Why brochures are valuable and how your retail chain can simplify their production process
Retail chains continue to rely on printed and digital brochures when it comes to distributing their advertising budget, as these are still one of the most valuable and reliable ways to reach consumers.
Why are brochures so valuable for retail chains?
Research shows that weekly circulars are still a key driver of shopping decisions. In fact, according to a Brandspark 2020 U.S. Shopper Study:
- 66% of consumers study circulars, promotions, and discounts before they go shopping
- In 2020, 87% of shoppers read circular the same amount or more than they did in 2019
- 74% of shoppers consulted their grocery print circulars in search of lower-priced specials
According to the September 2020 Shopper Behavior Monitor Survey of 1,000 primary household grocery shoppers:
- 30% of respondents were using digital store sales flyers ad digital coupons even more than they were earlier in the pandemic
- 27% of respondents said they used store sales flyers more often than during the beginning pandemic
- 28% said they were using digital coupons more often
The brochure production process
When it comes to creating the most promotional leaflets, design is crucial. In addition, retailers need to create multiple versions of the brochures. These are additional factors in an already complicated process.
For example, at a large grocery chain, the production process begins with the marketing department, which is in charge of the high-level planning of the circular. Then, category managers locate offers and determine whether an advertisement should be available, globally, nationally, or in a specific region.
Next, the design team lays out the circular, including copy and pricing, to create the regionalized variants from global and national offers. Once complete, the digital files go back to the category managers to review the ads and identify any necessary corrections. The design team implements the corrections and then sends them back to the marketing team for approval.
This entire process can be particularly hectic when creating multiple versions for different regions, languages, and other demographics or if the team needs to pull product assets from various data sources.
Simplifying brochure production
LAGO retail circular production software makes the entire process effortless, from concept to production. Here’s an example of how LAGO can simplify every step of print or online circular creation:
- At the beginning of the process, LAGO Whiteboard helps the marketing department determine how much space to allocate to each page.
- The marketing department can send the page layout to the category managers via the workflow engine. They can use LAGO Whiteboard to search for each offer and then drag and drop it directly on the page.
- At the same time, category management can select whether an offer should be global or local. LAGO's version optimisation automatically synchronises global offers and takes regional differences into account.
- Once planning and version optimisation is complete, LAGO automatically converts the planning into an Adobe InDesign file with its exclusive LAGO Layout InDesign plugin.
- Designers receive a pre-planned InDesign file with all necessary information from the LAGO PIM and DAM, allowing them to create pages more efficiently and avoid errors. Once the layout is complete, a correction document is generated and passed to category management for review via the workflow engine.
- In LAGO's integrated proof module, all correction requests from category management and marketing are noted directly in the proof document and passed back to the design team. The design team can see the desired changes as soon as they open the pages in InDesign and implement the correction requests.
- The implemented corrections are displayed in LAGO Proof via the workflow engine to Marketing and Category Management for checking the executed corrections.
- With a few simple clicks in LAGO Proof, category managers can check all changes made.
- Any price or text updates are automatically imported so that last-minute corrections do not cause unnecessary stress or chaos.
Ready to see how Comosoft LAGO can simplify circular production for your retail chain?