9 replies to this topic

[Chris Miller]

I know of Lanco, Tagmaster, Primeline and Bulletline but are there any others?

I'm interested in companies that have a wide range of products so that we can use these mini catalogs as our own.

Who else has mini versions of their catalogs?

[DBeavers]

Chris,

The Magnet Group, (Magnet, LLC, Benchmark Clocks, and 5 other lines) has a 26 page compilation that is customizable.

RCC had one in the past, so you might want to check with them.

Bic has a mini-catalog, but I don't know if they will imprint it, or if you have to do labels.

Dennis

[Stan]

DBeavers said:

Chris,

The Magnet Group, (Magnet, LLC, Benchmark Clocks, and 5 other lines) has a 26 page compilation that is customizable.

RCC had one in the past, so you might want to check with them.

Bic has a mini-catalog, but I don't know if they will imprint it, or if you have to do labels.

Dennis

Lanco imprints and personalizes for our sales force. I don't know what their policy is on quantities etc.

[jacquez]

Chris,
Today, we received a mini Webb catalog. Don't know if they personalize.

[KEY-BAK]

In my past life with another supplier...we printed more than 150K mini catalog per year not including an additional 100K full size catalogs and offered them to distributors at no charge with their company information printed on the front.

It was still very difficult to gage the sales result from them. But we had key distributor that we had pushed heavily and they had found them to be very useful. It was a really effective marketing campaign when we were able to tie them into a marketing and advertising campaign. I would put the mini catalog cover on the back cover of every ASI show directory. They were both the same size so it looked like everyone was carrying a catalog. Since my departure the program was eventually killed.

The one strong advise I can offer for a mini catalog is to spend the extra money and do a layout designed for that size. I think one of the big industry (lazy) way out/mistake when it comes to a mini catalog is to take the existing large catalog and shrink it to an unreadable size (ie: Prime, Bullet). Use the same font and text size in the full line catalog as a mini, I can not stress that enough. Trust me on this, the distributors will thank you.

Speaking of catalogs, I get the feeling that distributors do not find much use for a THICK encycopedia from LogoMark. How many distributors have actually gone through it and have been able to navigate it or is the Norwood approach better; by providing a number of different catalog in different product category?

[MayB]

Waldor, Tagmaster and Bullet have mini-catalogs.

MayB

[CPILine]

We at CPILine (ASI 46499) offer mini catalogs. They are designed to fit in a #9 or #10 envelope, or can be self-mailed by placing an adhesive tab on them. They are available in quantity, free of charge.

[Tickettimm]

Webb Company does offer a personalized version of a full-line mini catalog. The 2006 version will be available in December or January. You can order the customized catalogs in the fourth quarter of the calendar year. Catalogs for 2005 were $100 for 100 mini catalogs. The price for the 2006 version is expected to be the same price.

[biggerfish]

I got a note from Lanco this week - they're closing out their remaining 2005 mini catalogs, with imprinting. Amazingly cheap, like .50¢, super low (50!) minimum. I'm gonna use them for customers that wait until the last minute spend the remainder of their 2005 budgets.

I personally think sticking Labels on catalogs looks cheesy, but sometimes there's nothing else you can do. Like the little Tradenet Magnet piece, and "Promos for Under a Dollar" - these look good, and they're very handy. But there's not really a stock label that fits nicely on these on either the front or back.

Maybe suppliers should take self-customization into consideration when designing their blank end-user pieces - maybe offer templates for distributors to use when designing their own labels, suggesting proper sizes or Avery item numbers etc.

And leave off ALL company info: obviously phone numbers, fax numbers and web site, but in addition leave out Industry Identifier, Company Name, etc. If I'm going to the expense of getting this piece into a buyer's hand, I'd like to not make it so easy to shop price from different distributors selling identical merchandise.

While I'm on another rant, I wish suppliers would not add all that "ordering and art specs" verbiage to these. I don't want my customer to be scared away by seeing all the potential additional charges. For example, some suppliers have disclaimers about Art charges in their pieces - I can usually overcome any "art" or "typesetting" issues before the order goes to the supplier.

[adspecip]

Tickettimm said:

Webb Company does offer a personalized version of a full-line mini catalog. The 2006 version will be available in December or January. You can order the customized catalogs in the fourth quarter of the calendar year. Catalogs for 2005 were $100 for 100 mini catalogs. The price for the 2006 version is expected to be the same price.

I probably would have ordered these in the past, but the web addres is clearly shown on the catalog. I won't give any client a factory's web site unless I can be guaranteed that there is no way for a client to contact the factory direct. In other words totally end-user frindly (that includes no: Contact us or find a distributor info). Sorry.