Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Best Practice Cases
For this trial product, there was no interaction; customers still had to call on the phone
to get more information or place an order. Even so, Welco was satisfied that this was a
good technology to incorporate into their marketing mix. They were agreed that the
digital edition would not replace the print catalog; it would be one of multiple channels
to their customers.
They put plans for a full digital catalog together and discussed them with YUDU. They
had various options in terms of what types of products they could turn into digital
catalogs; for example, they could produce multiple i-brochures by categories of
merchandise. They decided to turn their entire workplace and education catalogs into
digital catalogs. They judged the healthcare sector not to be ready to accept i-brochures
at this time, owing to its more complex purchasing process; two sectors were enough to
start with.
Welco launched its big workplace catalog in March 2008 at www.welcobigbook.co.uk
using YUDU Publishing Pro. At 926 pages, it is one of the largest digital editions ever
created; it lists 30,000 products in 21 categories. As of March 2008, YUDU has also
developed the education products digital catalog for Welco.
The Welco Big Book digital catalog takes advantage of YUDU’s tabbing feature and
separates the book into tabbed sections for each category. On the front page of each
section is a clickable table of contents that takes the viewer to a specific product
category: for example, the “presentation” tab has clickable entries for such product
categories as Projection Screens and Flipchart Easels. When customers view catalog
pages, they can use YUDU’s continuous zoom feature to get a close look at product
photos.
Welco has supported direct e-commerce with a small number of its B-to-B customers,
and the new digital catalog provides an alternative ordering channel. A viewer of the
workplace catalog can click on a button marked Show Order Form and enter items (by
product code, quantity, and price) into an electronic order form that can be emailed or
printed and faxed to Welco. Welco currently calls customers to validate the order before
processing it.
Results
� Welco was able to put together a digital edition of its catalog with much less
effort and at far lower cost than it would take to build an e-commerce Web site.
� Welco’s customers and customer service staff were both pleased with the 56-
page trial catalog.
Lessons Learned
� Welco doesn’t see digital catalogs replacing print catalogs, but it does give them
a lot of possibilities. If they decide to offer products in a new area, they might do
a digital-only catalog. They still have to do product management, artwork, and
design, but they save on costs of printing and mailing.
� The digital edition turns out to give Welco a highly flexible way of marketing to a
very specific group of customers at very low cost. For example, the recent UK
87
©2008 Gilbane Group, Inc. http://gilbane.com