Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1913-06-04
STORE MUST BACK
UP ADVERTISING
Much Depends on Treatment OF
Customers-Why Some
Publicity Fails.
BY MAX BARNETT.


The skill which you display in u.s.
ing the tools of advertising may be
more or less artistic, but scarcely
an art.
II you spend all of your time in ad-
vertising work, it becomes your Vo-
cation, your business. If part of your
time, your avocation. The results of
advertising are creative, Immediately,
accumulatiYe, permanent or transient,
according to the nature and character
of the advertising you do.
Why Some advertising" Fails.
How pitiful the merchant who says:
. advertising does nct pay; I've tried
-one advertisement
Or, the advertiser who Is always
grumbling at his results-because his
spasmodic, intermittent, parsimonious
efforts have not brought him hun
dredfold in one year. II
Advertising would indeed be con-
temptible thing If such efforts could
offset the intelligent, persistent, lib
eral. honest efforts of other concerns
which for many years have kept eV-
erlastingly at it.
If by a few scattered advertise
ments. couched in verbose, extraVa-
CANT language, you or l could tear
down the good will that our neighbor
has spent quarter of century ana
perhaps a million dollars to build up,
advertising would become self-destruc-
tive, and there would be no adyer-
tising.
No, that is impossible. No matter
how expensive and sharp set of car
penter's tools you place in the hands
of a child, he cannot build, the mag
nificeut editices that adorn our cit
les.
But these same tools and materials.
placed in the hands of men trained
and experienced in their use, are the
means of creating, of building the
beautiful buildings we see on every
hand.
Some fellow has said the greatest
enemy advertising has is its name.
That is true
Why not write as you would talk!
Why not get some real, warm-blooded.
brotherly feeling into your advertls-
ing-some sympathy? Show your
customers by your approach, your ar
guments, your conclusions, that you
know him, his desires, his prejudices,
his conditions of living.
Some so-called advertising is boast
full, self-congratulatory. The place for
such things is on a monument or tomb
stone. not in an advertisement.
Your age, length, time in business,
capital, ETC., do not interest your pros
poets except in so far as you use these
facts to show how you can advance the
interests of your customers.
Advertising is only about ten per
cent. efficient because it is not fully
believed.
A few days ago noticed that about
four or five stores in town were on
that same day holding The biggest
sale New Orleans ever saw.
How could that be true? Something
was wrong somewhere. And as this
statement was, in each case, made IN
The headline, how far do you think
most readers got with those adver-
,isements or how much action did
they create in those who did have the
'ortitude to wade clear through? Not
much.
Advertising Only an Introduction.
Much depends upon the treatment
YOUR customers receive wher they
enter your store.
Are your clerks efficient? If not,
what is the matter? Are they paid
enough? If not. pay more.
Don't they know about the goods?
If not, instruct them You can get
better results by pulling than by push
ing in business.
Encourage constructive criticism.
Hang up a suggestion box. Hold meet
ings of your entire force and talk over
matters Of store policy, advertising.
etc.
Show sympathy and encouragement;
reward the meritorious. but If they
won't learn, or refuse your co-opera-
lion, "hre" them.
One gum-chewing, inattentive, ig-'
norant six-dollars-per.week clerk cam
offset and kill $500 worth of advertis-
ing in about six seconds. Brains are
valuable.
The results from advertising are
like dainty, timid. tir. flower just
peeping above the ground. A ruth
less hand, the hurling of rock, the
tread of a heel-any or all of these
Things will kill it instantly.
So with the partly formed determin-
alton of your prospects to purchase
your goods They enter the store. II
conditions are favorable, if things are
attractive, they buy. If not. they
leave, and no amount of advertising
can bring them back.