When planning to launch new products in the target market, catalogues play a key role in enhancing the reach of your customers. Catalogs have all the relevant product information for customers to help them make wise buying decisions. However, digital catalogs are preferred today over print catalogs, with everything going online.
Paper-based catalogs have been around for over a century, and these are still relevant to generate awareness regarding a brand and its offerings. But digital catalogs have now become the norm of the day. Customers today look for products online and explore digital catalogs to compare the products.
What is a digital catalog?
A digital catalog, also known as an online product catalog, is a modern version of traditional paper-based print catalogs. It neatly shows different brands’ products and their descriptions organized in a visual-pleasing order. The best thing is that, anyone can access it from anywhere.
From retailers to manufacturers, everyone count on an online catalog to leaf through products, read their descriptions, and make a buying decision if required.
Benefits of digital catalogs over print catalogs
Here is why businesses today prefer digital catalogs over their traditional counterparts print catalogs:
Provide updated product information
Digital product catalogs are easy to update anywhere and at any time. All the changes can be done instantly and published accordingly. However, in a print catalog, changes take time.
To update a print catalog, you’ll have to consult a catalog designer, share ideas, brainstorm, and then send it for printing. It’s a time-taking process. Even adjusting catalogs per events or special occasions takes time. Electronic catalogs, on the other hand, offer real-time changes. You can share your catalog design ideas instantly with the designer for changes.
Add more product details for customers
Businesses regularly add products to their basket of offerings. They enhance their market reach by introducing new launches very often. The electronic catalog has the unique advantage to let business owners add more products with descriptions anytime. They can upload product images and descriptions on their product pages and across different online platforms.
On the other hand, print catalogs require business owners to print a new set of catalogs. That means each time they launch a new product, the cost of printing hundreds of catalog copies is an additional financial burden.
Make products or services easily accessible
Digital catalogs have a wider reach than paper catalogs because they are distributed digitally, providing additional benefits to customers and buyers who prioritize online shopping.
This provides better product and service availability data. Customers can see information about a new set of products released more easily and naturally through an electronic catalog.
It is also possible to filter products, use quick text search, and browse the catalog by product descriptions or visual elements.
Customize the catalog easily
Online catalogs also have the flexibility to customize it according to the design trend or sales campaign. It’s easy to use design tools to personalize the catalog design. You can do it on your own. However, customizing a print catalog is a complex task.
Print catalogs do not allow for quick customizing of products along with their images and descriptions. Whenever you need to add product images and make other changes in text, you have to order a new lot of printed catalogs.
No costs involved
Another advantage of a digital catalog is its lower costs for business owners. Retailers and e-commerce stores do not have to print a catalog every time they add new products. They can visit their catalog page online and add the products digitally. There is no additional cost involved.
The same thing is not for print catalog. It involves additional costs for smaller business owners. Besides printing costs, businesses also have to bear distribution costs as well.
Quickly analyze the catalog performance
A digital catalog has another major advantage in that you can analyze its performance. You have access to a large value of its performance data that gives insights into the users and their behaviors. That helps in making timely improvements in your catalog.
Add tracking pixels and website cookies to your digital catalogs to access the data. Then, analytics platforms like Google Analytics will give you a detailed report on its performance. It will also suggest improvements for better performance.
Google Analytics and other such software will send reports regarding how your catalog is performing on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms. It will also inform you which mediums, such as email, paid search, and organic search, are sending traffic to your electric product collection.
Instant sign-up to access your catalog
Another benefit of digital catalogs is that users can instantly sign up to access it. They need to fill out a short sign-up form, and they get the catalog in their email inbox or at the site itself. Just the users giving their names and email addresses is enough to complete the sign-up and gain quick access to the catalog.
On the other hand, customers need to provide more information to access a printed catalog, which is a long process. Moreover, you need to distribute print catalogs physically, which again takes a lot of time. This results in the sales process slowing considerably.
Perfect sales tool
Unlike traditional paper-based catalogs, electronic counterparts work as the perfect sales tool. Since digital catalogs can have built-in purchasing features, customers can place an order which viewing it. You can showcase the products using high-quality images or videos to influence customers’ buying decisions.
Paper-based catalogs do the same but it cannot generate sales instantly. Customers either have to visit the store or navigate through the Web to find the store.
Ensure easier navigation through products
Navigation is about the users quickly moving from one page to the other for more relevant information. With a digital catalog, users can instantly scan the products and their features from one page to another. This helps them find desired products easily, which also enhances customers’ user experience.
Digital catalogs have plenty of navigation features. These include navigation menus at the top and buttons of the catalog page. Then, there are floating menus that help customers to move within a product category. Different hyperlinks also enable them to instantly go to the other products or pages in the same category.
Print catalogs have navigational limits since customers scan relevant information through multiple product pages. However, with clear headings, product grouping, and product titles, customers’ navigation experience can be improved.
Ascertain customer interaction and engagement
A major advantage of a digital catalog is its ability to let customers interact and engage with the content. That ensures customers’ active participation in finding products and information as they do in shops.
Add interactive elements, such as clickable links, to your digital catalog. These links can appear on your menu and index pages. They can also can have video content to engage customers.
Pop-ups are another interactive element that digital catalogs can have. As customers click on these pop-ups, they go to the site to explore more information and pages.
Print catalogs also have unique interactive elements, such as the touch and feel of the catalog. Some businesses even use scented materials on catalogs to give customers a memorable experience. Still, digital catalogs are much more interactive and engaging.
Distribute catalogs quickly to the masses
Distribution of catalogs is crucial to the success of business. With more people accessing the catalogs, the chances of many buying the products increase. Digital catalogs have a wider reach as search engines make them visible to the masses. Since these catalogs have relevant keywords, people access them with the help of the keywords.
You can use push notifications to redistribute your catalogs directly to customers exploring different devices. Then, you can use multiple marketing channels to distribute it. These marketing channels include app stores, directories, trade and industry websites, emails, and paid search. Sharing it over mobile phone ensures increased traffic since 28% of electronic catalog traffic comes from mobile phones.
Print catalogs need you to visit people to hand out them physically. So, you have control over whom to distribute catalogs. You depend on direct mail, shopping centers, tradeshows, events, and exhibitions to distribute paper-based catalogs.
So, these are the key benefits of digital catalogs over print catalogs. Businesses should explore both of them to take advantage of their unique benefits.
Wrapping Up
Digital catalogs are increasingly used today for their easier creation and distribution. They are easily accessible to today’s savvy customers with all the product info to influence their buying decisions. Print catalogs are useful too, however, they have limitations as compared to the electronic versions.