How to Sell Avon with Catalogs

For the latest tips & info on selling Avon with brochures, check out Sell Avon with Brochure Tips

One of the biggest tools Avon representatives have access to is the Avon catalogs aka brochures. Whether your business is primarily in person or online, the catalog can be used to help you market & grow your campaign sales & your customer base. Let’s face it, when customers think of shopping Avon, most will think of the brochure.

Printed Catalog vs Online Catalog

We as representatives are able to offer our customers a printed catalog as well as an online catalog. Let’s face it, some customers prefer to browse through a printed catalog while other customers prefer to do everything online. So what is the difference. Honestly, nothing except one is printed and the other is through your online store. All of the products, images & prices are the same.

Curated Digital Catalog

Now, there is one extra tool that us representatives can utilize online. What I’m talking about is the digital catalog. This is an interactive catalog that representatives can curate each campaign. He/She can curate the catalog based on individual customer which I think is a great way for new representatives to create a personalized service to their customers. For those of us who have a bigger customer base, like myself, what I do is curate a catalog based on what I would like to highlight that campaign. I will pick a theme or topic and then choose products & sales that go. No matter how you do this, you can easily share your curated catalog(s) right through the Digital Catalog link through AvonNow.

Learn more by checking out Avon 2021 Online Catalogs.

Selling Avon Tips with Catalogs

Utilizing the Avon catalog is a great way to showcase what your customers can purchase & enjoy. Below are tips on how you can ensure you are getting the most out of the Avon catalog.

Provide Professional Looking Catalogs

One of the biggest mistakes many representatives make when it comes to their Avon business is that they do not look at it as a business. How can you expect your customers & those you meet to treat you & your business as a business if you are not? Think about it… would you shop or do business with someone who is giving you marketing material that doesn’t have their information on it or is a mess? That is not an image you want to give out.

Avon allows representatives to purchase catalogs up to 2 campaigns ahead, so this is going to give you plenty of time to prep your catalogs & get them ready to hand out.

Label Your Catalogs

One of the most important things you want to do with your catalogs is ensure your contact info & online store is clearly labeled on your catalogs. This is going to provide the information your customers will need to know how to place an order with you.

You can easily create & print labels to place on the back of your catalog or you can take advantage of the format provided on the back and neatly write your information. Either way works!

Include Flyers/Coupons

By providing flyers within your catalog, you are able to share with your customers information about your Avon business and share the Avon opportunity. Put yourself in your customers shoes & imagine what information you would want to know with your brochure. There are a variety of types of flyers you can include based on what your goals are:

• Campaign Update: Highlight special offers/sales customers will want to learn about before opening the brochure
• Recruiting Flyer: Share the Avon opportunity & what your customer can enjoy as an Avon representative
• Connect with You: Let customers know how the connect to you on your social media
• Customer Benefits: Share what customers can enjoy as a customer with you such as email updates, brochure delivery, customer exclusive pricing, etc.
• Fundraising Flyer: Highlight Avon fundraising & how your customers can raise funds for their favorite cause.

On top of including a flyer, I highly recommend including a coupon, especially within the catalogs that will be handed out to new customers. Customers love to save money. Coupons are great 1. to encourage customers to place their order and 2. separate you from the rest. From my experience, $5 off every $25 order and 10% off any size order are very popular coupons.

You don’t need to go & have an elaborate coupon or flyer. I personally created mine on Google Docs. Just make sure it looks neat & easy to read. Play with the font to highlight & organize your flyer & coupons.

Provide Samples

Everyone loves to receive FREE samples. After investing in catalogs, investing in samples is the next best thing you can do for your business. Samples provide a great way to introduce products to your customers, especially new products. This is especially true when it comes to skincare products. Each customer has different skin type, skin sensitivities. Providing them an opportunity to test out the product & see if it will work with their skin is going to help them decide the perfect skincare routine.

Create a Campaign Routine

Having a campaign routine is going to provide a way for you to stay organized & be consistent. Establish a date within the campaign that you will submit your AvonNow order. For example, I submit mine the second Thursday of the campaign. In doing this, my customers know they need to contact me by that day each campaign and it will also let customers know when they can expect their order. This will become very important when customers are looking to purchase a gift like a birthday, wedding or the holiday season.

To learn how to create a campaign routine, check out my blog Avon Selling Tips: Creating a Campaign Routine.

Sharing Your Avon Catalog

Ok, so you know how to get your catalogs ready, now how do you get them into people’s hands? First off, you want to make sure you are delivering a catalog to each of your customers each campaign, even if they do not order every campaign. To be honest, most customers won’t order every campaign, many won’t order every month. You want to make sure you are continually reminding your customers about Avon & your business by giving them a brochure each campaign. This is true whether you are providing service in person, online or both. For my local customers & even my online customers who want a printed catalog I mail them a catalog each campaign through Campaign-Mailer. Then, to ensure ALL of my customers are connected with the latest catalog, I send out an email through Mailchimp. Keep in mind, I didn’t do this the first couple years. Like many of you, I started my business & focused on my local area. I established every other Friday I would deliver brochures & orders. I chose this day because on Fridays I would go grocery shopping & do my errands. So how can you work your deliveries into your day to day life?

Set Goal of New Customers

Now let’s go over how you can work on growing your customer base each campaign. I recommend setting a goal of how many new customers you want to give a brochure to. I know when I first started the popular recommendation was purchasing 100 brochures to hand out. If you can afford that & have the time to hand out 100 brochures each campaign, good for you! However, for me, this was not plausible. I will admit, I tried this technique but I was not able to get 100 brochures handed out. I just did not have the time as a stay at home mom of 5 kids with 1 car and on top of that I am a super shy person. So for me, I decided to set a goal each campaign. I started off small with 3, then moved to 5 when I was able to easily reach that goal. I continued to do that and by doing this my business began to continually grow. Remember, even if you are taking small steps forward, you are still moving forward!

Always Have Catalog with You

You always want to make sure you are ready & prepared. You never know when you will come across a new potential customer… waiting in line at the grocery store, at the park with your kids, your waitress serving you while you eat. As a shy representative, one of the easiest ways I was able to network with new customers is by wearing something Avon… a shirt, jewelry, a lipstick. Then when someone would comment on what I am wearing that opened the door for me to introduce them to my business. I will say, the times I had a brochure ready to give to them, would more likely lead to a sale compared to when I would have to come back & give them a brochure, when I am sure by then they have forgotten & moved on.

Another way I was able to continually grow my business in my local area is by leaving 3-5 brochures on my car wherever I went. More times than not, I would come out to my car after doing my grocery shopping or whatever errand I was doing, my catalogs would be gone. This is another reason why it is important to provide the flyers & coupons because you may not have the opportunity to let customers know about your business.

Where to Leave Catalogs Around Town

One great way to grow your business in your local area is by leaving brochures in various places through out town. There are a million places you can leave an Avon brochure. You would be shocked in how many of these places you go on a regular basis. Here are some examples:

• Doctor’s offices waiting rooms
• Post Office
• Gym
• Coffee Shop
• Hair/Nail Salon
• Shopping Carts
• Local Park
• Daycare
• Your car windshield while parked
• Pool Hall/Bar
• Public Restroom Stall
• College Campuses
• Real Estate Offices

For more examples CLICK HERE

If you use places that are all ready a part of your regular routine, it will be much easier for you to be able to update the brochures. Also, when it comes to private businesses, make sure to get their permission, especially if you are looking to update them on a regular basis. You can offer the owner/employees at that business a discount on their order or give them a little gift basket to say thank you.

Tossing Old Brochures

Say you weren’t able to hand out all of your catalogs? What can you do with them? This is where tossing comes in. What exactly is tossing? It’s exactly how it sounds. You go house to house in a neighborhood & toss a brochure onto their driveway/doorstep. This is a great way to let a large number of people know that there is an Avon Lady in town.

Now do make sure you are following local laws. I understand some areas do not allow distribution of marketing materials. And fyi… NEVER PUT A BROCHURE IN THE MAILBOX. This is against the law.

Another thing I want to mention is when it comes to my tossing brochures, I do not include samples. The reason why is because this is not a guarantee that customers will actually open the brochure & check it out. When providing samples, I want to ensure that they are going to be used or it is just a waste of money. All I include in my tossing brochure is my Why Is there an Avon Brochure flyer and a coupon for their first order.

Events/Yard Sales

One of the many benefits of being apart of Avon compared to other direct selling companies is that Avon does not require you to have stock on hand. However, many think when they are going to do an event or even have a yard sale that they need to have stock to sell on the spot. The reality of it is you don’t. I recently had a tag sale and I had my catalogs right where customers would come to pay for the items they were purchasing. I ended up giving away all of them and actually received 3 new customers who asked to have a brochure delivered to them each campaign.

If you look at events as a way to let new customers know about your business, you will notice that events will be less stressful & it will more likely be a success because you are growing your customer base & future sales.

Refer a Friend Promotion

Word of mouth is an amazing advertisement opportunity for any business. People are more likely to believe a friend or family member about your business then any other form of advertisement. So, why not encourage it! Reward your customer for referring a new customer who places an order. I would recommend that you establish that the new customer must place at least a $25 order or orders a number of times. Once that is achieved, you can then reward your referring customer. You can give them a discount off their next order, a free product or even a coupon they can use in a future order.

Keep in Mind…

There are a variety of ways you can utilize the Avon catalog to market your business. Remember, this is your business & it is up to you to figure out what you want your business to look like. Remember to include your personality & who you are because that is what customers are going to connect with. They want to do business with someone they like.