The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1894-03-24
THE ART OF ADVERTISING
Novelty is the Key to SueceSs--Be Original
and Your Fortune Is [lade.

n OES advertising pay? You are ol'eH
puzzle over this problem Some
times you think it does, and then again
you are not certain.
There are days when an attractive au-
vertisement Just packs your store
with trade, and inquiries come dribpllng
in for a month afterward for articles
advertised that day. But some days
the advertisement seems to fall nat IL
is on these days that your faith grows
shaky, and if you do not doubt the util-
ity of advertising you blame the card.
If you write your own advertisements
and lose confidence in yourself, you had
better employ some one who makes ad-
vertising his special business.
To write an original advertisement,
every day in the year, on the same
never-changing theme, is very much
like taking ten yards of dress goods and
making a new and entirely different
dress of it 300 times in succession. 1t
takes a clever head to do either. He
must see the store side of the advertise
ment and the customers side Of it, the
one as clearly as the other. Unwise ad-
vertising can pull down trade and eX-
haust your finances more rapidly than
good advertising can build up the one
or add to the other.
Think of a house which, in the busy
season." when everybody is buying cost
ly outer garments, wasting its advertis-
ing space on three cent and five cent
notions, often not mentioning their val
liable stock once in a whole week. 1t is
like q sportsman who wastes his am
munition on sparrows when ducks are
flying overhead. The harvest time for
expensive merchandise is at best but a
profit stuff, like the poor we have al
ways with us. If an advertiser does not
possess business wit along with literary
ability he will never make a success of
his calling. We often see advertise
ments without the slightest literary
merit, written in faulty English and set
up atrociously, which nevertheless are
great advertisements-grea in their
power of attracting people. They were
full of business, even though they lack
style"
The kind of advertisements which |
would prove success for one store |
night not do at all for another. even
hough in the same line of business
md perhaps located right next door
The capacity for knowing his audience
must be innate in the writer; so must
he business sense.
Remember there are other stores. lust
S good as yours, who sell at equally
ow prices. Your only advantage-and
is yours if you take it's TO have
etter advertising than they. This does
ot necessarily mean larger ADVERTISING
r more costly, for it is not the size of
he space that tells but what is said
nd how it is said that attracts notice
nd excltes suriosity.
If YOU cannot spend $1,000 wee,, in
dvertising, spend $500 If you cannot
pend so much, spend SlOO, and if vour
usiness will not allow more than $40 70
e so invested, spend that. Do NOT saw
lere is no advertising except in
rye way. One might as well saw that +,
hve-eent package of seeds from the
'rist will not gFow as well as the same I
ed bought in bushel quantities. Have
'Od seed and plant it in good soil. in G
her words, write good advertisa >
ent and put it in good paper. Ten q
liars in The Astorlan will pay for 100 s.
les of display advertising, nonparen v
aasurement One can do more with 9.
} lines in The Astorlan thnn u.,.A oO0