Printed Catalog ROI Not So Good, Digital Much, Much Better

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In the good old days we ran newspaper ads and pointed to the circulation numbers and told the boss we did a great job, “Look how many people saw our ad”.  Today, thanks to digital media, we have to show a strong ROI or we won’t have a boss for long (not because he leaves the company).

Here’s an interesting chart from the DMA where the ROI for a printed catalog just doesn’t measure up to the what other tools are available to marketers today.

catalog-roi

Seeing this I don’t think anyone would say that printed catalogs should go away, but we should make sure of two things.  First, if we do a printed catalog do we drive consumers to a website to help sell our products and to better track the results?  Secondly, do we have these other bases covered?  Especially email, search and Internet display.

The Internet has become much better at determining  where the consumer is when they reach our site or respond to a printed catalog, search ad or a display ad.  So why not add local dealer information and local promotions to our efforts and get an even better ROI?  (Now the boss leaves the company because you get his job).

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