Episode #185: BALANCING CATALOG CREATIVITY WITH RECIPIENT SATISFACTION

This five-minute show highlights a few simple, customer-centric guardrails for print catalog design and layout.  Buyers want tools that make their job easier. Client-success is magnified when vendors address this basic mindset. These five minutes invite you to think of the word “TOOL” the next time you embark on a catalog layout. The ultimate challenge in creating cool, customer-friendly catalogs, is striking a healthy balance between creative graphics, and rapid, end-user functionality.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

All right, Mr. Simple Sky Show.

Speaker 2: 0:09

Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to this Simple Biz 360 podcast. My name is Jeff Mason and I'm gonna be your host for the next few minutes. We have a jam-packed show today. So you can find us on YouTube IG t v gab TV 28 listening platforms. Easiest place to find us is on our website, simple Biz three sixty.com. Go to the podcast tab, all the old episodes, the cool rock and roll links there as well that we leave every show and the audio, uh, versions of this shows are there as well. You'll find it very helpful, I'm sure. So today we're gonna be talking about balancing catalog creativity with recipient satisfaction. A lot of people still do paper catalogs. I deal with a lot of companies that do. So we're gonna hone in on that today. Now, digital versions are different, right? Uh, most everybody has a digital version to back up a paper catalog, but we're gonna talk about how you find a workable balance between letting those creators, letting those graphic artists, those artistic people produce great catalogs. But we're gonna focus in on the reader today and this experience economy, right? We're always talking about the customer experience. It's not the graphic artist experience, it's the customer experience and they want clarity, ease of use. They wanna be able to read it easily and they want easy storage. So what you see here on the props, for those who are listening today, I have a three ring binder. I have two hole punchers, an industrial and another three hole puncher that's a less industrial. I've got a pair of readers that help you read close up. I got a magnifying glass and a light. Well, the reason I have all those, there is so many times we produce catalogs that don't have the right color combination, the right font boldness, the right font size, um, the, it doesn't have the right, um, uh, font relationship to the color background. And we end up getting this, um, really hard to read gray font of the style numbers on white background. And people have to go under separate light. They have to get readers to look at it. It really gets confusing, aggravating that they can't get the information just jumping out on them very easily, right? So we want that information to jump out easily. Those style numbers. We want the MOQs, the minimum order quantities specified how to order, what are the style numbers you use the prefix on these three numbers. And if you want these different sizes, here are the suffixes. So it's hyphen 4 56, hyphen 4 5 67, hyphen 4 5 67 8, right? So these are the things that we wanna make sure we put it crystal clear. So the reader has every opportunity to order quickly and not make mistakes. And then guess what? You don't have to process issue resolution by, you know, re having something returned because they ordered the wrong style number in the wrong size or color right Now storage is the big thing. Three ring binders. I couldn't tell you how many of my customers want to be able to three hole punch that catalog or get it already pre three hole punch and put it in a binder. So that means it should be eight and a half by 11. That's the standard size, but so many catalogs will come out 11 by 14, you know, six and a half by eight and a half or nine and a half, and you just miss these envelopes and you go to a next one and you go to a more expensive one, or you can't find one on the market readily available that fits the awkward size. And, and then where do you put it? Where does the customer put it? Customer wants to be able to put it in the free ring binder, put on the shelf, and have easy access down the road. So I just say get'em three hole punched, get'em in eight and a half by 11 and make sure everything jumps off the page so it's readable without extra light or readers, right? That is the art of it. And then this on the sender end, man, I would just suggest I've seen this happen. Use volume numbers instead of years. It gives you a little bit of leeway. It lets you, uh, not pigeonhole yourself to the actual calendar year, volume three, volume eight, volume 23, whatever it is. You can work off the volumes instead. And then just think of that size. Go check with Office Depot, find out if you can get envelopes or on Amazon. Can you get envelopes to send these in, uh, easily and, and affordably. So just make sure it's, uh, you know, honestly, first and foremost for the reader, but second for you to make sure that you don't have a lot of extra costs associated. So nothing's easy, right? Even a paper catalog. Here we go. All right. Uh, so we're gonna leave you with Jet Row toll today. Nothing is easy. 1970, live from the aisle of white and you will see him jumping around like crazy. So, uh, you'll gotta get a little taste of Ian Anderson. Thank you so much, and we will see you in 168 hours.