Cover story: get readers inside your catalog by strutting your stuff on the front

Entrepreneur, May, 1996 by Jerry Fisher

Get readers inside your catalog by strutting your stuff on the front.

The sidewalk sale is a selling device almost as old as retailing itself. The earliest storekeeper to use it--probably the loinclothed proprietor of Bedrock Chisel & Mallet--was most likely having a slow day when he finally decided, "Well, if they're not gonna come in to see my stuff, maybe I'll just bring some of it out."

Thus the sidewalk sale was born, and it's certainly stood the test of time. From Calcutta to St. Croix and every place in between, storefronts spill out the goods from within. Apples and oranges, shirts and pants, pottery and plants, Elvis paintings and throw rugs are all out there for customers to poke through. Even mall stores band together these days to hand-truck their goods out to meet the public at Saturday parking-lot sales. And, sure enough, rubbernecking shoppers driving past pull in to check them out.

So it's not unexpected that the "virtual" sidewalk sale evolved among retailers of another sort . . . catalogers. They started taking goods from inside and displaying them outside--on the cover, that is. I don't know if it started with the granddaddy of catalogs, Sears Roebuck & Co., but today some of Sears' progeny are having a field day with the idea. Hardware superstores certainly do it, with their pulpy 20-page handouts. The cover of my favorite computer products catalog is a colorful montage of software and hardware as lively as a Calcutta street market.

And I'm betting that other catalogers, though they may at first feel it's a little crass to peddle their wares this way, will eventually follow suit. In fact, I'm recommending that very idea to a catalog entrepreneur who may be able to get the jump on her competitor by giving the sidewalk sale cover a try.

Street Sale Scholarship

Carol Creeggan, who runs Sacramento's Learning Exchange, a 20-year-old provider of extracurricular educational and recreational programs, wrote to say she's feeling the hot breath of an aggressive competitor who recently moved into town. "I need some ammunition," she said. She actually has the ammunition she needs--it's just not easy to see. My recommendation: Display some of the truly fascinating programs she's assembled on the cover of her catalog so the world can see what she has to offer. Instead of a storefront, her cover needs to be a street sale.

The Learning Exchange offers more than 300 programs of night and weekend classes, covering everything from arts and recreation to business and women's issues, including sessions with big names like writer Kurt Vonnegut (course: "How to Get a Job Like Mine") and personal-growth author John Bradshaw (course: "Creating Healthy Relationships"). A dilettante's delight of how-to programs runs the gamut of eclectic learning: From Conversational Spanish and Facial Fitness to Divorce Mediation and Kick Boxing (the last two perhaps available for combined study?), you can study it all through the Learning Exchange.

To give Creeggan an idea of the direction I'd go in transforming her cover, I recreated the busy cover style of a MacWAREHOUSE computer products catalog and plopped the Learning Exchange's logo right in the middle of it. Imagine having little vignettes with photos and headlines such as these surrounding the logo:

"Join a Book Club! Discover new literature and new friends. See page 6."

"Toxic People: 10 ways to handle people who make your life miserable. See page 9."

"Billiards: Let's play pool! See page 26."

"Movie Clubs: Join fellow film lovers in a lively discussion group. See page 31."

"Learn to Type in Six Short Hours: Learn the basics in two easy sessions. See page 38."

You get the idea.

The MacWAREHOUSE catalog has 19 product vignettes on its front cover. The Learning Exchange cover could probably accommodate an equal number--and more of the same on the back. Then, whether the catalog is delivered to homes or to free distribution points around the city, the cover works much, much harder to draw people inside.

Inside Inspiration

The guts of the 40- to 66-page Learning Exchange catalog are formulaic but quite readable. The courses, and the benefits you'll get from them, are enticingly described in block copy of 100 words or more. There is also the occasional testimonial from a satisfied attendee. It's similar to all catalogs in this genre, which makes for a bit of eye-weariness by the time you reach "Racewalking--the next step" on page 29, but the modular format of the items invites browsing, skimming and program-surfing. I'll leave it to a layout artist to figure out how these pages could have more visual relief.

From my perspective, however, another element to distinguish the Learning Exchange catalog could be the use of regular sidebars with inspiring success stories. It wouldn't matter whether the people spotlighted took "Introduction to Bonsai" or "How to Find a Job on the Internet." As long as they went on to parlay their new knowledge into a passionate hobby or satisfying new career, they are success-story material.