Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-05-17

Here's an advertising axiom, acceptable
by unanimous vote of business test-proof
The newspaper is the main trunk of adver-
Using. all else are branches dependent
upon the trunk for support.
Right here it is opportune for me to say
that | am neither directly nor indirectly
and consequently anything which | may
say in favor of newspaper advertising is
not assisted by financial or other bias.
Circulars, cards, photographic work OF
every kind, printed novelties, leather,
celluloid, or anything else in the way OF
useful or ornamental novelty made of any
kind of material, to be used for advertising
of advertising. They have been used, and
always will be used, by large and small ad-
vertiSers.
The catalogue and descriptive circular
are essential to complete consistent and
successful advertising.
Business cannot be carried on without
descriptive matter.
PromiscuouS circulation OF printed mat
ter-the sending of catalogues or circulars
to so-called lists OF nameS-eyen if such
names are genuine, is worth comparatively
little, and can pay at best irremittent divi-
Gends.
The field OF the catalogue and circular
is TO give information. The advertisement
is to make people send for such informa-
ton.
The man who writes or calls for cata-
logue or circular will read it, when he will
throw into the waste basket the same
thing sent to him unrequeSted.
Advertising in regular periodicals Sits
out the impossible customer from the pos
sible; it allows the advertiser TO rake the
ground with his own rake and to gather
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business, no more and no less; it reduces
the field Of the world into the field of his
business; it places the advertiser in direct
connection with the people he has chance OF
reaching.
The newspaper advertisement should do
no more than suggest call or correspond
encc. If the possible customer calls or
writes, opportunity is given the advertiser
not only to show the goods but to furnish
the inquirer with descriptive matter, which
he is sure to read at leisure and study care
fully, because he has put put himself upon
record as being interested in the goods ad-
vertiSed.
Advertising in periodicals does the pre-
iminary work at the lowest possible eX-
pense, which work cannot be done in any
other way for hundred times the cost.
The advertiser who believes in hand
bills has only TO stand upon the sidewalk
ever convinced that this kind of advertising
is worth as near to next to nothing as II can
be without being nothing.
Let us bring Hereinafter to practical
business figures: Ten thousand cheaply
printed circulars cost Sl5. y boy to give
them out, either from house to house or to
pedestrians. will charge, say 81. If he
leaves only one at a house, and gives only
one at q time on the street. he will not
make much or the job at so Boy-circular-
distributors are not built that way. We
must take them as they are. In order to
argue from the worst side of the argument
we will call it 81 for the circulars and the
distribution. If the boy is anything like
other boys, and he probably is, he will at
tempt to give ten circulars to everyone
who passes or one and throw away nine;
1000 circulars TO 100 people; 10000 to 1000.
If the circulars are left at 1000 houses,
ten at house, and the chances are the boy
will average more than that, 500 of these
lots will be blown from the steps, leaving
500 lots to do the business; OF the 800 lots
remaining about 100 servant girls will pick
them up to take them into the house: of the
100 lots carried into the house, possibly
seventy-five of them will be seen, fifty
more or less looked over.
Let us recapitulate: out of the 10000 cir
culars fifty may be read. More or less Of
the remaining $3.50 will be seen blowing
around on the streets or stuck in the gut
ter, giving some reason to think that 4
,moderate amount of good may come from
Those not actually held in the hand.
I IL the circulars are distributed on the
Greet about one man or woman in fifty will
Except one of the circulars, and out of the
fifty about two will keep them, and out of
'the two about one will read the contents
This reduces the pulling power Of circulars
given away upon the street to L value of ,
per cent
If these statements seem exaggerated let
the dOubter follow the circular distributor
from house to house and spend half an hour
beside any man or boy distributing circu-
lars upon the street, 10 see the street and
sidewalk fill up with that which the mer.
chant has paid good money for
i do not care to put myself upon record of
stating that circulars never have paid, be-
cause they have in exceptional cases, but /
am willing to stake my reputation upon the
statement that an inch advertisement in q
decent paper is worth more than an acre of
circulars
Had the circular matter which cost the
merchant SIT been placed in 4 small space
in i good newspaper, from three to six
times as many people as the circulation of
the paper would have been given opportu-
nifty TO see the announcement.
Every reader OF paper does not read
ever upI uOt'S he STE every
advertisement, but it is fair TO presume that
a well worded and fair-sized advertisement
in any publication will reach the eye of
about 80 per cent of the readers, most of
whom may be possibly customers.
When man pays l cent or 4 81 for any
thing, from newspaper to an Illustrated
magazine of art. he or she is obliged to make
an effort requiring tho expenditure of def
mite sum of money. No matter how small
that sum may be, the spending of it is posi-
tive proof that the buyer desires that which
he has bought. He purchases it for no
other porpose than to read it. If he reads
even small part of it he must see some of
the advertisements and his eyes must dwell
upon those advertisements which announce
goods he is interested in, or which suggest
that he become interested in them.
am strong disbeliever in any advertis-
ing medium which reaches the reader with
out any effort being made by the reader to
get it. l do not care how beautiful the
paper may be, how well written and how
well edited, if it be thrust upon the public
unasked for. Such are desultory papers at
best, and contain nothing which the reader