Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1912 — ADVERTISING AS AID TO SALESMANSHIP [ARTICLE]

ADVERTISING AS AID TO SALESMANSHIP

By FRANK M. DU NOYER.

The day is dawning when the publishers of magazines and newspapers, one and all, who are given to exploiting inflated circulations will be extremely unfashionable in the advertising world, and it will be the same with those unscrupulous and Incompetent advertising agents whose only stock in trade is being able to arrange for placing accounts with inferior publications. An enthusiastic man will create enthusiasm in others—not only by word of mouth but by means of the written word. It is so with a commonplace news item dressed up by a live man who has an imagination, and equally so with ad writers. Enthusiasm will take you right through to the customer. The subject of clerk hire is always interesting to an advertising man, for though his ads have the pulling power to fill a merchant’s store, unless the clerks are well posted on the merchandise that is featured from day to day; unless they are courteous, alert, painstaking and obliging it is obvious that results will not be satisfactory. I have asked why indifferent and Incompetent clerks are so often found In Important positions. Sometimes the answer is that this is a mill town and efficient help can command big pay in the mills. Now, that answer would not satisfy you if you were an advertising man with your heart and soul in your work, for you know from observation that one good clerk Is worth more to a merchant than four Incompetents. But conditions in that respect are rapidly changing, and we are all studying efficiency and how to gtet the best results for the money expended. There are many things that people must buy somewhere, and they are apt to buy most of these things through persuasive ads. And there are many more things they would buy if they were properly waited upon. There is always a reason for everything whether It be success of failure. The great success of John Wanamaker Of course is not due to any one particularly good Idea that emanated from that brilliant mind, hut there is one rule In his big Philadelphia store that surely has helped toward thait end —It is that no clerk must see a customer stand waiting if it is possible to excuse himself from the customer he is waiting on and approach the one waiting with a remark something like the following: "I will be pleased to wait on you very soon;” and this must be said pleasantly; In fact the clerks must be pleasant and agreeable at all times under all circumstances to customers. The text of an ad may be ever so well written, but if It is not attraotlvely illustrated or displayed it will not arrest the attention —and is lost This is a technical feature of advertlsinc and I will pass on to the text. The text of an ad should always contain the facts. But Just plain facts Is not enough. Unless the ad contains that spark of life that Is born of enthusiasm—unless the writer Is really interested in this work and is able by what he says to hold the Interest that has been awakened by the illustration or display, the ad will surely fail of Its purpose. This principle is well known to local news writers. The enthusiastic local scribe who Is able to embellish a commonplace news item with a lively Imagination will get it past that city editor, unless It Is a big day for news, without a mark on it —because it Is readable and has human interest When a concern has been doing business the old way, without advertising. for several years, and has been

successful, it requires patience", perseverance and much persuasion to get them to look toward the light. I have in mind the very trying experience of an advertising man with the head of a very old and conservative business concern. A young man just through college secured the assistance of the advertising man and they undertook to show the father the new and better way to do business. Of course there was some objection on the start, and the ad man was subjected to the Indignity of being referred to in uncomplimentary terms very often. But the ardent young college man said we must not mind father —the ad man must bear with him until the turning of the tide—when results began to show he would be on our side. One fine day the ad man called the young fellow in and told him be didn't think he could stand any more jolts like the one he received from his father that day. Among other things he said that the bill for advertising last month was outrageous and asked If he had come up that day to blow In the remainder of the plant. The son admitted that was pretty tough treatment, and said he wouldn’t care to be present when the next month’s bill arrived—about four times as much as the last one. Well, about this’ tipie results from the advertising began to show, and the life of that ad man was more fit to live. But that same man had the satisfaction at the end of four years of being told that the output of that concern had been multiplied by three, and that it was due in large part to judicious advertising.