You don’t need a masters degree in arts or English to create a catalog that attracts attention and grabs customers for you. This is because drawing prospects will mostly depend on the impression that you will create in the first few seconds that a reader will take hold of your catalog. Your logo, packaging style, color choices and printing quality should work together to help you succeed. Understand that your business image is priceless but the design and printing process does not have to be costly.

These days, catalog design has gone a long way – from the usual product information catalogs to these days’ unusual catalogs with bizarre color and typography to make them look different and attractive. But different and attractive catalogs don’t really mean greater sales. Being unique can help you though to stand out among other catalogs in today’s ever crowded mailboxes, but your catalog will not make the sale for you. You have to do the deal yourself. So before you get on with your creative style in creating your catalog, make sure that you, your designers and your printer know the rules in producing catalogs that sell. Your graphic designer and printer can help you save money if they know about printing presses and techniques and the fine touches needed to make your marketing material successful.

As a technique to make your readers interested in your catalog, you can put your best selling or unique products in the upper right corner of every page of your catalog. Doing so, you can encourage your reader to read through the entire catalog. You can also add order forms in your catalog that can be easily fill-up and mailed. Although few customers use order forms to mail orders, businesses and customers alike use them to organize their orders before calling or ordering online.

The main reason for the general fascination with brands is their ability to provide the consumers an extra value in addition to what the product\service\company themselves can provide. A value which becomes the major motivation for consumers to desire the product. Everybody agrees about that, but from here on it becomes foggy. First of all, what is this value exactly? Also, how precisely is this value being added and incorporated into the brand? In this short article I attempt to provide a clear answer to both of these key questions and to suggest a workable approach to creating value added brands.

By way of introduction, let me say that strong brands are perceived instruments, means to achieve goals or benefits, in the consumer’s mind. They arouse emotions because they are perceived as a source of something beneficial. The positive emotions are direct outcomes of these anticipations. Their various symbolizations (name, logo, font, emblem, etc’) have little impact of their own. Their importance is mainly as identifiers of sources of already attributed and anticipated benefits.

The act of branding has ten different meanings which are ten different ways to create instrumentality or usefulness beyond the tangible benefits which the product/ service/ company themselves can provide.

Creating a conceived linkage to a tangible benefit

The most basic level of branding is creating a conceived linkage between the brand name and other identifiers and a tangible benefit. Huge brands like Pantene shampoo which promise to amend the six symptoms of unhealthy hair look, work in this level.

Forming a mental context

A “mental context” is a concept or an organizing principle which allows the consumer to conceive originally unrelated facts (such as: the various marketing activities of a company) as connected by a guiding intent or by some other common factor. For example: should you stumbled into a hotel like the “Hudson” or the “Royalton” in the heart of Manhattan, you are promised pleasure on different levels, but if you know you’re in a “Boutique Hotel” your stay becomes a very different experience altogether.

Directing an experience

This is essentially a hypnotic effect, in some cases related to Placebo. The branding here is the creation of an expectation which alters the sensed experience and enables the consumer a richer experience than what the product alone can provide him with. For instance, the expectation that an energy drink like “Red Bull” will energize, makes the consumers feel a wave of energy beyond the physical effect of the drink.

Creating a means of self presentation

Here the branding creates a symbol with a meaning that is well known to everybody in a relevant group, which enables the consumer to characterize himself. The brand “ABSOLUT vodka” became a way for yuppies to signal their yuppieness to other yuppies and so became a huge success.

Creating a means to deliver a message

The branding role in this approach is to create a symbol of another kind, its meaning known for everybody as well. The diamonds giant “De Beers” made the diamond a means of expressing commitment, making the physical fact that a diamond is indestructible a metaphor for the lastingness of a relationship.

Building a social-cultural authority

The next branding approach is the creation of an authority which the consumers can use as a guide, to help them understand what’s happening around them and to inform them which behavioral ways are normative, what will make them happier etc’. The brand “Apple” depicted the personal computer, not only as a working tool but also as a device for self expression and creativity.

Graphic designers frequently play a prominent role in launching or repositioning a company. When they create a look (or new look) for a company’s stationery, brochure, ads and web site, this often goes by the name of an “identity package.” Don’t let this convenient term mislead you into believing that a company’s identity consists of merely the logo and look. No, every company has an identity or image in the minds of its customers comprised of at least nine other factors besides the graphic look.

How your market perceives your company should be deliberate, calculated and coherent rather than accidental and confused. Think about how you’d like your company to be perceived along these dimensions. Then investigate whether or not actual perceptions match your intent – and adjust your marketing to reinforce the qualities you want your customers to associate with you.

Components of Company Identity

1. Values. Do you stand for stability, like Prudential insurance? Innovation, like 3M? Educational curiosity, like the Discovery Channel? Social consciousness, like Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream? Child-friendliness, like McDonald’s? Rugged individualism, like Marlboro cigarettes? Personal freedom, like Harley-Davidson motorcycles? Serendipity and tradition, like the local hardware store whose owner knows where everything is and has parts and tools dating back to the previous century?

2. Personality. If the company were a vegetable, which one would it be? If it were a cartoon character, would it be Bugs Bunny, Wonder Woman, Road Runner or Dick Tracy? If it were someone in a high school yearbook, would it be Most Likely to Succeed, the Homecoming Queen, the Nerd or the Class Clown? From the company’s personality can flow ad campaigns, kinds of special events to sponsor, company colors and typefaces, corporate gift selection, even the talent chosen to record company voice mail messages.

3. Behavior. Your company’s image includes not only how you promote yourselves but also how you act toward customers and the public. Things like how you answer the phone, how you greet shoppers, how cheerfully you correct mistakes or accept returns, how aggressively you negotiate contracts all become bound up in one composite image.

4. Price. How much you cost in comparison to competitors often becomes part of your image. If you’re tempted to keep price out of the equation until someone expresses a desire to buy, think twice. When you’re candid about pricing, you cut down on the number of “tire-kickers” you need to deal with. Above all, make sure your pricing fits with the other components of your image.

5. Range. Customers should understand the spectrum of products and services that you sell. If you handle only, say, commercial cleaning accounts and not residential, or only, say, bookings of locally based and not nationally prominent speakers, make sure your specialty becomes part of your company image. If it’s not part of your company name or company slogan, include your focus in your ads, brochures, sales letters and other promotional pieces.

A happy, cheerful disposition is a feeling that is always acknowledged. And a simple smile or happy word is worth a thousand sales.

In the business industry it is important to be happy. From a simple encounter with a customer to the intricate marketing materials, it is important to convey an aura of warm and friendly feeling. All customers love a friendly staff that is why even with the written promotional materials it is vital that it should breathe the spirit of glee and optimism. However, you should not lie in your words in order to be cheerful in your advertising. What is important is that you use happy statements that say nothing about anger, envy and disappointment.

A happy, cheerful disposition is equally important when creating your own greeting cards. Greeting cards may be simple but they are powerful in conveying happy thoughts or angry feelings. Since Valentines is a few weeks away, if you are considering giving your special someone a card it may do you good if you carefully choose the card that means exactly how you feel and do not settle for a card that is just OK. It should be the perfect card for the right person. But oftentimes choosing the right card is already a challenge. You go to your local gift shop in search for the perfect card but you just can’t find the right one. You picked one; it has the right words but has the wrong picture. You saw one that has the right image but when you opened it, it was blank. You still have to compose what you want to say to the recipient.