Print a Catalog, Drive Real Results: A Smartpress Case Study
Your business has a lot of products and services to offer. But how do you show it all off? How do you communicate your capabilities to your customers? The answer is simple: Print a catalog.
It’s advice we had to take ourselves. When our Smartpress Sales team needed a comprehensive marketing asset to share with clients, we turned to catalogs to highlight the breadth of our offerings. See how it became a source of education and engagement – and why you’ll want one for your own business.
Key Takeaways
- Smartpress used catalogs to showcase their full range of products and services, address gaps in customer knowledge and create meaningful, tactile brand experiences that stand out from digital-only marketing.
- Thoughtful layout, premium printing options and digital integration turned a single catalog into a multi-channel marketing asset that drives engagement and inspires new client projects.
- The catalog boosted sales metrics, increased customer interaction and strengthened brand credibility, proving that print, when executed strategically, remains a powerful tool in a digital-first world.
Our Sales Team Loves Print
With a wealth of print knowledge and the ability to personalize each customer interaction, our Sales team is at the heart of Smartpress. Living and breathing print, each team member approaches every customer exchange with genuine care and nerd-level expertise that can’t be beat.
They understand what printing solutions make the most sense and how to guide clients toward the results they’re aiming for. So when they said there was an opportunity to capitalize on, we listened.
“We wanted clients to know that we can be their one-stop print shop, rather than having multiple print vendors.”
Challenges That Led to a Catalog
Our Sales team builds relationships with clients day in and day out, and in all those exchanges, they noticed two recurring challenges:
- Lack of knowledge: Our customers didn’t know about all of Smartpress’ custom printing products and capabilities.
- Not enough communication: We weren’t chatting, emailing, calling or video consulting enough with our customers, which we know can improve their print know-how and boost our metrics.
The print marketing asset that could tackle both challenges? A print catalog. Adam Breiter, our director of sales and customer experience, had high hopes:
“It was really about sparking awareness of our full product capabilities. Our customers often start with one need but may not be aware of our full offerings,” he said. “We wanted them to know that we can be their one-stop print shop, rather than having multiple print vendors.”
Direct Mail Perfect Bound Booklet: 80# Coated Matte White Cover with 100# Coated Matte White Text Interior and flat matte UV coating on exterior, 6 x 9″
“This print initiative remarkably enhanced the effectiveness of our emails, social media and digital marketing campaigns.”
Why Print a Catalog
Whether you’re printing a business catalog or promotional product catalogs, the format gives you plenty of space to tell your story – any story – in an accessible, familiar way.
“We print a lot of great projects for our clients, so it was time to show them some of our own work,” said Breiter. “This catalog took Smartpress from their monitor to their hands. Instead of scrolling and clicking, clients could flip through pages and be inspired for their next project.”
That whole “getting away from scrolling” vibe was key. It’s the physical nature of the thing that makes the most impact (ahem, aside from our premium online printing skills).
“Unlike emails and digital ads, a catalog sticks around – on desks, coffee tables, even conference rooms. It cuts through the noise and makes your business look serious and credible,” said Marketing Director Lisa Middleton. “And here’s the magic: people love flipping through them. A tactile experience is the smartest way to get noticed, remembered and connected.”
Of course, we created a digital version of our catalog, too. A marketing strategy that integrates both print and digital is a strong one. “With QR codes, catalogs are the perfect bridge back to your online store,” said Middleton. “This print initiative remarkably enhanced the effectiveness of our emails, social media and digital marketing campaigns.”
How to Print a Catalog that Stands Out
Multiple Smartpress teams came together to create our catalog. From designing and printing to catalog marketing and implementation, it was the definition of a joint effort (teamwork is one of our company values, after all).
See how our Marketing team strategized the promotional side of things and how our Creative team designed an effective layout (and how you can, too).
How to Build a Marketing Strategy for Product Catalogs
If there’s one thing we know about marketing campaigns, it’s that they need to be thoughtful with messaging, channels and audiences outlined. And a marketing catalog campaign is no different.
“I first needed to understand Sales’ goal for the catalog: to open our clients’ eyes to all the things we print that could help drive success for their companies,” said Middleton. “Then I crafted a creative brief for our Design team that listed the key products and their unique selling propositions, our specialty print capabilities and exclusive services our competitors don’t offer – all the things that differentiate us and make us the premium printer in the industry.”
4 Marketing Tactics for Successful Catalog Campaigns
Using the catalog to bridge the gap between “the tangible experience and digital convenience,” Middleton employed four marketing tactics:
1. Be authentic: “We wanted to make our catalog personable, so we sprinkled in quotes from our clients and a powerful statement from our CEO that encompasses Smartpress’ culture and mission.”
2. Utilize QR codes: “By adding QR codes, we brought engaging components of our website to customers’ fingertips. They can easily watch behind-the-scenes footage of our printing process, view a demonstration of our brochure folds, navigate to our homepage, even schedule a video consultation.”
3. Leverage mail services: “We uploaded a segmented list of our existing customer base and our Mail team did their thing. The Sales team also helped me purchase a list of potential new clients who fit target demographics across the U.S. Our Sales and Mailing teams took care of everything, no worries whatsoever. (And they do the same for our clients each and every day. It’s super easy because they take care of it all.)”
4. Create Omnichannel Integration: “To amplify the impact of our printed catalog, we layered in an email journey. This integration of print and digital turned a single touchpoint into an omnichannel experience that extended the reach of the print piece and pulled customers deeper into our brand.”
Catalog Design with a Premium Feel
When you decide to print a catalog with Smartpress, you have a lot of custom printing options, including a crucial one: types of binding. We skipped a classic saddle stitch and bypassed the utilitarian wire bound, opting instead for the clean, professional perfect bound. For Creative Director Ferenc Andahazy, that choice was deliberate.
“We decided to go rogue and use a perfect bound booklet because of the amount of content we wanted to include – we like pictures, alright! Our final layout featured prominent images that take up a lot of visual real estate compared to plain text, but we felt it was worth it because of how impactful they were.”
Another thing that clinched it for the perfect binding? Page count. “A saddle stitch booklet can hold a max of 48 pages, less if you want it to lay flatter. With our copy and images, we more than doubled that. A perfect bound can accommodate lots of pages and is generally considered a more premium product. All this made it a great fit for the brand quality we wanted to convey.”
As a premium catalog printer (among other marketing assets), we know the importance of customizing your catalog, so we make it easy with tons of paper stocks, paper weights, specialty finishes for your cover, even printing on the spine.
“It’s a real example of exactly the kind of product and quality our customers can expect to get when they print with us.”
3 Design Tips for Easy Catalog Printing Online
When it comes to designing a catalog, Andahazy stressed the significance of letting your goals guide you: “Your catalog should reflect your brand positively, communicate your products and services clearly and stand out amidst the sea of other mail your audience receives on a regular basis.”
After he selected our catalog format, Andahazy’s design process went like this:
- Focus on the cover: “It needed to be impactful, memorable and instantly recognizable as the Smartpress brand. We selected familiar imagery that we’ve used on our website and in past campaigns, and Senior Designer Nate Johannes paired that with a full flood of our signature Smartpress blue.”
- Play with interior layouts: “Nate created a variety of layouts focused on making our large amount of content simple to browse and easy to understand. He designed the category pages in a blue flood so readers who were scanning could find products quickly. He also created different spreads with grid layouts that combined clean typography with a variety of image areas.”
- Highlight your strengths: “At Smartpress, we have a big product image library, so we leaned into it. We selected images for the products that showed them in context, highlighted their key features and emphasized our print quality.”
And while the catalog was created to boost various metrics, the ultimate goal was to produce something we’re proud of, too. “It’s a real example of exactly the kind of product and quality our customers can expect to get when they print at Smartpress,” said Andahazy. “We make it easy for any company or creative to execute a project like this with simple online ordering and expert service.”
One Catalog Boosted Metrics Across the Board
So after all that strategizing and designing, did print catalogs pay off for us? Yes, and Breiter’s seen the proof: “We’re seeing increased purchasing behavior from users who received a physical catalog. Additionally, the follow-up emails corresponding to this program have achieved our highest reply rate to date, indicating strong engagement.”
Breiter also said the catalog provided some much-needed inspiration: “It sparked ideas for new print projects for our clients, and a couple even requested the specific details of our catalog’s specifications (to potentially send their own).”
The catalog was also a success from a marketing perspective, with Middleton seeing a plethora of positive metrics:
- Engagement: “The follow-up emails the Marketing team sent to catalog recipients had higher-than-average click-to-open-rates.”
- Traffic: “The QR codes we incorporated into the catalog drove impressive new traffic to our site.”
- Time: “We’re now including the digital copy in lots of our emails and social media. Nearly 1,200 people have already viewed it – and they’re spending an average of 4.5 minutes reading it, so we know they’re loving it!”
Print a Catalog for Your Business with Smartpress
Printing a catalog isn’t just about showing products – it’s about creating connections and driving results. “People still enjoy a tangible piece. A printed catalog gives you a less distracting way to browse,” said Breiter.
By combining thoughtful design, premium printing and smart integration with digital channels, our catalog engaged customers, sparked new ideas and increased our metrics – just as we hoped it would.
“In a digital world, it’s more important than ever to provide your followers with a tangible brand artifact,” concluded Andahazy. “By combining physical and digital touchpoints, you gain credibility and trust. Your brand instantly becomes more than a website.”
