The promo leaflet is still the number one in generating store traffic. Retailers agree that it  takes a strategic position in their media planning. Yet catalogs lack modernity with archaic design and very expensive process of production.

All those who have already produced a leaflet will agree that preparing a catalog still requires lots of work. Some of you are aware that this complexity has even become an obstacle when we think of multimedia or regional publication with high frequency.

The question is how to adjust the promo leaflet to modern marketing needs?

First, let’s take look at the situation from the production method point of view.

The method is always the same and I think you will all admit: producing a promotional catalog necessarily entails the layout and because you cannot all become designers, you turn to professionals. In other words, either you work with an agency or you incorporate your own studio.

Yet, let's face it, you always have remarks like: "the image should be bigger," "this text should be shorter," "these products should not be side by side ", etc.. If it was easier to do it ourselves, we would not lose all the time to write these endless emails to instruct designers. We also know that there are always some misinterpretations and we have to ask for corrections to be made.

Moreover, when you need to prepare a Power Point presentation, are you giving a brief to your secretary and ask for several corrections before being satisfied? No, you do yourself ... because it is at your fingertips.

And why is it so effective to do it yourself? Because you get a control of a visual creation and see what works and what does not. 

So if you add the need to work with visual projects and the fact that using graphical tools is really not as simple as using a Power Point, you understand the origin of this complex process.

But then, form the logical point of view, if thanks to the modern technology, designing catalog pages can become as easy as working with Power Point why would you not use this opportunity?

This is where we need to look at the situation through an organizational point of view.

Any change of a business process causes inevitable resistance. In our case we can easily identify two groups:  advertising agency which does not want to lose its profit and your catalog manager or head of marketing department, which does not want to "do the work of the agency”. Employees will then argue that it needs a larger team and would anyway be less effective than the agency which; after all, has an advantage of being very flexible and exploitable as much as needed, what is much more difficult with an in-house team

From my point of view, they are right as to realities but wrong on the vision.

Yes, managing the graphic chain requires an experience and knowledge. But no, it is not unattainable or as complex as it seems. Other industries, such as the press, have managed to optimize the process despite the constraints at least as important. New technologies have been proven and can help simplify the process of producing a catalog and make it accessible to non-experts.

Machines replacing humans deprive him of some of his work. But your team has surely much better things to do than editing catalogs after catalogs, names of the products, suppliers and correcting typographical errors. The page design optimization will allow you to assign your team more constructive tasks.

Software does not like improvisation. But the problem is not in changing your mind but that the execution of this changes requires skills. When I prepare a Power Point presentation, I can edit it until the last moment. Making the last minute changes can sometimes make a difference between a good campaign and a very good campaign. Software could help in meeting business requirements (by allowing for last minute changes).

Of course it requires learning how to use a new tool. There is always a need to select products, validate content and layouts. But instead of waiting for these layouts, made by a third party, they will be made by the software in a mouse click. Instead of requesting a correction to be made, you will make it yourself and see  the result immediately. Of course, it is necessary that this tool is very simple to use.

Having a dedicated internal team to support all the requests and focused on the end of the process (the famous "loop") is very comfortable. But these famous overloads in the end of the process are not inevitable. They are the logical consequence of the lack of anticipation imposed by the traditional way of a catalog production. Remember that the first real vision of the catalog, which allows everyone to take an opinion, comes very late in the planning. How many of let’s say 20 of last minute changes, could have been avoided if we could "see" the results early and correct them immediately? 19; 18?

Technologies exist and only need to be adapted to the promo leaflet production. Understanding the limitations is an opportunity to improve the process.

The solution exists; specialists equipped with the software can help you to conceptualize your projects. You can finally produce a catalog (printed and / or posted on the web and mobile) with a mouse click. The range of possibilities opens to you: create a catalog by market segment or even, get a catalog promotion in a few hours!

My team and I are proud to offer you a demonstration on a real case of one of your catalogs; you will discover how it can be built, from project to visualization in a few minutes.

Ives Frerot

Retail Expert