The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-05-29
The Way to Advertise.

now by all intelligent business men that
it is as essential to business to advertise
it as it is to have building in which to
carry it on. The only question is as to
how business can be most effectively
advertised, and about this, as about a
hundred other things, mems opinions
differ. Nevertheless, there are certain
laws regulating the expenditure of mon
ey for advertisements which can not be
broken without loss to the advertiser
and the failure of his purpose.
A model advertisement is designed to
satisfy the rational demand of a proba-
BILE customer to know what you have
got to sell. The successful advertiser,
therefore, observes three rules first, he
aims to furnish the information which
the public wants; second, he aims to
reach that part of the public whose
wants he is prepared to satisfy; and,
third, he endeavors to make this Informal
ton as easy of acquisition by the public
as possible.
Many mistakes OF Judgment have
been made in the various ways adopted
of reducing the labor of the public in
gaining this kind of trade information.
Men have plastered fences with their
announcements they have erected
huge bill boards and covered them with
placards; they have stuck painted
signs in the horse-cars and along
either side of the slips of the ferries
they have even defaced the most pic
turesque aspects of nature with their
glaring assertions, and thus, instead of
winning and gaining the attention,
have awakened an abiding disgust and
resentment. The fallacy which under
lies all these efforts to catch the public
on the wing, so to speak, to delude
men and W m7n into an unexpected
and irresistible desire to buy the some
thing which you have to sell, is that
rational beings do not set about shop
ping or buying in this way, and
thousands are offended by the unwel-
come intrusion of business announce
ments when they are only on pleasure
bent, or at least have some purpose in
view entirely different from that of
trade.
The commonest and handiest thing in
the American family is the newspap per;
and as nearly all shopping proceeds
from the family, from its needs, its in
telligence, its taste, its fashions, it fol-
lows that the thoughtful and successful
advertiser approaches the family by this
means. He does not waste his money
and his time in loading his advertising
gun and shooting it off skyward in the
street at all creation, on the chance that
some willing customer may be going
that way and may be brought down; on
the contrary, he takes account of the adj
vertising ammunition which he has on
hand, and loads and points his gun
through the columns of some reputable
newspaper at the game he wants to hit.
Besides knowing that the newspapers
are the best means of advertising and
how to pick out the best newspaper for
his purpose, the successful advertiser
fully appreciates the Importance of per-
sistence in advertising. Mr.. Bryant
used to say that the great influence of
the press depends for one thing upon its
power of iteration. Presenting the same
subject in many forms it finally wins at
tention and acquiescence. 1t is just the
same with advertising. Diverse forms
of statement, showing that the attention
and support of the public are not sought
in perfunctory way, and continued
and regular appearance in the newspa-
per, so that when any one who needs
your kind of goods will think of your es-
Enlistment instinctively, constitute the
right way of using the right means of
gaining the desired business publicity.
Used in this thorough and systematic
way the advertising columns of the
newspaper are as useful and essential to
the merchant as means of telling the
public what he has to sell as the clerks
behind his counters are to show his
goods when the people come to examine
them.
The revival of business enhances the
Importance of this subject. All mer-
chants, speaking broadly, are doing
good business to-day. Nevertheless,
some are doing great deal more bust
ness than others, and the reason is that
the more successful ones know how to
use printers ink to the best advantage.
This difference between the men who
advertise their wares Systematically and
those who do not will increase as time
goes on. The newspapers are regarded
as a directory for the shopping classes
ttltA ttiO oO III lbOO. AIuo IL ~ lliCl Shduu
keeps his name and place of business
out of this directory he can not reasona-
bly, expect long to be remembered.
Not only is his business injured by his
failure to lay suitable information about
it before consumers, but even his old
customers are drawn away one after an
other by the greater efforts made by en-
terprising rivals to attract and retain
the public favor. Another influence
also works against him. The public
also unconsciously conclude that lack
of enterprise in advertising is sure
sign of lack of enterprise in other
things. The tendency is to be-
lieve that man who "keeps up
with the times " in the style and quality
of his goods will also employ the most
effective means of disposing of his stock
while it is fresh and in demand, so that
his shelves and counters may be clear
and ready for the next novelties in the
market. AS experience confirms this
opinion it is easy to see how the man
who does not advertise, or who adver-
tises infrequently or in obscure ways, is
thought not to have much to sell, and
so drops out of the public mind. AS
soon as this relation of indifference and
forgetfulness is established between the
public and merchant his business is