Catalog Printing Tips

 

Okay, by now you know that printing and distributing a catalog will help you sell your product. You know how to design your catalog, but printing questions arise. In this article, I will help you explore all of your options and give you some catalog printing tips you can use.

Let's start with the cover of your catalog. Which printing options should you use for your new catalog cover?

The first catalog printing tip is to print the catalog covers on heavier paper stock than the rest of the catalog. This applies to both the front and the back cover of your catalog. The old adage, "Don't judge a book by its cover," does not apply to catalogs. People won't open your catalog if the cover design and paper quality are poor. If they never open the catalog, well, you get the picture.

Cover stock is the paper you typically print your cover on. This paper is heavier than your catalog's interior pages. This also makes your catalog last longer. If you print your catalog on good paper stock, it will remain on someone's coffee table for others to read for a long time to come.

Second Catalog Printing Tip: You have a lot of options when it comes to printing the interior pages of your catalog. A lot depends on the type of products you sell. For instance, if your catalog is for industrial products, you can probably get away with a much lower grade of paper than you would for a high-end product like jewelry.

The types of paper you can choose from range from newspaper-like stock all the way up to glossy paper that is heavy in weight. Catalogs with a lot of pages typically use the lighter-weight text-stock paper. For catalogs under 20 pages, use the same heavyweight stock as the cover.

Again, the choice of paper stock greatly depends on your product. Glossy heavy paper stock is the best option for high-end products such as furniture, fashions, or jewelry. You have to understand that the heavier the paper and the higher its quality, the more you will need to spend on printing. But you get what you pay for. If you want people to buy your high-end products, then you have to present them in the right way.

Third Catalog Printing Tip Colors: One of the primary benefits of distributing a catalog is the expectation that it will be read by multiple individuals. We estimate that two to three people will read a well-designed catalog.

The colors you choose for your catalog will have a lot to do with how much product people buy and how many people will pick up and browse through your catalog. The importance of both the front and back covers cannot be overstated. If your covers are appealing, people will want to pick them up.

You should print your covers using a 4-color process, particularly if you are selling high-end products. However, opting for the full-color process for all your catalogs will increase your sales.

Depending on your product, you may also want the interior pages to be of similar quality as the covers. For a catalog that sells high-end products, glossy paper with full color for the photos is the only way to go. For an industrial-type catalog, printing with just two colors is usually fine.

Fourth Catalog Printing Tip Binding: This will depend a lot on both what type of product you sell and the number of pages you will have printed. For instance, if your product is high-end or has more than 80 pages, you should instruct your printer to utilize "perfect binding," which involves adhering the pages to the catalog's spine. If your product is less than 80 pages and is of a lower-priced or industrial type, a good printing tip would be to have it bound with saddle stitching and stapled in the middle to keep it together.

Fifth Catalog Printing Tip Choosing a Printer for Your Catalog: Make sure first of all that the printer you choose for your catalog has experience with producing catalogs, not just brochures, business cards, etc. One of the most important catalog tips I can give you is, “Do not let price be the deciding factor in choosing a printer for your catalog.”

I don’t mean the more you spend, the better catalog you will have either. But the opposite is more often true than not. Finding the cheapest catalog printer will likely result in a "cheap"-looking catalog that consumers won't feel compelled to buy from or even read.

Prepare yourself before visiting your catalog printer. You will need to know how many catalogs you want to print. You must determine the desired page count, which is typically a multiple of four pages, such as 4, 8, 12, 16, and so on. You need to know the size you want your catalog to be (8½ x 11, 11 x 17, 8½ x 5, 4¼ x 5, etc.).

You need to know the number of colors you want the cover and the interior pages to be. You must specify the type of paper you wish to use, although your printer can provide you with these options when you visit them. Just keep the catalog printing tips mentioned earlier in mind when choosing the type of paper you want.

Work with your printer to determine the type of binding they offer and the number of times you want to see a proof of the catalog before printing all the copies. This is important. The last thing you want to do is miss a mistake after you have already printed 25,000 catalogs.

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