Page 220 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

At a time when waste in advertising is a particularly heavy tax on business, a
great many retail executives may find the Tully-Abbott plan worth
considering. When a list is top heavy with worthless names, a mailing has a
hard time paying out. Inaccurate lists entail a great waste of postage, time and
material. The plan reviewed here is one that any merchant, regardless of line,
may convert to his use. The awards may be increased, decreased, or
dispensed with altogether, without seriously affecting the success of the plan.
Honorable mention and a daily list of the standings of contestants would
probably prove almost as successful as the use of awards in cash.

How to Make Newspaper Advertising Pay

For the average small business depending mainly upon one locality for
patronage, the accepted means of promotion is newspaper advertising. Just as
direct-mail advertising has an advantage in selecting prospects, so newspaper
advertising has an advantage in creating mass acceptance. It is the least
expensive of all advertising, based on contacts made per dollar expended. It
is particularly useful to those operating a retail business in a community
served by a good newspaper.

Yet, like any other form of sales promotion, newspaper advertising must be
rightly used or not at all. Too many business men regard advertising as
something they can do when they feel flush, or they wait for some special
occasion and then “take an advertisement in the newspaper.” Such hit-or-miss
effort is not likely to do you, or the newspaper publisher, much good. The
only effective way to make newspaper advertising pay is to have a plan—not
a plan for a few weeks or a few months, but a plan for three years.

In setting up your plan, decide first of all just what you expect your
newspaper advertising to do. You want it to attract new customers, of course.
But more than that you want it to build up in your community certain definite
impressions about your business and its ability to serve. You know, or should
know, that it is going to take time to create such an impression. “Taking an
advertisement” once in a while certainly will not do it. You have to advertise
regularly, using a certain style of “copy” and building your advertising story
around one dominating idea which the public will associate with your