Historically, many B2B companies, in industries like tools, workwear and furniture among others, have effectively used printed product catalogs to upsell to existing customers and create demand to attract new customers by showing off their vast product assortment in a familiar, curated format - but for years now, B2B sales have been changing.
After the pandemic, many companies had to re-evaluate their sales strategies and embrace digital transformation to stay competitive.
At the same time, customer behavior also shifted—buyers discovered the convenience and speed of online purchasing, which fundamentally, naturally, changed expectations in the B2B space.
One key insight from top-performing sales teams today is their ability to adopt a 'best of both worlds' mindset: They blend physical presence with digital tools in a smart, value-driven way. They meet clients in person when it truly adds value, but handle more repetitive or lower-value tasks online.
By using online sales tools, teams can continuously engage customers across all segments, customer types and priorities without always needing to be physically present.
Some customers might still warrant frequent face-to-face visits. Other customers, on the other hand, could be activated with–for example–a digital product catalog every second month and only require a physical meeting every third month and thereby cutting visits from 12 to just 4 per year.
Such an approach increases the frequency of meaningful touchpoints without overburdening the sales team, so they can maintain a stronger, more consistent dialogue with all customers.
An example of this hybrid approach in B2B is the digital product catalog.
The product catalog format excels with its curated content that takes the reader on a journey through the entire product assortment.
By taking the catalog format online, you can provide something in the B2B buying journey that your other channels can't: A familiar digital B2B sales tool that facilitates both overview and inspiration, engagement and conversions.
That makes digital product catalogs the easiest win in B2B sales.
Why?
The Build-a-flipbook feature allows the salesperson to reduce the digital product catalog into a custom mini-version for each customer.
This makes the buying experience much more personal, curated and relevant.
“With Build-A-Flipbook we can tailor the digital catalogs to each customer's specific needs.” - Anne-Cathrine Jørgensen, Sales and Marketing, Co-owner Ji Sport
Online gives you opportunities you don’t have with print. Instead of a flat PDF, you can provide an interactive experience that creates interest and buying intent.
When a customer or lead lands in the digital catalog, they can…
And this fosters interest and understanding of the products, which lead to more sales and upselling.
If the customer or lead is interested in the products in the digital catalog, there’s a lot of opportunities to capture that interest.
They can either…
And that creates either direct sales or more qualified leads.
“With the shopping feature in the catalog, we make it easy for customers to go from inspiration to purchase. They don’t need to spend time noting product numbers or searching for the item elsewhere, but can simply add the item to the cart with one click.” - Claus Beck, former Marketing Manager at Dansk Cater
Creating an engaging, interactive product catalog doesn’t have to be time-consuming or resource-intensive.
Enrichment Automation can eliminate a lot of manual work by automatically creating links, icons, animations and videos.
All you need is a simple Excel file and some tags in the PDF – and then you can go from flat PDF to interactive digital catalog in a few clicks.
With Built-In Analytics, you can get insights into how your customers and leads interact with your digital product catalog, so you can make data-driven decisions that enhance engagement and drive sales.
Tracking provides key metrics, such as:
Printed catalogs have long been a driver of B2B sales—but today’s best sales teams blend in-person interactions with digital tools.
Digital catalogs offer the same curated experience as print, but with personalization, interactivity, conversions like quote-requests or webshop purchases – all trackable.
You likely already have the content (your PDF), and with automation tools, transforming it into an interactive, converting sales asset takes just a few clicks.
Digital catalogs → more touchpoints, better engagement and smarter selling in B2B.
