Booklet vs Catalog

What’s The Difference Between A Booklet And A Catalog?

If you’re ready to launch a direct-mail campaign to your targeted mailing list, printing a booklet or printing a catalog can help you shoot your sales to the moon!

Knowing the difference between a booklet and catalog and when it’s best to use them helps you maximize your return on investment.

The Main Difference Between Booklets And Catalogs:

The biggest difference is simply the number of pages.

A booklet is a short-printed document, which usually consists of 8 pages minimum.

Booklets highlight a very specific product or service in a very visual way. The main goal of booklets is to attract new customers through attention.

A catalog is a list of products or services offered by a company, where the main characteristics are detailed, and the main objective is to inform or sell.

Because of this, catalogs have many more pages than a booklet.

Difference Of Content

The booklet acts as a wake‐up call to potential buyers, and serves as a way to briefly and concisely inform readers about a product or service to highlight your company. Usually they incorporate spectacular and attractive photos and a very concrete phrase to try to draw in the readers and induce the purchase.

On the other hand, catalogs offer readers complete information about each product or service of a company. They usually include an image of the product, a brief and persuasive description explaining the highlights of the item and the price.

Who Is Directed?

Usually the booklets are directed to a specific group of people (only for men, pet owners, children, for workers in a specific sector, etc ...) and thus make their impact more effective. Designing and marketing is the priority to target each audience.

A catalog is aimed at the general public, it does not want to call attention to a specific product but to make known a list of products and provide basic information about them.

Let's take the case of a start‐up company that wants to make itself known. You will have to use a lot of eye‐catching images in order to encourage people to pick up your booklet. When you have already presented a series of targeted booklets, it’s time to focus on publicizing the list of your products, since they already know the company.

Call To Action

It is important to define what your objectives are when designing a booklet or a catalog. Both tend to demand different reactions from readers, in order to create a successful advertising campaign.

The booklets call for a concrete action: purchase, visit our website, and call us.

However, a catalog will be where customers will land as a result of those direct orders.

In conclusion, both forms of advertising are essential, each in its own time. Booklets are essential to publicize companies and products, with the introduction of catalogs in the next marketing phase.

Should I Print A Booklet Or Catalog?

Here’s how to choose between booklet printing and catalog printing.

When It’s Best To Print A Booklet:

• If you sell a few products
• If you sell services and no products
• Your products are very customizable
• Your products are expensive
• You need to provide a lot of information about the product for your customer to research

When It’s Best To Print A Catalog:

• You sell many or hundreds of low-cost products
• Your products are simple to explain

Marketing Using Both A Catalog And Booklet:

Booklets and catalogs can be even more powerful marketing sales tools when they work together!

For example, let’s say you sell dog supplies and accessories. You probably sell oral hygiene products for dogs in your catalog. You can send a booklet that brings awareness to dental diseases in dogs, including tips for prevention. Anyone that owns a dog will find this information important and useful. They may even want to save it to read later.

In your booklet design, include photos of the progression of tooth decay, facts, and other useful information regarding dog’s oral hygiene. You may even mention vet recommended items from your catalog. A few days later, you can send your catalog with a special sale on oral hygiene products for dogs; perhaps a bundled kit.

You can also send the booklet and catalog together. You don’t want to wait too long sending the catalog because your target audience could potentially become someone else’s customer.

Have More Questions About The Difference Between Catalogs And Booklets?

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At PrintStarBooklets.com we also have downloadable design templates to get your catalog or booklet printing project started.