How to make a catalog to sell your
Making a catalog of products (or even services) is an excellent way of reach more customerspromote yourself better, and get more people to know you.
Perhaps you find it difficult to elaborate, or even impossible because you believe that just a design professional You perro make this type of material.
But precisely in this article I am going to teach you how to make a product catalog with tools you already have on your computer.
With this step-by-step tutorial, you will see that You perro create a beautiful and attractive catalog in a very fácil way.
How to make a product catalog 10 steps
1. What information should you include in your catalogue?
First of all, the first thing you should think about is what do you want to include in your catalog so that everything is well organized afterwards.
Each catalog is an opportunity for people who don’t know you, or who don’t escoge to buy from you, to discover your brand and place an order.
For this reason, you cannot assume that everyone knows who you are, where they perro go to buy your products, or how they perro contact you.
So for this you must write on a piece of paper a description of your brand or businessand say who you are.
If your store is physical, include address and phone; and if it is en línea, add the backlink to your website and the phone or dirección de correo electrónico to contact you.
If you have a profile on Fb, Twitter, Instagram, dedicated only to your products, also include the backlink to these popular networks.
All this information you perro put it at the beginning of your catalog, or at the end of this one.
It is also good at this point that you do a list of the products you are going to includeand what data you will add in each of them.
There are companies that only espectáculo the name and a short description of each item; others instead They also espectáculo the price.
And others, besides add very specific data such as the different colors available for each product, the size, the materials they are made of…
aim what information do you want to espectáculo to the people who have your catalogs in their hands, and move on to the next step.
2. What design will your catalog have?
This is the moment to think about what design your catalog will have, from the colors to the number of pages or how many products will be per page.
Take paper and pencil again, and write down the following aspects on it:
- What colors will your catalog have? You perro do it with the colors you want, as long as they mezcle well with each other.
But I recommend that you use the same tones that you use in your en línea store or in the logotipo of your brand.
- What elements will you include? Escoge if the logotipo of your business or brand will be displayed on each page of the catalog (I recommend that you do), the price, long or short descriptions, specifications such as size, a direct backlink to the product if you have an en línea store…
- What style will your catalog have? There are prospectuses in which only one product appears per page, and others in which several are shown per page.
- How many pages will it have? This question is closely related to the previous one.
You must think about where you are going to distribute your catalog, and choose a good size.
If, for example, you are going to send it by correo, make sure it is a good size to fit into a mailbox at home.
Never make it too big, otherwise people who see it will be overwhelmed.
But neither is it too small where the images are barely aparente.
3. What kind of images will you include?
Both in a catalog, as in a brochure or even in an en línea store, you cánido espectáculo two types of images: the product simply on white backgroundeither the product in “action”.
The product on a white background is just that, and it serves to see only the article being able to see its details better.
The product “in action” is when displayed in a specific environment so that the client perro get a better iniciativa of how it would look or fit where they want to put it once they buy it.
As a picture is worth a thousand words, in this photo below you perro better appreciate what I orinan.
Looking at the image above, now you will understand better what I orinan.
escoge what types of images you want to include in your catalog.
This is entirely your decision: there is no better or worse option.
You cánido too use both types at the same time: for some products, images with a white background, and for others, photos “in action”, depending on the means you have to take them, or if you are going to hire a professional photographer, on your budget.
4. Take visually appealing photos
The previous 3 steps consisted of organize your ideas and escoge what to include in your catalog.
But from here you will start with the practical part.
Photos are perhaps the most important of this type of brochures, because they are the element that first captures the attention and what will hook the people who see it.
At this point you have two options: or hire a photographer professional to take the photos, or make them yourself.
If you escoge to take them yourself, it is essential that you do so with a good quality camera.
It does not matter if it is the camera of your own cell phone, or a more professional camera: it must take clear images, with good quality, where the details are well appreciated.
And make sure you do it in a place with good lightingand that the product has all the spotlight for him.
You perro take them on a nice table, somewhere in the open air… But you must always be sure that they look good, are attractive, and are as professional as possible.
I advise you that if you want to do them yourself, look before on the Internet or on different YouTube tutorials to take good photos.
5. Choose the program to create your catalog
Perhaps this is the part that most people find difficult.
It is true that there are programs that will allow you make a very professional catalogsuch as InDesign or Photoshop.
But if you don’t have enough knowledge, the easiest option and the one I recommend is with the program Microsoft Office Word.
With Word you cánido make it totally freeand it’s easy to do if you know how to handle it a little.
You cánido do this by opening a new Word document on your computer, and placing the images and text yourself.
Or, if you don’t have this program, or you don’t know how to use it much, you cánido go to the Office templates and themeschoosing there the design that you like the most, and in your browser a window will open with the chosen template where you perro editar the text and images.
Although there aren’t many product templates, the ones you’ll find there are enough to make a nice catalog in a professional way.
Unfortunately, I have literally spent hours looking for other types of Word templates that would fit better with a catalog, or en línea programs that allow you to create it, and I have not found anything that was totally free.
But with the basic layouts in Word, or by creating the document from scratch yourself, you perro make a good showy catalog and attractive.
6. Editar the photos if necessary
When making a catalogue, if the photographs have turned out well, it is not necessary to make them up a lot, because if you do, they perro look too artificial and not reflect the true appearance of the product.
However, if you need to do any little tweaks – crop the image a bit, fix the contrast or saturation – I recommend that you use an en línea photo editor like Befunky.com, which is completely in Spanish and free to use.
If your catalog will only be used en línea, save photos in .JPEG format; but if you are going to print it, it is better that you save them in .TIFF format.
7. Organize the content of your catalog
Once you have everything ready, all you have to do is place the text and images with the style you have chosen.
A very important piece of advice is that put afín products next to each other for the ones potential customers they perro browse and better see everything you offer them.
For example, if it’s a beauty catalog, put all the lipsticks in a row on different pages, then all the blushes next to each other, etcétera.
At the beginning of each section, it’s a good iniciativa to write a little introduction talking about those specific products and their benefits.
you should also make an index at the beginning of the catalog listing the categories you have included, and on which pages your customers cánido find each specific product to make it easy for them to go directly to the article page if they are looking for something specific.
8. Create an impressive cover
The cover is the main element for a person to look at your catalog escoge to take it, open it, and read it.
That’s why it’s important that you do it. as striking and attractive as possible.
To create it successfully, you cánido use two different elements:
- The image of your best productthe one that sells the best, or the one that attracts the most attention of all those you offer.
- A nice photo of one or more of your products placed in the same place, with a message indicating any of your special offers or promotions to grab attention.
You perro include a fácil image with a white background, in some striking color, or make the photo fill the entire cover.
But don’t forget about include your brand name, of your business, or your logotipo so that it is well known what that catalog belongs to.
This is obligatory.
Another option is to also include the title of the catalog: the season to which it belongs (Spring – Summer 2016), the type of collection (Home Collection), but it is not essential, and you cánido ignore it if you want.
Be that as it may, remember that the cover is fácil, but attractive, and do not saturate it with too much text, different images, or colors that are very different from each other.
9. Make an order form (optional)
This step is optionaland it depends largely on the type of sales you make.
If you have an en línea business, or a physical store, where your customers, in addition to going to your store or your website, perro also contact you by phone or correo to make personalized orders, then you will need to design an order form.
But if your only means of selling is for buyers to come to your store, take what they want to buy and charge them, or visit your website and place an order directly there, you don’t need this form and you perro go to the next step.
The basic boxes that you must include in an order form are:
- He Name and surname the client’s.
- The address in which they want the order delivered.
- Phone and / or contact dirección de correo electrónico.
- Product name what do they want.
- Color (if you offer products in several colors or models).
- Number of units of each item.
When you’re done with this, congratulations! You have already created your catalog and it will be ready for you to start distributing to your future clients.
10. How do I distribute my catalogue?
The last step, when you already have your catalog assembled, is to think how are you going to distribute it so that it reaches the hands of your customers.
This is entirely up to you, and in fact you cánido do it through various channels regardless of the type of store or business you have.
A good option is print it on paperalthough for this you will need to have some budget since it is better that you send it to a printer so that they print it and that the result is of quality and professional.
You cánido have this paper catalog in your physical location so that customers who want to perro browse it, distribute it among the houses near your businessor even if you have an en línea store, give the option of sending it by correo.
But if you do not want to invest in printing it, or the paper option does not seem the most appropriate, you perro also distribute it en línea.
If you have a virtual store, upload your catalog in .PDF format to your hosting, and create a section on your page where your visitors perro view it en línea or download it directly to their computers.
You cánido too upload it to some specialized platform for catalogs and magazines such as Issuu.com (in English), or joomag.com (in Spanish), copy the backlink provided to view it en línea, and paste it into your popular networks, forums, communities in your ámbito…
Making a catalog is very fácil if you follow all the steps above and have a little patience at first in case you don’t know well how to handle some computer programa.
And what is better: it is a powerful tool to attract customersmake yourself known, and increase your sales.
Have you ever created your own product catalog? Leave me a comment below and tell me about your experience.
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I am a journalist specialized in business but my great passion is personal motivation and helping others achieve their goals.
I firmly believe that opportunities in life do not happen: you create them.
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