Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1924-11-07
VALUE OF GOOD
ADVERTISING
Explained by a Man Whose
Expenditures in This
Line Aggregate
100000

"
made by Mr.. Kelly of the Kelly Sales
System, before the Cotton States Mer
chants Association, Memphis, Tenn
on August 28th, and will prove of in
terest to local business men, who are
consistent advertisers:
A few weeks before my fortieth
birthday, which was several years
ago, my wife handed me good sized
bunch OF letter one morning, the let.
tiers being addressed and stamped
suggested that l drop them in the
mail box on my way to the Office.
wore my raincoat that morning, as II
happened to be raining, so | slipped
the letters in the pocket of the coat,
and upon arriving at the Office,
placed the coat in my locker, and for
got all about the letters. | did not
wear that same coat again for several
weeks, and that's where my trouble
started.
These letters happened to be inyi-
tations to my fortdeth birthday party.
The evening of the party came, the
stage was all set The dinner was
supposed to be at 600 p. M, but no
body showed up. We waited until
seven, but my friends failed to arrive,
then 10 and behold, my wife said to
me, DO you recall a morning some
few weeks ago when gave you those
letters to mail? They were the in
yitations to your party" Immdiate-
ly the thought struck me, "By golly,
those letters are in the pocket of
my raincoat at the Office"
Tat incident reminds me of an old
friend of mine who was in to see
me the other day. He told me about
a motor trip he had taken, driving
from Minneapolis up North for a few
hundred miles. It happened to be on
a Saturday. He visited several towns
on his trip, calling in at many stores,
and he remarked to me, do you |
know there were about two chain |
stores In each one of the towns |
went through and they were the only |
stores that were busy - the other |
stores didn't appear to be doing |
much OF anything" That caused |
him to investigate, just as matter
of curiosity, so l asked him the
names of the towns he visited.
then wrote to the newspapers in each
OF the towns and requested that they
send me their papers of Thursday
and Friday, two days before the Sat-
lrday when my friend called at these
stores. Upon receipt of these news
papers, / found that in four out of
i've papers, all the store advertising
that had been done was by the chain
stores. That solved the problem.
The retail merchants In the towns
where my friend visited had failed
10 advertise in the newspapers, in
giting the public to their store that
Saturday. and the public not receiv-
ng an invitation. did not come, but
he chain stores had invited them
With neat, effective ad, attractive
n style, and chuck full of common
'ense, and naturally, that is where
hey went.
So the stores that faile dto receive
heir friends were like my birthday
'arty-the crowd didn't come. l.
/ venture to say that in all the
ailures of retail merchants the last
hree years not twenty per cent of
hese same merchants advertised re-
igiously in newspapers, whereas, If
hey had their Investment in news
aper advertising would have brught
efficient trade to prevent great
mount of their losses.
The total newspaper advertising of
20 daily newspapers in 2S principal /
titles ( the United States in the |
ear 1923 was 1,333,954,971 agate '
mes a gain of 92,651,6 lines I
yer the previous year. ID
We are not handicapped today in i
our business the same as t
ur forefathers were who were com Y
elled to depend chiefly upon person d
exploitation of the individual, for {
lie circulation in those days was )
sry small. ,
First of all the newspaper has cir n
ilation. A single newspaper will n
ten cover from so to so per cent of p
Ie homes in its territory. Adver- a
sing space in that paper will give
much greater return per dollar Il
ent than will any other form Of b
lvertising on which postage is p,
ent. v,
Second, people are accustomed to I'll
adiag the newspaper. 1t is not W
fficult to get their attention, as in ii
e case of the circular letter, the in
oklet and other forms of direct tn
mail advertising. ~