What App Is Best for Making a Catalog?

Your brand likely has hundreds of products available to show off to customers. The only problem? Print catalogs are obsolete in today’s digital world. On top of that, print and PDF catalogs are challenging for marketers to create using traditional design software. 

So, how can marketers make catalogs more easily, and what app can help them achieve this? 

Let’s take a deep dive into the world of product catalogs and how marketers should be creating these valuable resources for their customers. 

How Do I Make My Own Catalog?

If you have experience with creating a print catalog or even a PDF catalogfor your business, you can probably list a number of headaches related to these two methods. Traditional print catalogs are cumbersome to update the catalogue if product information has changed. Design software like Adobe isn’t the best tool for designing product catalogs and printing these resources is anything but budget friendly. 

There’s a better way to produce an engaging product catalog for your customers. 

Here’s the steps we recommend you follow when creating an interactive product catalog: 

1. Establish the format and content of your product catalog.
2. Collect all relevant product data and associated resources.
3. Incorporate all product data and related assets into a product information management (PIM) system.
4. Develop a digital experience tied to your PIM solution, which displays accurate product information whenever the product catalog is read by a customer.
5. Utilize the PIM system to make continual updates when product data is changed or added. By utilizing a tool such as Lumavate, managing product data and digital resources is simplified through Lumavate's PIM solution, allowing marketers to create digital experiences in under 30 minutes.

How Do I Make a Good Product Catalog?

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What would you like to see in a product catalog? Do you get frustrated when things are hard to find? Or worse, have to flip through hundreds of pages to find the one product you’re interested in? 

While each customer may come with their own preferences for what they wish to see in a catalog; but at the end of the day, there are three main factors that make up a good product catalog experience.

Three Things that Make a Good Product Catalog

1. Easy to Navigate and Use 
2. Contains Relevant Product Information
3. Product Data is Always Accurate 

What Program Can I Use to Make a Catalog?

If you keep tabs on the latest and greatest on martech, you may have seen Scott Brinker, the editor of Chief Martech, recently released his 2023 Martech Landscape graphic. 

Each year the number of martech solutions grows. This year we’re up to 11,000 available martech solutions available for marketers to invest in. 

The number of software applications that you can choose from to create a product catalog is not that high, but there are quite a few. 

For some businesses,  they may choose to use Microsoft Word, Canva, or even Adobe InDesign to create product catalogs. But those who have tried these options can agree it’s not the best user experience (for both the marketer and the customer). 

Brands that wish to create a truly engaging resource for their customers need to invest in a true digital catalog maker in order to yield the highest results from their efforts. 

If you want to create a good product catalog, then your business needs to invest in a digital experience platform (DXP) with product information management (PIM)  functionality. 

Your business needs to invest in a solution like Lumavate. 

Lumavate is a DXP designed specifically for marketers. What makes Lumavate different from design software is the ability for marketers to store and manage their product information and related digital assets in Lumavate’s PIM solution. Marketers can then pull in this data to create digital experiences with accurate product information. 

With the other solutions we previously mentioned, your business would need multiple solutions in order to create a truly engaging resource for customers. With Lumavate, you just need one solution to bring your products to life. 

What App Is Best for Making a Catalog?

Between product descriptions, pricing information, SKUs, related parts and accessories, and so much more, you likely have a TON of data to manage and collect when beginning to create a product catalog. 

How can you accomplish this more efficiently? With catalog management software and PIM software. When connected to a digital catalog maker like a DXP, you can save your team time and energy gathering all of the necessary product data to include in your product catalog. Lumavate offers marketers at manufacturing companies a solution for managing their product data as well as the ability to create a digital product catalog within minutes. 

Lumavate also has a Product Catalog Template that can further accelerate your catalog’s time-to-market. Within 30 minutes, you can create an engaging digital product catalog experience that is always updated when connecting your products’ data to our PIM solution. Plus, you can take advantage of our long list of design elements and integrations to further bring your products to life. 

With our Product Catalog Template, you can: 

• Drive Revenue
• Decrease Costs
• Increase Brand Loyalty
• Delight Partners

Get Started with Catalog Design Software

Interested in learning more about the best catalog design software? Schedule a demo with one of our product experts to see how we can help you start creating engaging product catalogs for your customers today.