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10 steps to help create staying power for your big book By Gina Valentino As a business-to-business (b-to-b) cataloger, you know that your large catalog is an essential selling tool, as well as a brand differentiator. Its benchmarks of success may include strong revenues, remarkable customer response and overall profitability. A good strategy for any catalog's mailing frequency should be based on the book's anticipated order-response curve. But when you create a large b-to-b catalog that's expected to have a shelf life of four, six or even 12 months, how can you ensure that it keeps selling well during its entire campaign?

By Scott Shrake Producing and mailing a catalog can be a most expensive undertaking. With alternate media you can achieve some of the same goals as with a print catalog: Testing, driving customers (new or existing) to your e--commerce site and building awareness/loyalty. Speaking at the Annual Catalog Conference in June, Kevin Kotowski, of Olson Kotowski & Co. in Los Angeles, named some top reasons catalogers use alternate media, or "non-catalog pieces:" 1) cheaper prospecting than with full-sized catalog drops, since most alternate media are cheaper to produce and mail; 2) building and strengthening your customer relationships with name and