When well-designed, a catalog can be a powerful direct mail marketing tool.  While trendy Internet marketing "gurus" may dismiss print catalogs as outdated, sales data says otherwise.  A well-designed catalog will drive sales, period.

If you own a business and have been looking for a way to increase your sales, a catalog is the solution you have been trying to find.  A catalog allows you to not only put your selection of products in front of a wider audience, but to also convert people looking at your catalog into customers.

Since putting together a catalog from scratch can seem like a daunting task, we want to help make it easier for you.  We have compiled a list of five tips that will help you design a catalog that is effective at driving sales for your business.  By following these tips, you can ensure that the catalog you create is beneficial to the bottom-line of your business.

Useful Table of Contents

Your catalog's table of contents should be more than a list of titles and pages numbers.  While many catalogs treat the table of contents as an afterthought, it's a great opportunity to not only help readers, but to emphasize areas of the catalog you especially want them to look at.

Personalization

As someone browses through your catalog, they should feel like they are walking through your store, while a helpful friend points out certain information to them.  By giving your catalog a personalized feel, you will make it easier for readers to truly engage with it.

Lots of Pictures

When it comes to catalogs, you have to have pictures!  In fact, you have to have lots of them.  Without page after page of great pictures, a catalog is not going to be successful.

Going back to the second tip, when you're trying to figure out what pictures to include in your catalog, remember that you want to create the experience of someone walking through your store.  If you keep this goal in mind, it will help you assemble an awesome collection of pictures for your catalog.

Compelling Sales Copy

As people are looking through your catalog, you must give them a reason to feel like they simply have to buy what you're selling.  While great pictures are part of this equation, the other part is compelling sales copy.  Keep in mind that there is a big difference between pushy sales copy and compelling sales copy.  While pushy sales copy tries to bully someone into making a purchase, compelling sales copy makes what you're selling so compelling that people truly want to buy it.

Keep It Consistent

When someone's looking at your catalog, you don't want them to feel like they are looking at two different catalogs when they flip from one page to the next.  By keeping the aesthetic of your catalog consistent, you can create an experience that mimics shopping in a store.  When people open your catalog and have this kind of experience, it helps persuade them to pull out their credit card and make a purchase.