Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXIX. No. 10 Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 3S3 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Sept. 6, 1924
Single Copies 10 Cents
S3.00 Per Tear
S111W1IIK1M
A Direct-By-Mail Advertising Exhibit
IIXIUSflllXIIIXIIIMllKIIIMM
T
HERE is no gainsaying the fact that the trade, as a whole, has benefited in no small degree through
the displays of newspapers and national advertising which have been made at the last two annual con-
ventions of the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce. These, with suitable awards offered for
that advertising considered as best, have brought out a wealth of advertising copy which reflects great
credit on the industry as a whole and compared most favorably with the advertising of any other line of busi-
ness both in newspapers and magazines.
The first year the exhibit was confined to newspaper advertising. The second year the field was
broadened and arrangements were made for a special display of national advertising. This was pertinent in
view of the steadily increasing amount of space being used by members of the industry in national periodicals
and the increase in the number of concerns spending money on publicity of that sort—publicity, incidentally,
of outstanding character.
There is, however, a third and distinctly important form of advertising, which finds a place in the
retail music trade field. This is direct-by-mail publicity which is used more or less extensively by practically
every retail music house. Efforts were made prior to the last convention to have an exhibit of direct-by-mail
publicity included with the display of newspaper and magazine advertising. The appeal was made too late to
allow for satisfactory plans being made to that end.
There is every prospect right now that there will be a substantial exhibit of direct-by-mail publicity
presented at the 1925 convention in Chicago for the edification of those dealers who seek to cultivate that per-
sonal touch with their prospects which means so much in musical instrument selling. A number of prominent
manufacturers in the trade have made practical use of direct-by-mail advertising, chief among them
being E. I. Kaiper, president of the Vocalstyle Music Co., whose company has developed a most successful
direct-by-mail campaign for the benefit of "its dealers, and who has taken a direct interest in seeing that an
exhibit of this sort of publicity is included in .the convention program.
Several of these manufacturers have seen fit to lend their endorsement to Mr. Kaiper's suggestion to
the Trade Service Bureau of the Music Industries Chamber of Commerce, that this be done. If this wide in-
terest has any bearing on the matter, there should be available in Chicago a mass of material of proven value
that should offer an excellent guide to energetic dealers throughout the country in the preparation of their
direct-by-mail campaigns.
It is to be admitted that direct-by-mail advertising in a sense is supplementary to newspaper and maga-
zine publicity. But it provides the medium through which the dealer can forge the connecting link between
general advertising and his prospects. To be successful a mail campaign must be backed by experience, for
results are not obtained when the publicity is simply mailed from the store, but rather when it gets into the
prospect's hands and has a sufficient appeal to interest him.
The average citizen receives three or four pieces of circular mail to every personal or business letter that
reaches his home, therefore it is but natural that he simply takes time to glance at the ordinary run of stuff
and sends it to the waste basket without any great amount of thought. The art of direct-by-mail advertising
lies in so arranging it that it will stand out from among competitors and have a sufficient appeal at first glance
to make the prospect read it.
Probably there is not a single dealer but who has had the experience of working earnestly on a piece
of direct-by-mail publicity, spending money in its preparation and in its mailing, only to discover that some-
thing was wrong somewhere and the results were not forthcoming. If he is privileged at the convention to
study direct-by-mail advertising that has brought results and take advantage of that study, he is going to profit
both in time and money.