Advertising Dealers

Chapter Sixteen:    

Leaning on Dealers

     
     
	We cannot depend much in most lines on the active help of 
jobbers or of dealers.  They are busy.  They have many lines to 
consider.  The profit on advertised lines is not generally large.  
And an advertised article is apt to be sold at cut prices.
     

     The average dealer does what you would do.  He exerts himself 
on brands of his own, if a all.  Not on another man's brand.
     

     The dealer will often try to make you think otherwise.  He 
will ask some aid or concession on the ground of extra effort.  
Advertisers often give extra discounts.  Or they make loading 
offers - perhaps one case free in ten - in the belief that loaded 
dealers will make extra efforts.

     This may be so rare lines, but not generally.  And the efforts 
if made do not usually increase the total sales.  They merely swing 
trade from one store to another.
     

     On most lines, making a sale without making a convert does not 
count for much.  Sales made by conviction - by advertising - are 
likely to bring permanent customers.  People who buy through casual 
recommendations do not often stick.  Next time someone else gives 
other advice.
     

     Revenue which belongs to the advertiser is often given away 
without adequate return.  These discounts and gifts could be far 
better spent in securing new customers.
     

     Free goods must be sold, and by your own efforts usually.  One 
extra case with ten means that advertising must sell ten per cent 
more to bring you the same return.  The dealer would probably buy 
just as much if you let him buy as convenient.
     

     Much money is often frittered away on other forms of dealer 
help.  Perhaps on window or store displays.  A window display, 
acting as a reminder, may bring to one dealer a lion's share of the 
trade.  Yet it may not increase your total sales at all.
     

     Those are facts to find out.  Try one town in one way, one in 
another.  Compare total sales in those towns.  In many lines such 
tests will show that costly displays are worthless.  A growing 
number of experienced advertisers spend no money on displays.
     

     This is all in line of general publicity, so popular long 
ago.  Casting bread upon the waters and hoping for its return.  
Most advertising was of that sort twenty years ago.
     

     Now we put things to the test.  We compare cost and result on 
every form of expenditure.  It is very easily done.  Very many 
costly wastes are eliminated by this modern process.
     

     Scientific advertising has altered many old plans and 
conceptions.  It has proved many long-established methods to be 
folly.  And why should wee not apply to these things the same 
criterion we apply to other forms of selling? Or to manufacturing
costs?
     

     Your object in all advertising is to gain new customers at a 
price which pays a profit.  You have no interest in garnering trade 
at any particular store.  Learn what your consumers cost and what 
they buy.  If they cost you one dollar each, figure that every 
wasted dollar costs you a possible customer.
     

     Your business will be built in that way, not by dealer help.  
You must do your own selling, make your own success.  Be content if 
dealers fill the orders that you bring.  Eliminate your wastes.  
Spend all your ammunition where it counts for most.

Return to Book Intro and Chapter Index:  Scientific Advertising

Continue to the next Chapter: Advertising Individuality