Presto

are that many customers in the country when I don't know-
where to find the few of them who are right here in my own
town ?"
Mr. Selz gives a rule for figuring the number of piano pros-
pects in your own community. And remember again that
what's true of pianos is true of other musical instruments.
Here's the rule :
Eliminate all those on relief. Eliminate all those whose in-
comes are uncertain, or inadequate for all but the bare neces-
sities of life.
Everybody else is a piano prospect!
Mr. Selz has simply demonstrated that piano dealers cannot
expect to sell members of Mr. Roosevelt's famous One-Third.
They only have two-thirds of the public to which to sell the
most expensive of all popular musical instruments!
But everybody in this business knows that the piano does
not reach two-thirds of the nation's homes. In the big cities
particularly the percentage of piano ownership is much smaller.
There are two reasons—both touched upon in the Selz study
—why piano ownership is less common among city dwellers
than it is among people living in smaller places. Both of
these difficulties have been solved by manufacturers in the last
four or five years.
The first difficulty is that city dwellers live in small rooms.
There was a lag between the development of the modern ur-
ban apartment and the development of a piano styled to fit into
it. For a city dweller to buy or retain her piano meant—for
many years—a sacrifice of space which she was often unwill-
ing to make.
Miniature pianos have become common in the showrooms
during the last four or five years. Sound advertising has
overcome the public distrust which greeted their introduction.
The public now realizes that these instruments which fit the
small rooms of the ordinary city apartment are not produced
by making an undue sacrifice of tone and quality.
One other development has helped clear the way for in-
creased city piano sales—and not only city sales, either. That
is the restyling of the piano which accompanied and was ac-
centuated by the introduction of the little piano. Mr. Selz's
study of consumer reaction to piano publicity and advertising-
showed that the style appeal attracted more attention than all
the other appeals used in piano advertising combined.
The modern, restyled piano is as great an improvement in
appearance over its ancestor of forty years ago as its innards
are an improvement over its ancestor's innards mechanically.
The design of the modern piano does not fight with the design
of the other furniture in a modern living or music room. And
it does not take up more than its fair share of space.
For all these reasons it can be sold.
"Yes," you say. "But how? I thought you were going to
tell me how to reach the one-half of my possible market
which I've nevej been able to tap?"
This one-half of the potential market can be reached :
1. Through publicity. It is known that publicity cannot do
the work of advertising. Its function is rather to blaze the
way for advertising, to break down the resistance which some
people generate within themselves when their eyes encounter
the black border or the white space which separates adver-
tising copy from editorial matter. Intelligent publicity can
create a reader receptiveness for advertising copy.
2, Through promotion methods. If you're going to get
publicity yon must have something to publicize. The still
common notion that publicity men are loudmouthed alcoholics
who urge their editor friends to put their clients' names in the
paper has no basis in fact. The publicity man's real job is to
relate his clients' interests to public fads and fancies. He
does this by providing news in which the relationship is ap-
II
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parent. And in order to get this news he must often create
the situation of which it is the report.
In no field is this sort of tie-up easier to make than in the
field of music. For the American people are increasingly in-
terested in music!
If this sounds theoretical and expensive, try relating it to
your own situation. You are one of two dealers in a town
of 10,000 people, and you feel that your business would bene-
fit by the use of free lessons as a merchandising help in your
band section. Many music publishers have prepared such
material which they are now offering at prices low enough to
interest the premium trade—free lessons with the purchase of
a musical instrument is really a premium offer—and you are
considering the possibilities of the plan.
Now the opening of a free music school by you—a dealer—•
is news-worthy, and should rate proper treatment from your
local editor. But the editor can't keep on reporting your
music school unless you provide him with something to report
that has news interest. Therefore, let the students in the
school give a concert; or arrange for periodical "graduations,"
all of which could rate the local press.
This is just one instance of the kind of thing we have in
mind. It's not new in the music field and it's far from new in
other lines of merchandising, but this sort of thing is inade-
quately developed in the music trades and promises to bring
us all much greater returns in the future than it ever has in
the past. A premium is always attractive, but it is particu-
larly wise for the music dealer to offer lessons as a premium,
for it is probably still true that the most important bar to
greater sales in our field is the customer's fear that he will
never be able to learn to play the particular instrument he
has set his heart upon.
Our greatest single obstacle is this fear. We can overcome
that by offering lessons, and by making the urge to buy so
great that people will actually make the effort which will en-
able them to play.
We offer the public newly styled instruments, of a size tbey
can conveniently fit into their homes. We often help them
learn to play the instruments of their choice. We have two-
thirds of the nation to which to sell our most expensive in-
struments. Half of the possible customers can take them as
replacements, and the other half lack such instruments now.
Is it any wonder we think the musical instrument business
faces a great future?
The
differ-
ence betz^een
selling
and
peddling
that
is
in the
ease of sci-
entific sellimi
y o u
p i a n
your
work
and
work
then
...your
plan.
O
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