When you're shipping out any tangible items to customers,
whether it's CDs, books, course manuals, electronics devices or cosmetics, it's
time to create a product catalog to enclose with the order. The product catalog
processing takes advantage of customers'
buying momentum. They open your shipment and feel happy to see what they
ordered. That positive feeling leads them to flip through an enclosed product
catalog in a good mood, inclined to buy more. All in all, the catalog helps set
up a dynamic where you and the customer are building a long-term relationship instead
of transacting a one-time sale.
Likewise, if you sell services, a catalog helps you earn extra revenue from
each client. Why simply recommend items they need in the course of implementing
your advice when you can earn a commission from vendors you present to clients?
This strategy doesn't require you to keep any inventory, since you can forward
orders to the vendors, who fulfill them for you.
Don't have additional (or any) products yet for a catalog? No problem! Simply
find products that have a thematic relationship to yours and that have an
affiliate program. For instance, if you're a financial planner, go to sites
like affiliateguide.com or associateprograms.com and find affiliate programs
for other financially related products like budget organizers, commercial or
real estate loans, a course on how to raise capital, custom-designed checks and
more that you can offer in your catalog.
When you've decided on the products for your catalog, follow the steps I
recently took to make my first catalog a reality.
1. Create a rough mockup. Because of the size of the products I most often
ship, I decided on a 7" by 8½" format, which is legal-sized paper
folded over and stapled in the center. A 8½ by 11" format would have
required me to use larger shipping envelopes than I'd otherwise need. With
eight information bundles, which each needed one or two pages of descriptive
copy, along with an order form, front and back covers, etc., I figured a
20-page catalog would give me sufficient selling space.
After folding five sheets of legal-sized paper to the size of my 20-page
catalog, I penned in "front cover" on page 1, "table of
contents" on page 2, "blank" on the back cover and on page 19
just before that, "order form" on pages 17 and 18, and product names
in the middle according to which products I thought needed a two-page selling
spread and which could be sold on one page.
2. Create product descriptions. For most of my products, I already had product
descriptions at my web site that I edited to fit my catalog layout. For one new
product, I created copy from scratch for the catalog, then reversed the
adaptation process so that I transported that copy to my web site as well. In a
few cases, a lot of fiddling was required to make the text fit the available
space.
Where you have too little copy to fill your layout, insert tips, testimonials,
excerpts, photos, graphics, quotations from famous people, special catalog
offers or other sidebars. These help make your pages look more visually varied,
in addition to plugging up blank spots.
3. Finish the "front matter." I put numerous teasers on my front
cover and a more traditional table of contents on page 2, which also contained
my bio and contact information. Many catalogs begin with a letter from the
founder or company president and his or her photo. Be sure to make this section
both inviting and informative, suitable both for first-time buyers and for
long-time customers.
4. Create the order form. This can be much more challenging than you'd imagine,
because it forces you to anticipate not only all the information you need to
fulfill orders, but also everything any type of customer needs to know to place
their order. For instance, did you make it possible for people order more than
one of each item? Some people have a billing address and a different shipping
address. You might need to charge some customers sales tax. And what about rush
shipping?
I placed my order form on a right-hand page and all the ordering policies, such
as shipping fees and guarantees, on the left-hand page beside it.
5. Get it printed. Though I proofread the catalog several times, I started with
a few hundred made up at my copy shop so I could correct any mistakes that
turned up. At my local copy shop, the catalogs emerged from their machine folded
and stapled for just 81 cents each. When I'm ready for a bigger print run, a
print shop should be able to reduce that price.
Visit Us :
http://internetadvertising-marketing.com/online_product_entry.html
Source By :
http://ezinearticles.com/?Catalog-Order-Taking---Catalog-Ordering-Hasnt-Disappeared,-Only-Changed&id=1192374
