How to Captivate Customers With Catalog Copy

Catalog marketing is big business, both online and off line. American Writers & Artists’ industry spotlight on catalog promotion reveals a market of $133.4 billion. The Who’s Mailing What! Archive reports 1,178 major catalogers and 54,831 tracked catalog mailings. According to the DMA, sales from catalogs are projected to top $176 billion, as online promotion increases. Learning how to captivate your customers with catalog copy could net you positive revenue results.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer
• Internet access
• Word Processing software

1. “Catalog Copy That Sizzles” by Herschell Gordon Lewis claims that catalog headings dress in three main styles: basic, romantic and positioned. Basic involves bare bones naming of the product. This approach works efficiently in business catalogs or for everyday living products. Romancing is a definite selling technique which enhances a product whose appeal is emotional, rather than functional. Music, art and dressy clothing romance elegantly. The positioning headline copy
   emphasizes use, rather than brand name or feelings. It usually features personal protection or health products.
   
   These three styles belong to two different families:
   
   Nominative: straight forward naming
   Example: Business Modem
   
   Descriptive: replaces product name with imaginative word groupings
   Example: A car directional device is “a map in hand”.
2. Create captions that boast benefits. Illustration captions are the heroes of catalog copy. These short sentences strike the prospects interest first. Their primary role is to promote advantages and position your product as the best solution to the prospect’s problems. So weave your features into the main copy block and reserve captions for brilliant benefits.
3. Search for satisfying solutions to strengthen your central copy block. Focus on the prospect’s expectations, disappointments and frustrations. Feedback from all three emotional channels will fuel your opportunity to be a premier problem-solver. Ask yourself the key question: What problem does this product or service resolve? Clear answers form the core to compelling catalog copy.
4. Deliver descriptions that dance. Vibrant verbs and unique nouns quicken
   your copy block. Prune away all unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
   Build on benefits and flank them with factual features. The main copy
   must justify the headline message. If your head claims: “Swedish Sofa Supports Spine”, then your copy block must defend this statement with furniture construction facts, a testimonial and medical endorsement.
5. Leave a lasting impression. Captivating catalog copy is the art of brevity. You’re painting words with a limited palette. Be sure to finish your verbal canvas with a last line that leads. Your final words must pack power parallel to the opening head. The initial words capture interest; the final words close the sale triumphantly.

Tips & Warnings

• Photography can create picturesque environments for your products. This visual positioning will evoke a responsive buying mode supported by minimal copy.
• Each product has a particular personality and an essential nature. Your copy will be as effective as your product assessment. Every product has a presentation path that best expresses its appeal and advantages. When your copy flows on this path it motivates people to purchase.