It seems that one of my old posts has started up a little bit of an argument, and I LOVE IT! The post in question is called "Scrap your no names policy" and you'll find it in the archives on the right, so feel free to have a read and chuck your two cents' worth in.
Rather than sparking another controversy this week, I just wanted to let you all know that the brand new Merchandise Mania catalogue is out this week, so if you'd like a copy, please drop me an email and I'll be glad to send one out to you.
Or will I?
'Glad' may be the wrong choice of word here. I may well send you a catalogue but I do find myself wondering why you would want me to do so. The catalogue itself is filled with all of the same generic merchandise that you would see from countless of my competitors. There's nothing wrong with that - it has to appeal to the masses and if we filled it with nothing but weird and wacky things, a lot of people would simply dismiss it.
The fact is however, that in any given year, over 60% of the merchandise that I sell to people was not in the catalogue in the first place. Much of this stems from what I talked about in last week's blog, in that if you do simply look through these books, you're limiting yourselves to a very small piece of a much larger picture.
Think about it. I have access to over 1 million products worldwide. Would you want to trawl through a catalogue with everything in it? Of course not. The sensible path is to get me in to discuss your marketing strategy with you and then start making suggestions as to which items may well bring about the desired result.
Ultimately, and I've said this before, there's no lack of merchandise out there, but there is a lack of application. Branded with a clever message, the ubiquitous pen could become your most powerful marketing ally. Sure, you will have seen it in the catalogue, but I doubt that it would have jumped off of the page for you.
So by all means, call me to take a look at the new catalogue. Just bear in mind that I won't be putting it in the post - I'll be bringing it with me to what promises to be a very enlightening meeting.
Have a good week.
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1 comment:
Paul, you're right. I don't want a new catalogue - although I'm happy to know that there is one.
What I want is the ability to look through a range of products for ideas/starting points, available to me without gathering dust on my desk.
I don't know, something like a website, which is fully searchable, details of which can be stored in a browser and the Outlook contact with your name and number.
Just something that gives me a starting point to discuss with you, when I call.
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