How to make a free digital catalog for your business? – Walkthrough

Creating a digital or helps boost business sales. For this reason, it is considered a necessity, but many entrepreneurs do not know how to make a digital catalog free and simply.

Learn more!

Article

In this post I am going to share five ways to create your digital catalog for free and without the need to spend months on the computer. You will only need photos of your products with good lighting, your logo -in high resolution-, as well as the description and characteristics of each product. If you already have all this, let’s start!

1. Do a photo session with good lighting.
2. Choose the products that you are going to add to your digital catalog.
3. Select the tool you will use.
4. Use your and brand identity.
5. Save your catalog in PDF and image format for easy distribution.
6. Get ready to attend sales.

How to make a digital product catalog?

There are several special programs to design, but most require technical knowledge or several weeks of training. The good news is that there are other tools that allow you to design your digital PDF catalog in just a few steps.

Product catalog in Power Point

PowerPoint ―or Google Slides― is a very friendly and easy to use program. It allows you to adjust the size of the sheet, add images and elements easily.

Steps to create a digital catalog in PowerPoint

1. Open a new document. Whether you create it from scratch -in a blank document- or use a program template. We recommend the Photo Menu PowerPoint template.
2. Adjust the measurements of your sheet. Go to ‘File’ > ‘Page Setup’ and select the size of your preference. The perfect size for a digital and printed catalog is A4 (21 x 29 cm). Choose the orientation of your work area, either vertical or horizontal.
3. Add a catchy title on what will be your cover. You can use the name of the season or create a collection for your next product launch.
4. Add a star photo on the cover. Do not forget!
5. On the next page add the photos of your product, its description, features and price.
6. Use bold, italics and colors to harmonize your catalog. To fit the photos in the boxes, click crop and edit the photo as you like.
7. Add the social media logo and a link to your profiles.
8. Include a QR code that takes them to your online store or to your WhatsApp. If you don’t have one, you can create one for free with this .
9. Save it as a PDF and PNG format so you can easily share it.
10. Clever!

Estimated creation time: 2 hours without taking into account the photo session.

⭐ Tip: do not use more than 2 different fonts. Play with sizes, colors and thicknesses.

I show you how it would look like in real life (the images are illustrative):

Digital catalog in Word

Just like PowerPoint, Word is a very common and easy-to-use program. Many people think that it can only be used to do homework and school work. Let me tell you that they are more than wrong, look.

Steps to create a digital catalog in Word

1. Create a new document and choose the background color, dimensions and orientation of your work area. You can also choose a template to make the first part of the job easier. However, most of them have very specific purposes that are not compatible with our objective.
2. Include the images of your products and order them.
3. Add titles or product names, categories, descriptions and features.
4. Add basic shapes or decorative elements that you can download from free icon banks.
5. Give strength to what is important by using bold, italics or colors to highlight.
6. Use the logo of your brand with a link to your page and the logos of social networks. You can even add links to product photos to direct customers to your online store.
7. Make a final review and take care of the last details.
8. Export it in PDF format.

⭐ Tip: to fit images freely, select the ‘Narrow’ option in the image format.

This is what a catalog made in Word looks like:

Product catalog in Canva

Canva is an increasingly popular platform within the world of entrepreneurship. It has many templates – free, paid and premium – where you will only have to replace your elements. You also have the option to create templates from scratch.

Steps to make a digital catalog in Canva

1. Sign in to your profile. If you don’t have a profile you can easily create one with your email and password or your Facebook account.
2. Select a template. I recommend you search for “product catalog with prices” and choose the one you like best.
3. Change the template images, update prices and add your product information. The side toolbar will allow you to add your own photos or search for items from the item bank.
4. Use shapes and pleats to decorate. Take advantage of free resources!
5. Modify the colors to match the look and feel of your brand or your collection.
6. Add your brand and social media logo. You can also add links to drive traffic to your site and social networks.
7. Review the details and data of the products to avoid errors.
8. Change the title of the document and download in .png or PDF format.

⭐ Tip: If you don’t have a design team, the premium version of Canva can be of great help to you.

There are influencers on Instagram and YouTube who share tips to exploit this tool. An example is .

Check out a Canva template:

Digital catalog in PDF

The PDF format is one of the most popular electronic formats for making digital catalogs, as it is very easy to share and can be compressed without losing image quality.

If you already have a catalog in another format, you can use tools to convert it to PDF. I share some:

• Adobe Acrobat
• iLovePDF
• Canvas
• freepdfconvert

To make a product catalog from scratch and save it in PDF format:

1. Create a design of your catalog in one of the previous techniques (in Word, Canva or PowerPoint).
2. Download and choose the ‘Save as PDF’ option.

Another way to create PDF catalogs is in specialized programs like InDesign or Illustrator.

Virtual catalog on WhatsApp

WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business have become indispensable tools for entrepreneurs. Certain?

Recently, this application launched a feature that makes life easier for entrepreneurs. That’s right, a digital catalog that can be shared with the contacts of the application or with anyone through a link.

Here I list the steps to make a digital catalog on WhatsApp Business.

1. Open your WhatsApp Business account.
2. In ‘Tools for the company’ start creating your catalog.
3. Add photos of your products and the requested data.

If you want to know in detail visit our content:

You might be interested…

Article

⭐ Tip: read the terms and conditions of WhatsApp to know the prohibited products and wait until your products are validated to share the link.

Preparations for creating your product catalog

1. Product photography session.
2. Fully updated inventory.
3. Complete product information.
4. Graphic brand identity or color palette.
5. Marketplace and online store with your preloaded products.

These five elements are very important. By having them before you start creating your digital catalog, you can speed up the process and avoid frustration at not being able to move forward or stop at some stage.

You could start building your catalog with the first three items on the list, but if you follow all five preparations, your chances of closing sales will increase.

Apply this now!

Article

Tips for making a catalog

1. Choose good quality photos.
2. Set correct prices.
3. Check with your inventory.
4. Write useful descriptions.
5. Do not forget the technical characteristics of the products.
6. Add links to your online store.
7. Compress the PDF file for easy download.

1. Choose good quality photos

Photos are the vehicle to make your potential customers fall in love. So, having clear, realistic images, with good lighting and composition are one of the most important things to make an eye-catching catalog.

You don’t need an expert (although it’s ideal), if you don’t have a big budget you can take them yourself with a cell phone that has a good camera and using things you can get at the nearest stationery and fabric store.

Check out the tips in this Reel and use your creativity:

2. Set correct prices

You do not want a complaint in Profeco, so if you are promoting or advertising products through a digital catalog you must respect the prices. This is what the , so before sharing your catalog, verify that the data and prices are correct.

3. Check with your inventory

Good customer service is one of the most powerful strategies to get more sales. With good attention you get recommendations and frequent consumers.

It is very conflictive to offer a product and not have availability. It is preferable that you do not add a product that is low in stock or that you clarify it in the catalog with a legend such as “While supplies last”.

4. Write useful descriptions

The description helps users and consumers get the information that they cannot see in the images. A good product description can be the difference between a person choosing to buy your product or not.

Learn more…

Article

5. Do not forget the technical characteristics of the products

Even if you think that it is information that users do not consult, you would be surprised to know how many people pay attention to this. Add data, such as type of materials, model, functionalities, etc. is of great help to consumers, especially in categories such as technology, accessories, fashion, toys and processed foods. Don’t leave this empty!

6. Add links to your online store

Bring traffic to your online store so that sales are made there and the purchase process of your business is increasingly automatic. In this way, you and your team will have the opportunity to focus on other management and dissemination tasks.

7. Compress PDF file for easy download

This tip is a bonus! If you decide to use the PDF format for your digital catalog, it is essential that you compress it before sending. This will allow people to open and download it without much trouble on their computers or cell phones.

⭐ Tip: the acceptable size for a PDF is approximately 100 MB.

Alternatives to display your products

The more broadcast channels you have, the easier it will be to sell. I remind you the list of channels to show your products. Do you already have a presence in all of them?

• Web page
• Social networks
• Marketplace
• newsletter
• Activations or events

In conclusion

To make a digital catalog for free you can…