The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-12-14
ADT OF CIRCULAR MAILING
No Longer Done By a Hit or
Miss Method
SECURING THE NAMES

City Directory is Advertisers LaGt
Resort--Largc Concerns Make n
Special Business of Furnishing
Names - Few Industries Have
Grown SO Fast I'm Short Time.
How are advertising letters made
TO strike home so accurately? In
ways altogether simple and logical
when you know them.
To make his advertisement hit
cleanly, the advertiser begins with
your name and address. That is the
key to his whole system-getting
you on his mailing list In your prop
er classification.
The business OF securing names
and addresses is now carried on
separately by large concerns, that
furnish to advertisers lists of any
sort desired, from one including
100000 farmers west OF the Miss
issippi River to another enumerat-
ing 1000 persons In a given State
who have automobiles.
Do you wish to advertise baby
carriages to families with babies?
The advertising list concern will sell
you the names and addresses OF / o.
have children under two years OF
age incomes over $4,000.
Are you a maker of artificial
limbs? Every day he will furnish
you list of persons throughout the
country who have lost arms or legs.
Are you in the musical liner You
can have lists OF persons anywhere
who play any sort of instrument,
from the gently blinking mandolin
to the strenuous bass drum.
Such lists are obtained in various
ways. To get 100000 farmers in a
certain territory the address special
lists usually go to county tax lists,
where names and addresses are ac-
curate and complete. At such
source 1t is also possible to grade
the names according to income esti-
mates being made by the amount of
property on which each person pays
taxes
Among lists of this character you
can purchase the names and ad-
dresses of $4,000 retail grocers,
121, 900 physicians. $4,000 -four
mills, or any other general classif-
cation desired.
Advertisers are regular readers of
certain information in newspapers,
such as deaths, births, marriages,
accidents. Every birth means cent
or two to the list concern, which
forwards 1t to a baby food manu-
facturer.
Five cents is paid by a manu-
facturer of artificial eyes for every
report OF the loss of an eye. Even
deaths are a matter Of traffic, for
families bereaved are canvasged by
the maker of memorial cards. Some
advertisers put names of this char
acter away for a year, until the ex-
penses attendant upon death have
been met by the family, and then
approach the survivors with q prop
osition to erect a monument.
1t is easier to get lists of persons
who own pianos, stoves, organs, etc,
or who play certain musical instru-
ments. The advertisers employ chill
dren during school vacations, paying
them for filing out blanks with
correct names and addresses of fam
HES in their own towns, giving
name Of piano make of stove and
number, musical inclinations, num-
Der and ages OF children, etc.
Purchase any sort OF article by
mail these days and your name be-
comes valuable commodity to be
sold to other mail order houses, be-
Ing rated largely according to the
nature and amount OF your pur-
chase. In this accurate classifca-
ton of people according to proper
ty, occupation, personal tastes and
family, therefore, II Is at once ap-
parent that the old method of blind
ly sending out circulars to names in
city directory is hit and miss pro-
ceeding and wasteful.
Mail advertisers have also gone
far in the art of mailing circulars
Formerly they were dumped into the
post Office whenever ready to be
sent, with little regard for the time
circulars would be put into the ad-
dressees' hands. But now the ar
rival OF an advertisement is carefully
timed by the discriminating.
Monday is a day universally
avoided, for everybody receives the
biggest mail OF the week that day,
and all advertisements are sorted
out rapidly and cast into the dread
ed waste basket, Tuesday, 1t has
been found by careful experiment
the country over, is the day when
everybody receives the lightest mail
Of tho week So the advertiser plans
TO have his proposition arrive on
that day, preferably along in the af-
tcrnoon when probably there is no
other mail for the recipient.
Wednesday Is also a light day
Thursday IS heavier. Friday is
heavier still. Saturday is almost as
heavy as Monday.
Formerly there were many skilful