“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” ~ Simon Sinek
Your brand is more than just a logo on a product, it’s a lifestyle proposal. While your logo and color palette might be familiar to your audience and spark a desire for your signature product, those clues often stop at the “what” of your business model. A catalog lets your brand come to life. Think of it as a visualization guide into the “why” for your customers – a gallery showing for your brand that enables your audience to gaze thoughtfully into how your products might look in their lives with every page turn while also empowering them to follow their own hunch on their buying journey.
The offline investigation
While a majority of sales transactions may take place online, a hand-held catalog tips off your audience to your presence among the endless red herring competitors. They can sort through living case files in the print pages of your best stock while putting themselves in the shoes of your brand before following the lead to your website.
A trustworthy lead
With countless online retail stores popping up every day fighting for your audience’s attention a print catalog will stop them in their tracks. People trust print, and a survey found that 76% reported they trust catalogs over other marketing channels when making a decision to purchase a product or service.² This means there’s a better chance your audience will decide to pick up your paper trail over your online competitors.
Under the magnifying glass
Even in a world that lives on the grid, 79% of individuals surveyed by the Paper and Packaging Board agreed that the further digital technology advances, connecting through paper is still essential.³ After spending their day in the online hot seat being spammed with unsolicited pop-ups, subscription paywalls and eerily on-the-nose targeted ads, people want that escape from the digital domination of their attention span. A printed catalog offers them something its online counterparts cannot: a moment to “power down” and review the evidence on their own time. Better yet, print catalogs tend to have a remarkably long shelf life,¹ meaning your brand gets that much extra time to connect the dots to the why behind the buy.
Case closed
Give your audience what they long for: a chance to unravel the mystery behind your brand, trust in what they’re buying and, perhaps most importantly, control over their buying experience.
References:
- https://www.uspsdelivers.com/five-considerations-for-catalogs/
- https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/channels-customers-trust-most-when-purchasing
- https://www.neenahpaper.com/resources/against-the-grain/paper/digital-printing-explore-7
[JM1]Not sure where we want to place the footnote for this? Depending on how the infographic is styled maybe placed on each statistic somewhere?