Month: February 2017

Research and Product Information Management

Your product information management solution does more than centralize your digital assets into one location. You also receive a boost to your research toolkit, whether you want to know which products work best for certain customer segments or the what categories are getting a lot of attention from your distribution partners. Research and product information management actually have a lot of helpful overlap. 

Optimizing Product Categories

Which goods and groups get accessed the most in your PIM system? Take a look at the assets used the most in your organization, then add more resources to these popular areas, such as additional product photos and guides. This will help you focus your efforts where they’ll be most useful, and give you a solid plan for future product development.

Discovering Distribution Partners Activity

Do you know which products and services your distribution partners care about? Look through your PIM solution to identify broad and granular trends. If you see underserved areas, reach out to new distribution partners who specialize in those categories to really narrow in on research and product information management trends.

Providing Teams with Product Information

How long does it take for your customer-facing staff to find product and service details? Your PIM system is an important part of efficient research for these teams, whether they need to talk about product attributes, share images of a particular angle or require the associated FAQ. Employees go directly to this easy-to-use system, rather than searching through multiple hard drives and cloud storage locations.

Full Product Performance Visibility Through ERP Integration

Your PIM software has a lot of functionality on its own, but it becomes even more useful for your research efforts when you have enterprise resource planning integration available. You can pull sales data for your items along with other information from your analytics system. Want to know about the products asked about the most on customer service lines? Work with the contact manager solution data. The full product visibility throughout your organization puts you in a great position to expand your business.

PIM solutions do more than just put your products in one place. The next time you plan a new development project or need insight into sales support tool creation, turn to PIM.

Improve Your Research

Catsy is a product information management and publishing platform that unifies all of your product data efforts while making it easier for learning to be done across departments. Not only can product findings, graphs, and statistics be stored in Catsy, but they can be linked to products and their related images. When all information is unified, business organization related to product data becomes a much simpler feat. Sign up for a demo at Catsy.com/contact-us for more information.

Sources

https://www.desk.com/blog/five-tactics-get-sales-marketing-customer-support-same-page

Product Designer Quotes

Ready to dive into your design project? A little boost in the form of these product designer quotes can be the best way to kickstart your day–especially when you’re feeling stuck. These ten inspiring design quotes are just the sort of creative fuel necessary to kick those ideas into overdrive, taking the design process from simple concept to stunning creation.

1. “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs

2. “Our role is to imagine products that don’t exist and guide them to life.” – Apple designer Christopher Stringer

3. “It’s all about one thing: creative problem-solving to get the story out.” – Bob Greenberg, founder, chairman and CEO of R/GA

4. “The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.” – designer, educator and author Victor Papanek

5. “Good design is good business.” – retired IBM CEO Thomas Watson, Junior

6. “Only when the design fails does it draw attention to itself; when it succeeds, it’s invisible.” – typographer and book designer John D. Berry

7. “(Design is) a plan for arranging elements in such a way as to best accomplish a particular purpose.” – furniture designer Charles Eames

8. “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” – designer Joe Sparano

9. “Like all forms of design, visual design is about problem solving, not about personal preference or unsupported opinion.” – author and product designer Bob Baxley in “Making the Web Work”

10. “When we look for new technologies and ways to guide the future, then we, like Leonardo (da Vinci), should think about humans and their needs. Leonardo was concerned about commerce, security, education, medicine and urban design. He was very eclectic in his thoughts and he was also very practical. He wanted to see real things get built. He also was concerned about aesthetics. (…) Instead of trying to apply the latest new technology, we start by asking what is it that people want to do in their lives?” – professor, computer scientist and author Ben Shneiderman

Source list:

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/the-guts-of-a-new-machine.html

2. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-samsung-designer-idUSBRE87001O20120801

3. https://wearejh.com/news/storytelling-engage-client-audience/

4. http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/victor-papanek-a-rebel-with-a-cause.html

5. https://www.fastcodesign.com/1670679/why-good-design-is-finally-a-bottom-line-investment

6. http://johndberry.com/blog/2014/05/28/big-on-the-web/

7. http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/arq/n49/art11.pdf

8. https://oxidedesign.com/a-quote-on-design/

9. http://bit.ly/2j31ck5 

10. http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=763933

Print Digital Catalogs

Should you offer print digital catalogs at the same time? Some businesses worry about these marketing materials competing with one another. They don’t want the formats to cannibalize buyers from one channel to the other, rather than growing your overall user base. Thankfully, you don’t have to worry about this issue. Digital and print catalogs work as useful counterparts. They complement each other and your other product marketing efforts. Here are a few ways you benefit from catalogs in multiple formats.

Capture Buyers Across Multiple Channels

Customers come and go as they please across your marketing channels. You can’t control their movements, but you can make every effort to get your products in front of them. Your print catalog gets into the hands of offline customers who may have limited exposure to digital channels. Everyone in their family gets a chance to look through the pages, and it stays on the coffee table when friends come over.

Your digital catalog provides online and mobile viewers with a handy reference to your product line, prices and availability. They browse through the collection to get an idea of the products that meet their needs and look for the most important details.

Differing Buyer Behavior

Print Digital catalog viewers often have an idea of the product category they want to purchase. They might not know the specific item that will go in their cart, but they use your online product pages to narrow down their choices. A print reader looks through the catalog from front to back. They get exposed to a wide product selection, including items that are outside of their normal areas of interest. The researchers and browsers are both well served by two catalog formats. The digital version provides a comprehensive listing option, while your printed materials provide carefully curated selections.

Data-Driven Catalogs

You have access to customer purchase patterns, popular items and other forms of data. This information isn’t restricted to your online experience. Use a data-driven approach for your print catalogs. Buyer trends, sales volume and current inventory can create a well-optimized piece of sales collateral that has the potential to boost your conversions.

Print and digital aren’t mortal enemies. In fact, when it comes to catalogs they’re two sides of the same coin. An integrated approach with the offline and online customer experience serves you well in the long run.

Sources:

https://www.cultivate-communications.com/2015/09/are-print-catalogs-still-relevant-in-todays-digital-world/

http://www.walsworth.com/blog/rediscover-the-power-of-print-catalogs

Digital Marketing 2017

The start of the new year gives you an excellent opportunity to plan for your upcoming year. You can apply the lessons learned from 2016 to push your business further than you ever have before. But before you begin, have you finished up your digital marketing plan for 2017? Here are a few trends and predictions to keep in mind when you’re putting this strategy together.

Are Snapchat and Instagram in your social media list?

Your social media marketing strategy should go beyond the usual suspects. Snapchat and Instagram have consistently strong growth in user adoption and engagement. These platforms, along with Pinterest, also emphasize visual content. Good product photography and other images can go a long way with your followers on these channels. 

Live streaming brings authentic experiences to customers

Periscope, Facebook Live and Twitch.tv have paved the way for live streaming to enter must-have product marketing channels. Strategize ways to engage with your buyers, such as taking them behind the scenes into your product development process or showing off the manufacturing floor. Don’t write off anything as too boring or mundane. You might work in this environment on a day-to-day basis, but it’s an entirely new experience for the buyers. 

Influencer Marketing increases its reach

Word-of-mouth recommendations are one of the most valuable things you can get in product marketing. Influential social media users, websites and celebrities can make a brand’s year with the right mention. Influencer marketing gives you the opportunity to work with these prominent people to build brand awareness and consumer trust. 

Do you have a strong content marketing strategy?

Content marketing continues to act as a cornerstone for e-commerce companies and retailers. Consumers get worn out by the advertisements they encounter on every channel,  but they still enjoy consuming valuable and relevant content. Think of ways you can help your customer base with their challenges, keep them up to date on important trends and build an ongoing relationship. You improve customer loyalty and their overall lifetime value when they think of you as a trusted brand. 

It’s not too late to develop a digital marketing plan that will move your business forward into the future. Utilizing Catsy is a great way to connect all of your teams and partners to your product data so they can be better informed on what products are being offered and how they are being marketed. Pay close attention to these trends as you find new ways to connect with customers, elevate your brand and sell your products. 

Sources:

https://www.sponsoredlinx.com.au/blog/online-marketing/2017-digital-marketing-trends-for-small-business/

https://www.sponsoredlinx.com.au/blog/online-marketing/2017-digital-marketing-trends-for-small-business/

Product Marketing Inspiration

You have an endless amount of options when it comes to product marketing. Dozens of channels and thousands of techniques make it difficult to hone in on the ones that work best for you. Take a look at what some top brands do to get their items into the hands of consumers for some product marketing inspiration. 

Rent the Runway takes a full life cycle approach to the buyer’s journey. The company helps customers get the most out of their clothing selections by presenting stylist recommendations for a complete outfit.

Method captures attention by making their cleaning products the star of the show. They throw out boring and stale bottles and replace them with colorful options that brighten up the room. Collaborations with designers and artists emphasize the company’s values that cleaning should be fun. Can you subvert a common problem in your market segment and transform it the way Method has?

L’Oreal uses a social media strategy that focuses exactly on what their buyers want to see – how the makeup looks when it’s on. They get up close to their models to show off the latest looks, allowing viewers to imagine what it would look like with their styles. Consider the most important aspect of your product for potential buyers and hone in on that for your marketing.

Microsoft has many brands, so their product marketing landscape is complex. One way this organization stays on top of each team’s efforts is through a brand czar. This position overlooks the entire social marketing strategy to ensure adherence to best practices and to maintain consistency in an omni channel environment. You don’t need dozens of product lines to benefit from this tip. Put a social media coordinator in place to keep an eye out for any problems.

Fitbit goes over the benefits of its products and then goes one step further. Potential buyers learn why they should care about the functionality of this wearable device. The average consumer may not get excited about the features on their own, but they do when they learn about the impact on their day to day lives.

Aweber generates interest in its products by leveraging user-generated content from important influencers in the market. Free trials let this important demographic get hands-on experience so they can form their own opinion. Sometimes the hardest part of product marketing is getting the first customers through the door. When you opt for free samples, you invest resources into a shortcut for this dilemma.

How Catsy Can Help 

Catsy Product Marketing enables you to organize all of your product information in one central repository that can be accessed by all teams. This makes it easier for your departments to be kept up to date with the latest product photography, marketing language, and brand strategy. Marketing can create automated collateral with updated branding in a fraction of the time traditional publishing takes.

Sources:

Virtues of Good Design

Your business needs more than great products to achieve success. Without a good design that supports your messaging and sales, you damage the customer experience and make it more difficult to turn lookers into buyers. Here are the design characteristics that contribute to your success.

Brand Consistency

Print catalogs, price books, spec sheets or digital listings — it doesn’t matter what type of sales collateral you’re designing. It all needs consistent branding to create a seamless transition from piece to piece. If your printed materials have completely different fonts and colors from your online experience, you damage your branding efforts and the consumer’s trust.

Good Structure and Flow

When you look at the information on the page or screen, does its structure make sense in its context? For example, a product page should have the name of the item and its price front and center. Talk about benefits or the way it solves the buyer’s problems. The technical details and additional information come after that. This structure catches consumers’ attentions and gives them the information they need in a logical fashion.

Quality Product Photo Experience

If you sell online, your visuals are the only way consumers can get an idea of what they’re getting. Even brick and mortar retailers benefit from a strong photo experience for their mobile and catalog shoppers. You need well-lit photography that covers every angle. Buyers do more than look at the front and back when they’re shopping in a store. They pick up items, turn them around in all directions and get an up-close look at all the details. Emulate that in every channel.

Clear Checkout Process

How hard is it for a consumer to figure out how to buy an item? You need a smooth, seamless process so the buyers don’t have a chance to develop any sales objections. Spend time testing the user experience and put yourself in the customers’ shoes. You have plenty of information about your average customers. Do you think they can get through your checkout without running into anything confusing?

Good design is an essential part of your company’s success. When you put as much of an emphasis on this element as you do every other part of your business, you position yourself for growth.

Sources:

https://blog.optimizely.com/2015/10/27/ecommerce-homepage-design-best-practices/

http://acquireconvert.com/best-ecommerce-sites/