Revamp Your Product Marketing: The Importance of Digital Catalogs
Today, several businesses depend on digital product catalogs as a substantial marketing tool for retailers in the B2B, B2C, and D2C sectors.
With more people shopping online, organizations are shifting from print catalogs to digital catalogs, which not only helps distribute the necessary information to a wider audience but also helps in SEO and conversion of maximum leads into business customers.
Let’s understand the importance and scope of online catalog makers in ecommerce.
What is an ECommerce Digital Catalog?
A digital catalog is an online document that highlights your products and services, is accessible via direct links, and is easy to navigate.
Ecommerce digital catalogs allow your audience to obtain specific product information, like product descriptions, prices, product images, etc., in seconds. Such catalogs provide online shoppers with an immersive and informative experience that helps make the buying process smoother.
Why Use a Digital Product Catalog?
An online product catalog is one of the easiest ways to engage and influence shoppers with accurate and informative content. Consider the following:
- 7% of customers shop exclusively online
- 20% of customers only shop in physical stores
- 73% of customers move across multiple channels
According to Gartner, using catalogs as a promotional tool helps businesses provide accurate and comprehensive information needed to make a purchase, engage audiences, and increase awareness.
Features of an Effective Online Catalog Maker
The aasaan app has one of the best catalog makers that can help your business create persuasive catalogs for digital and offline promotions. Here are some characteristics of a functional and effective product online catalog maker:
- Your online catalog maker should be fast and easy to load.
- Make sure you depend on one that has a plethora of templates - choose the best design with the most creative layout.
- You should be able to customize templates for your brand by uploading your brand colors, fonts, and logos. Use autofill features to automatically insert product information and images into catalog templates, reducing repetitive content updates.
- Your online catalog maker should allow you to share a specific design with multiple team members so that you can assign team roles
- It should be compatible with other platforms.
How to Create Interactive Online Catalogs?
Follow these steps to create an effective e-commerce digital product catalog:
Step 1: Choose a template from the variety of professionally designed options in the aasaan app.
Step 2: Import the product information by using smart fields to update general information in your catalog or use advanced data automation features to quickly add product images, prices, descriptions, and more.
Step 3: Match your brand colors, fonts, and logos to update your catalog to match your company branding.
Step 4: Add collaborators to documents, so everyone on your team has access to the latest catalog.
Step 5: Distribute your catalog on all your digital channels. You can also convert it into a printable version, downloadable PDF, videos, slideshows, and scrolling text.
Benefits of Creating Product Catalogs
As more people shop digitally, ecommerce brands need to keep up with trends and have an online catalog that offers potential buyers an exciting product experience. Here are some of its advantages:
1. Added Value to the In-Store Experience
Most shoppers still prefer to shop in brick-and-mortar stores. You thus have the leverage to get your digital product catalog printed and distributed to your in-store walk-ins.
In-store salespeople can use digital catalogs to explain questions and product demos to customers. It helps you replicate the exact same experience online and offline and provide omnichannel support.
2. Added Value to the Online Experience
Digital catalogs help self-service customers make informed buying decisions. Over 70% of B2B buyers are tech-savvy millennials, so they research the company themselves before making a purchase.
So, if you don’t have an online product catalog, you may be at a disadvantage compared to other competitors that offer such convenience.
Further, according to a survey of industrial buyer search habits, consumers feel it is much easier to order products from an online product catalog.
3. Provides Cross-Platform Compatibility
Consumers are accustomed to obtaining information online. So, you must ensure that your e-commerce product catalog matches customer behavior, and your products should be easy to find and access online.
Everyone uses multiple devices, so it’s important to make your online catalog accessible not only on stationary computers but also on smartphones and tablets.
Cross-platform compatibility is a must so that your digital catalog can be accessible as a link from any browser and any device. You can also distribute your online catalog through any channel, including your website, email, and social media.
4. Present the Product from its Best Side
Creating a digital product catalog allows brands to promote their products in the most visually appealing way.
Plus, people like to take inspiration from content. Enrich your e-commerce catalog to create a deeper understanding of your product and help them proceed with the purchase.
5. Increase Sales
Digital catalogs make the buying process convenient and easy. You must link products in your catalog to your website. This way, buyers can simply click on the product they like and go to your website to purchase it right away.
Encourage visitors to purchase and turn them into loyal customers by simplifying the checkout process. Therefore, introducing a product catalog to e-commerce can increase orders and sales.
6. Improve Buyers’ Shopping Experiences
The digital format of your catalog is a great opportunity to engage with buyers, increase their likelihood of purchase, and provide a true-to-life experience on the web.
This format allows you to enhance your e-commerce catalog with videos, animations, branding visuals, pop-up images, and other interactive content to provide buyers with elaborate information about your products.
Digital Catalog Examples:
Let us look at some real digital product catalog examples that will give you an idea about you can get them framed for your brand:
1. A Food Catalog (Flipping Book)
2. MoMa’s Spring 2022 Digital Catalog Cover
3. Stein Mart’s Contemporary Digital Product Catalog
What to Do with Your Digital Product Catalogs?
Now, you can sell more with a digital catalog when you or your team can’t do it personally. Creating effective, eye-catching, and visually engaging product catalogs can bring in maximum conversions for your business and help you:
- Share your product catalogs on various digital channels like your website, social media platforms, YouTube channel, email newsletters, etc.
- Share your website links on the catalog, so the consumer can immediately take action after looking at it.
- Add rich interactive content using brand logos, background images, GIFS/animations, and corporate colors.
- Besides quick information and faster conversions, digital product catalogs will help boost SEO and are quite mobile-friendly as well.
Conclusion:
Bringing your catalog online means that you save printing and distribution costs and give easy access to your customers to the most up-to-date information at their fingertips. Plus, you can set yourself apart by creating a catalog that is easy to use, looks great, and is fun to read.
Using the aasaan app, you can create a product catalog that gives you a competitive edge and helps your business grow.
An ecommerce digital catalog can be a key touchpoint in a customer’s journey. Let us help you with a well-structured, customer-centric product catalog that showcases the best side of your brand and helps consumers make faster choices.
