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THE:
MUSIC TRADE
it brings different results. The telephone makes his engagement a
personal one, and/ except in a few cases, are always kept. This
salesman, of course, found his expense account increasing, but
eventually he was amply repaid. In many instances, too, the 'phone
call revealed the fact that the buyer was away, and in other cases
an order was the result without calling. The latter practice, gen-
erally speaking, is not good, but better by far than to call and to
find that someone else had '"beaten him to it." Opportunities
abound at every turn, but few find them.
HAT this paper is becoming a stronger power all the while
and is of greater benefit to manufacturer, dealer and sales-
man, is evidenced in the many communications which we are re-
ceiving from subscribers.
We have always contended that trade journalism should be
helpful and we receive letters embodying expressions similar to
the following, which is from the A. B. Smith Piano Co., Akron,
Ohio; it is naturally gratifying.
This company says: "The editorials for our salesmen are
worth much more than the price of a subscription."
There is nothing like giving good liberal value and The Review
is always interested in delivering heaping measure. Some time ago
we commenced a department wherein we published "Want" adver-
tisements relating to different departments of the trade free of cost
to advertisers.
We stated at the inception of the move that our object was to
bring the different departments of the trade in closer contact; in
other words, to make The Review universal want directory a trade
market place.
That this 1 move has been successful may be evidenced in the
fact that we are constantly receiving communications from mem-
bers of the trade who have been delighted with the replies received
from a small advertisement.
. One man received in a single day forty replies to a four line
advertisement, so it will be seen that this department is working
out successfully and is doing constructive work in the trade.
He further remarked: "I have been a subscriber to The
Music Trade Review for over twelve years and it is always read
with great interest and pleasure."
Legal Questions Answered for the
Benefit of Review Readers
have opened a Department wherein legal
questions, which have direct bearing on music
trade affairs, will be answered free of charge.
CflThis Department is under the supervision of
Messrs. Wentworth, Lowenstein & Stern, attor-
neys at law, of 60 Wall Street, New York.
T
HE preparation of advertising copy that will interest the aver-
age reader and bring results to the advertiser is one of the
great problems on which many brainy men are concentrating at-
tention these days. It is a rather fascinating topic how best the
buying public may be reached, its curiosity aroused to the extent of
opening its pocket or check book, and making a purchase. Many
well-known specialists and writers, including Charles Austin Bates,
believes that "live" or humanized "copy" is an absolute essential
to secure results, and in discussing this matter recently in Printer's
Ink he put it this way:
To get human interest into advertising copy the writer must
first feel the human interest. He must write from the reader's
standpoint. He must know the desirability of the thirtg he adver-
tises—not as the maker knows it, but in its appeal to the user. In
other words, he must know the human side of his merchandise.
A woman buys a silk gown not because it is silk—not because
of its mechanical perfection as a fabric, but because of the way she
thinks she will feel when she wears it.
A man buys a player-piano not because it is made of wood
felts, ivory and metals, but because of the pleasure it will give in
operation. If the same music could result from an instrument
made in some other form and of entirely different materials, the
buyer would be as well satisfied.
So the human interest advertisement appeals to the mental im-
pressions of the reader—to his senses, his aspirations, to his pre-
conceived ideas of desirability. Technical description of the thing
to be sold is mere corroborative detail.
We want to know what it is good for, what it will do, before
we care very much of what, or how, it is made.
The writer must first determine why anyone should want an
automobile, or a tin horn, or a can of beans—then he must tell just
why his particular beans, or horns, will most completely satisfy that
want. It is really the want we write about and not the material
thing itself.
T
REVIEW
^Matter intended for this Department should be
addressed plainly, Legal Department, The Music
Trade Review.
And no writer can reach every reader. He can interest only
those whom he understands, for only those will understand him.
We respond to kindred vibrations. The man whose mental
wireless is in a different key will never get my message.
Advertising doesn't create a demand. It only locates it.
The author is great who agrees with us. The comedian whose
sense of humor coincides with our own is the one who "gets it
over."
Each of us has a certain audience which will respond to him.
The more we know, really know, about people—many kinds of
people, the more we know of their lives, hopes, troubles, triumphs
and desires, the greater our audience and the more human intrest
we can put into our work.
We can put nothing into our advertisements that we have not
already in ourselves. Imitation is canned stuff, preserved from
putrefaction by benzoate of soda.
Sincerity is the keynote, and extreme formality seldom seems
sincere. The difficulty is to avoid cold formality and at the same
time keep away from a degree of colloquial familiarity which may
easily be offensive.
But, again, each writer's audience is limited. No one can
reach one hundred per cent, of the readers of any publication, and
so we must at the outset decide which class of reader we shall
appeal to. We imagine an individual typical of that c 1 ass and
address him personally.
We mentally visualize that individual. We know his age, tem-
perament and domestic life, and whether he stays at home at night,
or g-oes down to the club. We know his attitude toward the chil-
dren and whether, or not, he carries life insurance.
If we know enough about raw human nature we will always be
able to create a very real man who lives, breathes and buys goods.
Then we write to him and use words, phrases, similes and argu-
ments that we know will fit him.
In any million of readers our man appears an uncertain num-
ber of thousands of times. We reach him positively and convinc-
ingly. He knows we are sincere and he knows we are "talking
sense," for we speak his language and voice his thoughts. In a
less effective degree, we reach his sisters, cousins and aunts and the
fellows who belong to the same lodge.
r
I ^HERE are some firms which we can mention who are out of
A touch and out of sympathy with their representatives. Now,
when co-operation is lacking the business languishes. There is no
other way out of it, and a salesman who can see, understand and
explain the reasons behind certain printed statements of his firm
in its local advertising will be able to work more effectually for
his house than otherwise. To do business more suctessfully a firm
must have certain clean-cut 1 principles running through all its
transactions. The observance of certain basic principles at all
times and under all conditions constitutes the policy of a house.
Every man can broaden his business horizon if he will study the
subject which will make him acquainted with what are regarded as
the best standards in the world of business, and to-day, if we
analyze the conditions which surround successful business men of
our times, it will be discovered that they have always kept close to
the subject.