Page production and proofing are the most time consuming processes in the catalogue production. In a manual production environment the layout artists often have to copy product texts from Word documents or e-mails and paste them into the layout application. They might need to find a price list and copy the product price from there. They have to format the text using paragraph and character stylesheets to make the text look good on the page. Then they have to browse the file server to find appropriate images and place them on the page. They also have to make the overall page look nice and balanced and in keeping with your brand identity.
This manual production often requires a massive proofing effort. There are many opportunities for mistakes in the process and all corrections must be done by the layout artists. You print the pages, send them around the office for proof reading and after a few days they come back to the layout artists full of post-it notes with corrections they have to enter in the layout application. The process is often repeated 2-3 times. This is inefficient use of creative talent.
With a product content management and publishing system plugged straight into the layout application you can turn the entire process on its head. Make the product managers responible for technical product information and let them enter it into the database themselves. Have the copywriter add product sales text straight into the database. Set up a proofing workflow that allows all product text to be approved long before it goes into page production. Link images to products in the database. Proof, translate and approve everything before it is sent to page production.
This way your layout artists can focus on what they do best; create visually stunning pages that drive sales and make optimal use of the expensive space. They can just drag and drop products from a palette in the layout application onto the page and they are placed using predefined templates that format the text and brings on the correct images and vendor logos and everything else. They just have to move and tweak the boxes so that the page looks good. They no longer have to worry about spelling or prices or the accuracy of page references. It is all taken care of in advance.
You know it makes sense, because even though print may still be your most important marketing channel it might not be your first. Do you still save all your product launches for the next catalogue or do you start selling them on the web as soon as you can?