Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1916-07-13
MAIL ORDER HOUSES WATCH
SMALL CITY ADVERTISERS
If Merchants Fail to Advertise
Mail Order Houses Say
Town is Rich Field

Advertising 10 the majority OF buSl-
ness men in the small cities has no
appeal. The reason for this indiffer-
ent attitude is that most business men
of this class of cities never spend so
much as the smallest part of the day
in considering the advantages of reg
ular and systematic advertising. They
have no well laid out plan. They have
no department, which they can desig-
nate as an advertising department. 1t
is all done on the "hit and miss plan" +"
When an advertising agent rushes in
at the last moment before going to
press, to secure copy for the advertise
ment for which he has been waiting,
perhaps, an hour, the advertiser
hands him over some stuff" that
would never attract the reader, no
matter how much publicity it was
given. Such advertising never did
anyone the smallest amount of good,
and never will. The business man,
who expects any newspaper to bring
returns on such a system, shouldn't
be in business.
Another mistaken idea, prevalent
among business houses of the smaller
type, grows out of the matter of space
in proportion to the quantity of copy.
Even the person not acquainted with
the advertising profession will agree
that satisfactory results can not be
obtained by crowding intothe smallest
possible space copy covering the ma
jority of articles, occupying the
shelves in the store.
A man can't expect to sell clothes
by talking about clothes, shoes, mems
fittings and dozen other things, all
in four inch advertisement. There
are, however, many merchants
who have allowed themselves to drop
into this rut, and no amount of pull
ing, or hauling, or talking is sufficient
TO remove them. How many readers
of any newspaper will be attracted
TO an advertisement unless it has
something that commands their at
tention, and what attractiveness is
there to conglomeration Of words and
prices? Perhaps there may be some
intrinsic value down in the mass of
piled together articles, but how many
find it? If the small town merchant
could only see the advantage of spend
ing time on the arrangement of his
advertising copy, he would notice an
immediate growth in his patronage.
Well placed advertising in the news
paper holds trade. II conserves
trade and keeps it in home circulation.
The bugbear of many merchants in
the small town is the mail order bust
ness. 1t is admitted that the system
allenates home trade.
1t is in discussing the subject that
the recent remarks of Mr.. Rosenthal,
advertising managers of one of Chi
cago's largest mail order houses pays
the advertising merchant a left
handed compliment. He says:
I'VE have a bureau whose duty it is
to read each week the country news
papers from all over the country.
There is not a paper of any conse-
ouence i'm our trade territory that our
bureau does not get. This bureau
looks over these papers and when we
find town where the merchants are
not advertising in the local paper
We Immediately flood that territory
with our literature. Ii always brings
results far in excess Of the sane effort
put forth in the territory where the
local merchants all the time use the
local papers"
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