and helps you communicate with audiences you might never have otherwise reached.
    
5. Longevity – While most marketing materials are discarded within minutes or hours of their receipt, catalogs are usually perceived as useful reference works that should be saved and used repeatedly. This gives catalogs a longer lifespan and more revenue-generating potential than most other marketing materials.

No Catalog is Perfect

With everything catalogs have going for them, it's possible for even a poorly designed catalog to turn a profit. Make a few small improvements to the catalog, and it stands to reason that profits should increase. Make a lot of positive changes, and sales could go through the roof.

Because your catalog reaches so many people, even a tiny change in the effectiveness will produce a noticeable improvement in your enrollments-and in the profitability of your program. But is there a limit to the number of improvements that you can make? Is there a ceiling on the amount of revenue your catalog can deliver?

Unless you are receiving orders for every single course you offer from every single person who comes in contact with your catalog, the answer to both questions would have to be a big, emphatic NO. Your catalog can always do better. There isn't a catalog on earth that cannot be improved in some small way. No matter how satisfied you might be with the performance, you should never stop trying to make it more effective.

In our next installment we will study the various elements of your catalog and provide techniques that you can use to squeeze more enrollments out of every page.