It’s official. We’re in the digital era. Thus, taking into account the massive amount of purchases made online every day, it’s imperative that any striving business has an enticing web catalog.

There’s even a term for it now. You don’t showcase a product, you “webcase” it.

Considering the importance of presenting your product in a digital medium, you need to do it right. A web catalog must be engaging and ideally, they must be personalized for your customer. This will help you create an exceptional experience that will significantly amplify the chances that this potential client will eventually become your return customer.

Research Your Customer

Your research needs to be highly technical. Do not estimate who your customer is. Customer research demands precision. Collect data from reports and from your Google Analytics. There you’ll gather sufficient information on how to better target your customer. By understanding your client better, you’ll be able to build a better product strategy along with an enticing design.

This will, at the end of the day, help you spend less money on campaigns and convert potential clients with more ease and precision.

According to an article published by InfoEntrepreneurs, it’s essential to find out three central things about your potential customer:

• Who are they?
• What goods do they purchase?
• For what reason do they buy them?

Personalization Is Essential

According to your findings in defining your customer, you’ll need to personalize your catalog respectively. A survey conducted by Accenture states that over 50% of businesses have opted for particular suppliers due to personalization. By breaking it down very simply, there’s no dark science behind what personalization essentially is. All you need to do is to optimize your catalog for a potential customer’s or business’s needs, depending on who they are.

The reason personalization has become essential especially in B2B medium is because people that stand behind large companies are very short on time. Saving them time will eventually provide you with a new client. Imagine being an executive in a medium-size company. You receive two catalogs. One personalized, the other is generic. Which one are you going to choose, considering that you are pressed for time? Exactly…

Finding The Software That Suits You

There is a host of products that will help you create high-quality, personalized web catalogs. Here’s a list of a few programs that can help you do the trick. There is a host of catalog makers that are free. However, it’s no secret that some of them are slightly limited in functionality.

• Yumpu. Considered to be among the best tools in the niche. With Yumpu you can make sure that your content is consistent with your SEO and marketing strategies, given the fact that the program can be synced with Google Analytics.
• FlipHTML5. This is a great publishing tool that is free of charge. It offers a wide spectrum of technical possibilities, including enriching your catalog, by adding various types of media like pictures, videos, links and even music.
• Anyflip. This is a free app that is commonly regarded to be among the best free catalog-making tools. With Anyflip, you’re offered a vast selection of layout templates. There is a Premium version that has extended functionality. However, the free version will give you a great impression about what these tools are capable of.
• Pageflip Books. This tool is among the oldest on in the niche. Furthermore, their latest edition is considered to be one of the programs that offer the widest array of possibilities. Plus, it is deemed to have a great price to value ratio.
• FlipPageMaker. A tool that impresses even a seasoned user. FlipPageMaker offers extended functionality. This app can be synced with Google Analytics so you can always track how the catalog performs in real time.
• CatalogMaker. Commonly considered to be among the products with the best “bang for buck.” A simple, yet very versatile tool.
• Pepperi. A flexible tool that allows you to customize your templates, without having to interfere with code.
• Boxoft. This catalog builder has a great effect engine. It also has a very intuitive automatic content distribution function. It allows you to import large amounts of files, which will then be evenly distributed throughout the document. This function saves you a lot of time.
• Catalyst Catalog Builder. This software has a great file and data management system. It allows you to update large chunks of information throughout your document. It also has a user-friendly interface. It’s suitable for most users, so you don’t need to be initiated in how to use these programs to create a vast catalog.
• Instacat Builder. This tool lets you create catalogs very quickly. If you’re really pressed for time, you can give Instacat a try. Great for both personal and business use.
• CleverCat. This is another professional builder that will help you quickly and efficiently build personalized catalogs for your customers. It’s designed to let you upload hundreds of files at once and arrange them neatly and intuitively. You have the possibility to edit and create new templates, according to which, data will be arranged in the document.

You Need A Good CMS

To avoid any possible confusion, we’re talking about a Catalog Management System, not a Content Management System. This tool will allow you to concentrate all the product-related changes in the same place, which will eventually let you make quick changes in the new catalogs that you will create. It is especially if you have a really large amount of products and prices change automatically.

Some of these tools will even let you create catalogs, but mainly they are designed to manage information related to your products. This information can then be exported and integrated into a web catalog software.

What are the best CMS’s currently available? Here’s a short list of popular tools:

• Seller Cloud. This tool is designed to organize many channels and keep everything tidy and make sure that all of your data is well-organized.
• Catalog Bar. This is a highly functional CMS, which allows you to create catalogs, along with easily update product information.
• Sales Layer. This tool is famous for its efficiency in handling product information. It has an intuitive interface and it lets you structure your content that comes from different channels.

Essentially, CMS’s are developed in order to assist you with structuring and updating data related to your products, but some of them, as said earlier, can create catalogs too. You may want to consider a more holistic approach to data handling and catalog creation. Instead of having two apps that have separate functions, you may want to look into one that does it all.

Tap Into Design

Design allows you to exploit the recent findings in neuroscience and other adjacent domains. A typical example of how design can help you increase sales is using color intelligently. Depending on your audience’s age, you can always choose to use more or less of a specific color.

For example, people under 18 years of age have a strong preference for green, red and blue. While people over 70 have a strong preference for blue. More than seventy percent of the participants stated that they like blue most.

Color-related findings can also tell you a lot about what colors you should avoid. Research shows that 30% of people throughout all age groups dislike brown, orange and purple. So it’s evident that it’s best to skip on these colors in your catalogs altogether.

It’s also important to follow the latest trend in the niche. For instance, according to Publitas, the recent trends in product catalogs include “daring and bright colors” and “flat” design. By combining the currently popular trends with findings in neuroscience, you’ll be able to create a beautiful and enticing catalog.

Text Is Vital

Of course, a catalog mustn’t have too much text, but make sure you use text to stress the important aspects of your service or your product. Look for a professional that is experienced in writing product descriptions. An accurate yet well-written description of your services will make the catalog more inviting. A right wording will create emphasis on your company’s values and stress your positioning.

Nowadays, considering the digital era that we live in, it isn’t that complicate to find a good writer. Even if you aren’t familiar with any agencies or you don’t know where to look, you can just search for websites that collect reviews on certain writers and writing services. Once you get to the top websites page, you’ll be able to find the freelancers or agencies that have the best testimonials and their rates.

Invest time in writing strong Call To Action slogans and buttons. A high-quality CTA must tick a couple of boxes. First off, it must stimulate the reader’s interest without giving away a lot of information. The reader must remain curious. Secondly, it needs to be potentially beneficial to the reader. It needs to create urgency. A strong call to action needs to stimulate a user’s Fear Of Missing Out (a.k.a. FOMO).

Organize Your Products/Services

You need to place your products in the right order. This will increase conversion and will stimulate potential customers to opt for specific products. The key aspects of a well-ordered catalog are:

1. Proudly mention your bestsellers. A customer needs to know which listings are the most popular and why.
2. Group everything. Don’t let your catalog seem chaotic and unorganized. This demotivates clients for looking through it.
3. Opt for hierarchies if applicable. If your products have components, list the components immediately after the product that contains them. Otherwise, the catalog can seem messy and hard to scan through.
4. Find criteria, according to which you’ll group your items. Help people make a cognitive connection between your products.

Conclusion

To execute a high-quality web catalog, you must make sure that you have a host of things right. Some of them are of a technical character and some are conceptual. First, you need to understand who your customer is and conduct some proper research. This essential because if you want to grow your sales and conversions, you need to personalize your catalog according to the specific preferences that your potential customers have.

Once you’re done with that, you’ll need to find the right software. Some software can be used exclusively for catalog creation and others can be used as Catalog Management Systems. The former is designed to create catalogs from scratch and the latter are systems that automatize data collection and can sometimes have catalog creation feature on board.

And finally, make sure the creative aspects of your catalog are on point. Make sure you consult a designer and a writer if you have the resources. Crafting a good user experience by using the right colors and writing good text will ensure that your catalog is enticing and has the power to convert people into using your service.