TACTICS THAT WORK for consumer catalogs won’t necessarily translate successfully to their business-to-business brethren, according to Pamela J. Hutchins, president of Upbeat Inc. Hutchins-whose catalog sells products such as tables, chairs and trash receptacles to properties like stadiums, playgrounds and schools (“Anyplace where a lot of people gather”)-spoke on issues affecting small catalogers at the Catalog Conference in Boston last month.
Upbeat tried enticing customers with a contest that offered the chance to appear on the cover of an upcoming catalog. Only one entry was received. (“They won,” Hutchins said.) And not a single response was received to an offer for $50 worth of free sand to put in ashtrays the customers had already purchased.
“Think it through” before you use consumer strategies in an industrial market, said Hutchins. “It’s a different mindset.”
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