rtisement; the second insertion he
sees, but does not read; the third insertion he reads; the fourth
insertion, he looks at the price; the fifth insertion, he speaks of
it to his wife; the sixth insertion, he is ready to purchase, and the
seventh insertion, he purchases." Your object in advertising is to make
the public understand what you have got to sell, and if you have not the
pluck to keep advertising, until you have imparted that information, all
the money you have spent is lost. You are like the fellow who told the
gentleman if he would give him ten cents it would save him a dollar.
"How can I help you so much with so small a sum?" asked the gentleman
in surprise. "I started out this morning (hiccuped the fellow) with
the full determination to get drunk, and I have spent my only dollar
to accomplish the object, and it has not quite done it. Ten cents worth
more of whiskey would just do it, and in this manner I should save the
dollar already expended."
So a man who advertises at all must keep it up until the public know who
and what he is, and what his business is, or else the money invested in
advertising is lost.
Some men have a peculiar genius for writing a striking advertisement,
one that will arrest the attention of the reader at first sight. This
fact, of course, gives the advertiser a great advantage. Sometimes a
man makes himself popular by an unique sign or a curious display in his
window, recently I observed a swing sign extending over the sidewalk in
front of a store, on which was the inscription in plain letters,
"DON'T READ THE OTHER SIDE"
Of course I did, and so did everybody else, and I learned that the man
had made all independence by first attracting the public to his business
in that way and then using his customers well afterwards.
Genin, the hatter, bought the first Jenny Lind ticket at auction for
two hundred and twenty-five dollars, because he knew it would be a good
advertisement for him. "Who is the bidder?" said the auctioneer, as he
knocked down that ticket at Castle Garden. "Genin, the hatter," was the
response. Here were thousands of people from the Fifth avenue, and from
distant cities in the highest stations in life. "Who is 'Genin,' the
hatter?" they exclaimed. They had never heard of him before. The next
morning the newspapers and telegraph had circulated the facts from Maine
to Texas, and from five to ten millions off people had read that the
tickets sold at auction
|