The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1927-02-24
Newspaper Advertising Is Best
Asset To Good Craftsmanship

been carried on by order-by-mail
firms in single way.
The survey, the speaker said
showed that rs per cent of the
merchants included in the survey
did not advertise in their newspap-
ers and many knew nothing ait all
of the art of bringing trade to
their stores.
'IIl bet that rs per cent of
the merchants in Rochester do not
advertise" Mr.. Mann declared. "No
matter how good salesman you
are it will be valueless unless
backed up with advertising. Why
should people come into your
store to buy things? Did you ever
think of that?" Incidentally the
Devils Lake man asserted that the
mail order firms spent $4,000, 900
to get $3O,000,000 worth of bust
ness in his home state in 1919.
Thirty-four years ago a news
paper man urged the then small
Devils Lake merchant to start
newspaper advertising. Mr.. Mann
told how, as clerk in a store, he
had saved a small sum from his
weekly salary and on the strength
of a recommendation from a local
bank, had purchased a stock of
groceries on credit from a twin city
jobbing firm. On the strength of
consistent advertising in the small
weekly paper, he sold $4,000
worth of goods the first year and
since that time has become a ma
tional figure in the retail mer-
chandising world because he rea-
lized the value of advertising.
Mr.. Mann, whose phenomenal
success as retailer has caught the
attention of such widely circulated
publications as Success Magazine,
The Country Gentleman, Saturday
Evening Post and the Philadelphia
Ledger, together with scores of
smaller publications throughout
the country, briefly sketched the
methods pursued in his own state,
pointing out that his advice to
Rochester merchants was based
solely <on experience, and is not
theoretical Sin any sense. The
Mann Store, he said, attracts Gus
toners from a distance of 70
miles when special advertising
campaigns are opened.
"When I have anything to sell,
what do l do?" he said. 81 ad-
vertise. When I want anyone to
come to my store, I advertise.
Single page and double page ad-
vertisements are inserted in the
Small Devils Lake newspaper,
which has a circulation of only
1900 subscribers, ait regular in
tervals. Mr.. Mann believes in
consistent advertising. He de-
clared that advertising costs him
nothing. The tremendous drawing
power of the advertisement, he
said, make up for the expense of
the advertisement.
A number of big advertisements
run in the Devils Lake newspaper
were shown by the merchant. The
number of dollars each of them
returned in the form of trade was
enormous.
The Devils Lake man also en-
ploys to some extent price cards
backing up his advertising. He
scored pencils, calendars and 9th
er articles as an effective adver-
Using medium. Pointing to a
calendar on the wall, he asked if
the expense involved would ever
be returned in the. shape of in
creased trade. 'I don't want to
knock anybody's business he said,
sbut that system of advertising
does not pay
eve spend $4,000 annually in
advertising" Mr.. Mann asserted,
sin our little paper which reaches
2209 subscribers, while your paper
has circulation Of 5000. If we
did not use our newspaper we
would go out Of business quickly"
The son of the noted Dakota re-
taller, he said, carefully studies
big city advertisements and many
of the Mann advertisements are
modelled from those run by the
chain store systems.
To all parts of the country
Mann has carried his gospel of
advertising, when called upon by
merchants to offer suggestions to