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50
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
VALUABLE HINTS ON HOW TO COMPILE A MAILING LIST
One of the Interesting Features of the New York-Chicago Talking Machine Co.'s New Publication,
"Merchandising Helps for Victor Dealers"—Suggestions Based on Experience
One of the most valuable and interesting
articles in the new publication, "Merchandising
Helps for Victor Dealers," compiled and issued
recently by the New York-Chicago Talking Ma-
chine Co., Victor distributor, is the article en-
titled, "How to Compile a Mailing List," which
is reproduced herewith. This article is well
worth the attention of Victor dealers through-
out the country, as it embodies practical ideas
which have been developed under actual condi-
tions. It reads:
"The livest prospect is the person who comes
to your store in response to a definite invita-
tion. Such a person is already half sold. Let
it be your endeavor to bring a number of such
persons to your store every day, and in order
to do this mail letters or circulars at least
twice a month to a select list of names.
"The city directory will give you, of course,
the names and addresses of all the people in
your city, but you can't afford to circularize
everybody. There will be a great many people
in every community who are not good prospects,
not good enough at any rate to justify you in
spending postage on them month after month.
Families with just enough income to make both
ends meet purchase only the necessities of life,
and while they are good prospects for the
butcher, the baker and the grocer, they are not
good prospects for you.
"For the Victor dealer the telephone directory
furnishes better material for a mailing list than
the city directory. Homes that can afford a
telephone can afford a Victor. But even the
telephone directory (after you have eliminated
business phones) will contain the names of more
families having residence phones than you will
wish to put on your regular mailing list. How
are you going to decide what names to retain
and what names to eliminate?
"One of the surest indications of the financial
standing of a family is the rent it pays or (if it
lives in a house of its own) the neighborhood
in which its house is located. With a map of
your city before you you can, of your own
knowledge, cross off block after block, eliminat-
ing from further consideration those neighbor-
hoods in which rentals are very low and the in-
habitants, therefore, too poor to purchase Vic-
trolas and Victor records. In the same way
you can indicate on the map the sections of the
city in which the wealthy people and people of
moderate means live.
"Just before local elections you have a good
opportunity to secure a list of the inhabitants
of your city arranged by wards and precincts,
instead of alphabetically as in the city and tele-
phone directories.
This is a list of voters
printed for use at the polls. By inquiring at
the City Hall you can learn the name of the
local printer who furnishes the list of voters
and can purchase from him the complete poll
list, or such portions of it as cover the sections
of the city in which you are interested.
"A list of inhabitants arranged by wards and
precincts will prove very useful to you since
it enables you to test out one neighborhood
after another by sending printed matter and
letters to say 100 families in one precinct and
to 100 families in a neighboring precinct and
then comparing the results you receive from
each batch of letters. In this way you will be
able in a short time to get a pretty good line
on the neighborhoods that it will pay you to
work hard and those on which it will not be
profitable to spend much effort.
"To aid you in compiling a really valuable
mailing list there is other information, easily
obtained, that will be useful. The fact that a
family has a residence telephone is one indi-
cation that it is in comfortable circumstances.
The fact that it lives in a quarter of the city
where rents, or property values, are somewhat
higher than the average is another indication.
If some member of the family owns an auto-
mobile this is still another indication, and a
complete list of automobile owners can usually
be found either at the City Hall or at Police
Headquarters. Members of families that en-
joy fairly good incomes are very apt to become
members of one or two clubs, so in addition
to the information indicated above you will want
to secure complete membership lists of your
local clubs—golf club, yacht club, athletic club,
and so on, not forgetting the Chamber of Com-
merce, Merchants' and Manufacturers' Associa-
tion, or whatever happens to be the name of
the local association of business men.
"In compiling a mailing list bear in mind that
people in receipt of a regular salary are better
prospects than those who work for wages. City
officials, school teachers, policemen, post-office
employes, and people occupying clerical posi-
tions in offices and factories can usually count
on steady employment the year round and, al-
though in some cases their incomes may not
be large, the fact that they receive a fixed sum
weekly or monthly enables them to assume obli-
gations that they can meet by weekly or month-
ly payments. The income of the wage worker,
on the other hand, is-always an unknown quan-
tity, for his employment depends upon the con-
dition of his trade.
"To the Victor dealer who has not paid much
attention to the subject of mailing lists it may
seem we have here devoted an undue amount
of space to this subject and the trouble of com-
piling one may even tend to deter him from at-
tempting it. 3 u t the truth of the matter is that
the success of your business depends very large-
ly upon your knowledge of who ought to buy
Victors and upon the persistence with which
you circularize this list of people. Every name
that ought not to be on your list means a waste
of money for printed matter and postage, and
every name that ought to be on your list, and
isn't, may mean a sale lost. So don't begrudge
the time you spend in making your mailing
list as nearly perfect and complete as possible.
"You don't have to complete your mailing
list all at once—build it up gradually. When-
ever in reading the daily paper you run across
the name of some person who is prominent in
business or social circles make a note of it and
get it on your list. Whenever a person drops
in at your store and leaves without buying, say
before he goes: 'We expect to have a new
booklet about the Victor in a week or two—I'd
like to send you a copy of it,' and have paper
and pencil handy to jot down the name and
address.
"The prospects on a mailing list are like fruit
on a tree, some of it is ripening all the time,
and you can gather the ripe fruit by shaking
the tree every little while. But be sure the
trees you shake are fruit-bearing trees. Let
your mailing list be an orchard, not a forest.
Compile it carefully, revise it constantly, cir-
cularize it frequently, and it will prove itself
to be one of your best business getters.
"A man or woman who has once shown in-
terest in a Victrola is always a possible cus-
tomer—never take their name off your mailing
list until they die or move out of your terri-
tory. There are so many demands on the fam-
ily purse that have to be met from month to
month that it sometimes takes a family a long
while to get to the buying point, but all the
time the desire to possess a Victrola is working
in your favor, and it is your business to keep
this desire alive so that the longing for a Vic-
trola may not be changed into a longing for
something else."
GOOD COLUMBIA PUBLICITY
The Columbia Graphophone Co. carried an
artistic two-page advertisement in last week's
Saturday Evening Post, which gave the millions
of readers of this magazine an adequate idea of
the international fame of many of the Columbia
recording artists. Among the artists featured
in this advertisement are Lazaro, Barrientos,
Ysaye, Hofmann, Godowsky, Sembach, Casals,
Barlow, Graveure, Seagle and Nielsen.
Increase Your
Income
Piano merchants, who
have not investigated
the talking machine
field, will find that the
subject is one of deep
interest to them and
they will also learn that
talking machines con-
stitute a line which can
be admirably blended
with piano selling.
The advance that has
been m a d e in this
special field has been
phenomenal and every
dealer who desires
s p e c i f ic information
concerning talking ma-
chines should receive
The Talking Machine
World regularly.
This is the only publi-
cation in A m e r i c a
devoted exclusively to
the interests of the talk-
ing machine, and each
issue contains a vast
fund of valuable in-
formation which the
talking machine job-
bers and dealers say is
worth ten times the cost
of the paper to them.
You can receive the
paper regularly at a cost
of $1.00 a year and we
know of no manner in
which $1.00 can be ex-
pended which will sup-
ply as much valuable
information.
EDWARD LYMAN BILL
Publisher
373 Fourth Ave.
NEW YORK