Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1912 — COMMON SENSE BASIS OF GOOD ADVERTISING [ARTICLE]

COMMON SENSE BASIS OF GOOD ADVERTISING

By WM. C. FREEMAN.

Abe Martin says: “The man who does not advertise may know his own business, but nobody else' does." I always think there is something wrong with a business if it does not make itself known in some way. Common sense must be applied, however, as to how that business shall be made known. In New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other large, cities there are fifty times as many stores that do not advertise in newspapers as do advertise In them. The reason is that these stores are mere neighborhood stores— doing a small business—depending wholly on the custom Zt perhaps a couple of hufidred families. Obviously, such stores cannot afford to advertise in the big newspapers. How, then, are they to advertise? There are only a few ways for them to do, viz: Sending well-written letters to all of the families in the neighborhood telling about the goods they have for sale—using posters and signs in their neighborhood wherever they can get the space for them —displaying their merchandise in their windows—but better than all of these is advertising in the weekly neighborhood paper, If one is issued. There rpust be advertising of some kind done, and if It is effective the business will grow, and the small shopkeeper may be able to acquire stores In different neighborhoods. Then he cap branch out with “his advertising program and buy space In the big newspapers, like so many others have done before him. This applies only to the very large communities; in the smaller communities, where everybody knows everybody else, the one medium to use all Of the time is the daily home newspaper. . * You must realize that good advertising, of whatever nature, must have a basis of old-fashioned common sense and must be done in accordance with a shopkeeper’s ability to pay for it.