Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1901 — TALKS ON ADVERTISING. [ARTICLE]

TALKS ON ADVERTISING.

The best way to advertise is Just to advertise. Get at it with a view to having the people know what you most desire to sell, and Incidentally letting them know that the specified items do not represent your full stock. Say interesting things about interesting goods and have the goods to talk. Men talk of the secret of successful advertising, but it is all very plain. The essentials are to offer what people want, at fair prices, and to offer it in a way that will make readers know they want it. The art in writing an advertisement is to speak as the interested and well-informed merchant would speak to a prospective customer. The mere appearance of a business man’s name and address in every issue of a leading newspaper will do work to increase his trade. Every business man,however, is able to give facts about his establishment which will encourage people to deal with him. To state such facts clearly In a newspaper is the principal secret of successful advertising. The Idea that It takes a number of impressions to make the average advertisement effective is not new. Forty years ago an English advertiser said to the publisher of the Cornhill Magazine: “We don’t consider that an advertisement seen for the first time by a reader is wortM*much. The second time it counts for something. The third time the reader’s attention is arrested; the fourth time he reads It through and thinks about it; the fifth makes a purchaser of him. It takes time to soak in.”