Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
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THE
VOL. LXIII. No. 12 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 4th Ave., New York, Sept. 16, 1916
Advertising That Helps the Dealer
B
IG business to-day means concentration first and expansion next. It means the intensive cultivation
of a specified field before progressing onward to new fields. It means conservation of energy and
effort and this conservation is to be applied as much to the advertising policy of the concern as to
its sales policy.
Considering the piano trade in the light of big business, it would appear that the system of concentration
and conservation in the advertising policy of such houses .as do advertise broadly is the only consistent one,
particularly from the viewpoint of the dealer who handles the line and expects to profit from the advertising.
A national advertising campaign in general magazines of country-wide circulation is of great value from
the standpoint of general publicity, but in order to get the fullest results from a campaign of this kind the
manufacturer could, with advantage, supplement the general advertising with an adequate amount of local
publicity in the towns and the districts where his dealers are located.
The number of piano manufacturers who realize the efficiency of local advertising campaigns in the
dealer's own territory is constantly on the increase, with the result that many dealers can obtain from their
manufacturers such sales aids as electrotypes, carefully prepared copy, and other material all ready
for insertion in the home new r s pages.
Best publicity is the sort that gets its direct results because every reader of the advertisement is within
shopping distance of some dealer who handles the advertised lines.
In the case of magazine advertising, however, the situation is quite different. The reader may
be impressed with the advertising sufficiently to desire to make a personal inspection of the piano and yet
be unable to find any dealer in the vicinity selling that make. If the appeal of the type story is sufficiently
strong the prospect may write to the manufacturer for the address of the nearest dealer, and find that the
nearest one is half way across the state.
With local advertising, however, the dealer can either have his name placed in the manufacturer's
advertisement or supplement the manufacturer's announcement with copy of his own on the same page. With
the limited amount of advertising carried by the small town papers, the two announcements on the qualities
of one certain piano become decidedly impressive.
The growth of the "music in the home" idea for newspaper departments adds new emphasis to the question
of local advertising, for when the manufacturer, as well as the local dealer, is spending money in the local
papers, it becomes a very simple matter to have reading matter of the sort desired inserted.
How many piano manufacturers have five hundred dealers on their books? The number may be counted
on the fingers alone, and yet five hundred dealers in the whole United States means just about ten to every
state. A national publication may have 200,000 readers in New York state alone. The bulk proportion of
that 200,000 is located within buying distance, we would say, of one of the five or ten dealers in the state
handling the advertised pianos. The manufacturer with five dealers in a state will obtain the best results by
carrying on separate advertising campaigns in each dealer's territory, spending the money where it is going to
do each dealer the most good.
'
The rates, in the local papers are comparatively low, even for a position next to reading matter, and just
think how good this local advertising makes the dealer feel if he is the right kind of dealer. The manufacturer
spreads the name of his piano on the pages of the local paper, the dealer is proud to know that he has the
distinction of handling that piano.
It gives the dealer standing in the community, and the reader who becomes interested in the advertisement
knows just where to go to get the piano advertised.
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