The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1879-01-17

"In little book published many years
ago, entitled How to get Money find
the following remarks on advertising {:
Whatever your occupation or calling may
be, if it needs support from the public, adj
vertise it thoroughly and efficiently in some
shape or other that will arrest public at
tention. There may possibly be occupa-
tions that do not require advertising but
l cannot well conceive what they are
Men in business will sometimes tell YOU
they have tried advertising, and that it did
not pay. This is only when advertising is
done sparingly and grudgingly. Homeo-
pathic doses of advertising will not pay,
perhaps; it is like half portion of physic,
making the patient sick, but effecting
nothing. Administer literally, and the
cure will be permanent. Some say they
cannot afford to advertise. They mistake:
they cannot afford not to advertise"
"If that was true forty years ago, it is
still more forcibly true to-day. Business
has thrown off many of the forms that
hampered men engaged in it. Retailers
no longer tie their trade to one house, nor
expect to be personally acquainted with
each one of their customers. People buy
of the party who offers the best bargains,
be he friend or stranger. Although the
young firm of Sharp 6 Beaten are selling
goods very low, it is not known around
the town and they have no trade. Slow
& Steady have good stock, are we'll known
and claim to sell as cheap as the cheapest.
Sharp d Beaten must do something to
inform the public that they have better
stock of goods and are selling cheaper
than Slow & Steady they must adver-
tise.
"To-morrow it will he heralded about
the city that Sharp & Beaten are selling
goods cheaper than any firm in the city.
People will wonder if it is true; they will
call just to price things buy much or lit
tie, and 60 their way. Slow & Steady no.
tice that great deal of their old trade is
going across the way what shall they do
to regain it9 They conclude they must
advertise; and in this way advertising is
an absolute necessity. To gain customers
we must advertise; we must advertise to
keep them. We must create demand for
new goods by advertising their merits; we
must hold the sale of old goods by keep
ing their good qualities before the pub
lie.
Every business should be advertised, no
matter where or what it is. If q moderate
custom was sure among circle of friends
and acquaintance in given locality, it
would still be to the merchants interest to
advertise and increase his trade. The
main expense in doing businiss will be
about so much, be the amount transacted
greater or less. A large business can be
done at a much less percentage of cost than
small one. A man can better afford to
sell one hundred thousand dollars worth
of goods at profit of ten per cent, than
fifty thousand at fifteen per cent A mer-
chant may expect to hold trade by selling
low, but he must have first made it known
in some way that he is ready to sell low, or
he will not get the customers.
"Ways of advertising are as numerous
as the busy brain of man can invent.
"Posters on the wall are good, but they
are there only u few days, and then they
are covered 10y another advertiser. Signs
nailed to trees along the country roads are
effectual while they last, but they soon be-
come old, or are rendered of no value by
dozen others being nailed over and under
them.
The most uumitigated humbugs in So
Letting advertisements are the men who
have hotel cards. depot cards. business
cards. maps and similar denominations.
Men will invest in these wildcat enterpris-
es who think an advertisement in the daily
or weekly paper is so much money thrown
away!
"A retailer should advertise in every lie.
gitimate way. II by circulars, they should
contain but very few lines, and ought to
have something about them to attract the
reader. But the retailer should invest
ninety nine dollars in the columns of his
local paper to every one that he expends
for circulars, hand-bills or cards. His
name should be constantly before the buy.
ing public. But small card of half
dozen lines, paid for by the year and never
changed, is of doubtful value.n-E Extract
from son the Road to Riches"