A surge of “do not mail” legislative bills pending in numerous states has catalog companies running scared. Yet as an industry, we seem to be doing a pretty poor job of speaking up on our own behalf. In addition to doing your share to be environmentally responsible, make sure your customers know about your efforts. Along those lines, I was pleased to see the following message…
Catalogs
Drive Your Customers Online
Thanks to lower costs and fast turnaround, most websites contain many more products than a merchant can afford to include in a single catalog. So I was shocked to learn from a customer panel at the recent Mailorder Gardening Association conference that customers assume that most websites simply replicate catalog offerings.
Assuming you offer more products on your website than in your catalog, make sure your customers know it. Say “More plants at www.OurCompany.com” on every page of your catalog, include “More Plants Online” bursts in your catalog, or include lists of plants that can only be bought online.
Pet Peeves of Garden Catalog Customers
The Summer 2008 Mailorder Gardening Conference included an informative customer panel moderated by Kip Creel of Standpoint Marketing. The panel included 10 people from member companies’ house lists, and represented a wide range of gardening interests and expertise. Almost without exception, they expressed the same pet peeves with many garden catalogs.
“Show us what the plant looks like!” they cried. “Not just the bloom that appears for one week a year. We want to know what the whole plant will look like for the other 51 weeks of the year.”
They were even more adamant on the subject of shipping fees. All panelists said they looked at the total cost before deciding whether to order or where to order from. Burying shipping rates on the final page of checkout was considered an annoyance at best, and an attempt to obfuscate at worst.
What surprised me was the lack of weight the panelists gave to a strong guarantee. Personally, I consider guarantees a big plus for mail order nurseries. To our panelists, it was a small consideration when deciding where to buy.
Is Your Catalog Only Pulling Half Its Weight?
I’ve been having discussions with a prospective client about the various ways we can help them. He proudly sent their new catalog, a major undertaking after years of relying only on paid search for prospecting. The catalog has a lot going for it. The photos are clear, attractive, and show the products to best advantage. The layout is clean and readable. There’s a lot of technical information that’s organized in a neat, orderly fashion. Phone number and URL appear on every page. While it’s a fine job for an initial catalog, our prospective client has no idea how much more effective it could be. Being new to cataloguing, he understandably doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. For instance:
