The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1920-01-01
is LIFE OF BUSINESS
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little country town, with a little over
1900 circulation, we can put in an ad,
for instance suit sale. We run two
every year, one in June and another
along in September about the time
when it is appropriate. We send out
personal letter to our mailing list.
We have one compiled of only $500
names Our country is very thinly
populated. We have to go out some
40 miles to get this number to mail
out. And | just wonder what we
would do if we had a $4,000 population
right at our door.
When we are ready to have silk
sale we get out an advertisement tell
ing them all about it. Everything is
absolutely honest. Our first advertise
ment tells the people to watch f'r the
page advertisement in the newspaper
On the morning that this silk sale is
to be opened that entire dry goods Sec
ton is nothing but silks, spread out all
over, so that when they come in the
the eye. We have the price tags on
them. These sales invariably are a
success. We not only make money in
that department. but it livens up every
department of that store.
There are a great many people who
question that method of doing busi-
ness, thinking it would lessen the busi-
ness later. We find that the consumer
used just as much silk and gets in the
habit of using more.
We run an anniversary sale in the
fall. We are also very anxious along
about the second week in December to
move a lot of this merchandise that
we expected to move in October and
November. We use exactly the same
method And, by the way all during
that epidemic of the flu we sent sympa-
thetic letters to all our customers tell
ing them how to handle it. In our
town they had no means Of being taken
care Of We had two large hospitals
in the city. Medical authorities took
over two stories in the hotels We ad-
yertised that fact through the country,
telling them that if they were i'll to let
us know. the ambulance would come at
once, and we gathered people from the
surrounding country and had one doc
tor to take care of all these people
during this time. Then after it was
over we talked about the flu being
over and how fortunate we were to
get through with a small death loss
and told them we had expected to sell
this merchandise and wanted to move
it and would put a price on it attrac-
tive to them. Then four-page ad
came out - an announcement - and
where we couldn't reach them that
way we mailed it to them, and the first
day of the sale our sales were $500,
and during the seven days We sold
little over 100000 worth of merchan-
disc. That is the drawing power Of
that little paper.
When we have a fall opening out in
that little town we have live models.
We have the best orchestra in town.
We serve coffee and cookies and try to
have it pleasant for them. 1t is quite
a little novelty, and we have fashion
film. When that film is run we display
the same garments on the live models.
That seems like rather far fetched for
a small town, but we are trying it out.
How far can you go on advertising?
How much can you spend? l find there
is no limit, even if you cut out some
stuff that don't bring returns. On our