Music Trade Review

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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXXI. No. 7
Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. Aag. 15,1925
8in
*J«
$2.00
les 10 Cents
Per Year
How the Will A. Watkin Go. Prepares
for the Holiday Demand
Robert N. Watkin, of the Well-Known Dallas Music Firm, Starts His Campaign for Holiday Business
Early in September—Christmas Clubs That Result in Christmas Sales — Window Display One
of the Most Vital Factors in Developing the Demand for This Period of the Year
H E Christmas trade constitutes a large
part of the annual business of the Will
A. Watkin Co., Dallas, and we plan
long in advance of the season to get as much
of that trade as we can. Christmas is the time
of music and song and
Christinas is also the time
of giving. We endeavor
to make use of both of
these facts in our appeal
to the public.
About the first of Sep-
tember we begin to adver-
tise our Christmas clubs in
the newspapers. T h e s c
clubs are merely a device
for encouraging the public
to save systematically in
small amounts to the end
that the savers may have a
fund sufficient to make a
first payment on a piano
or a phonograph or other
musical instrument
they
may have set their hearts
on.
To persons wishing to
buy a piano the plan is
that they may pay $5 into
our keeping and $2 each
week the r e a f t e r u n t i l
Christmas week.
To those desiring to buy
phonographs we specify an initial payment of
$2j/2 and $1 a week until Christmas. You will
readily see that in the course of the three or
four months this will have amounted to a sum
sufficient to justify us in delivering the instru-
ment to the home on the day before Christmas.
No Interest Offered
We do not offer any interest on this money,
for two reasons. The first of them is that the
interest would be so small as to hardly be
worth the bookkeeping, and the second is that
such an offer might create the suspicion in the
minds of some that we were on the verge of
bankruptcy and were trying to get in as much
money as possible before the crash.
We advertise these Christmas clubs chiefly
by newspaper "readers." We never put the
name of the firm in the first paragraph because
we want the public to be well into the reading
of the articles before they realize that they
are reading an advertisement. In these "read-
ers" we try such devices as having a young
T
woman relate her delight at having Dad buy
her a piano or phonograph—naming an instru-
ment we carry—and buying it, in particular,
from the Will A. Watkin Co. These we sign
with a feminine first name.
A Holiday Display of the Will A. Watkin Co.
In writing these and other advertisements we
try to write from the buyer's standpoint. We
realize that to a buyer the closing of a deal
for a musical instrument is not a sale repre-
senting so much profit, but it is the fulfillment
of a long-cherished desire for the acquisition of
that particular article.
About the time we begin our "reader" ad-
vertisements we also display in our show win-
dow an artistically printed banner reading:
"Join Our Christmas Club—No Obligations—
Inquire Inside."
Early Selection
When a person joins our club we permit her
to select then and there the instrument she is
to get Christmas. This makes the matter tangi-
ble and gives her a definite incentive for sav-
ing. It means much to a person when the
temptation comes to spend the surplus funds
for something else to be able to visualize the
particular instrument in our store which she is
saving toward.
On the first of December we begin an in-
tensive advertising campaign with display ads.
We display in turn each of the major instru-
ments and prominent makes we carry and em-
phasize the value of each. Here and there
throughout this advertising we call attention
to our one-price policy
and the reliability of our
firm as attested by its age,
and the fact that we sell
nationally advertised and
nationally priced lines.
In the three weeks pre-
ceding Christmas day we
have three different win-
dow displays. Folks do a
great
deal
of
window
shopping prior to Christ-
mas and we find it to our
advantage to have some-
thing fresh on hand fre-
quently to challenge atten-
tion. We have no way of
making a definite check on
what good these windows
do us but we arc confi-
dent they pay well.
A description of one
window we used one year
recently will illustrate the
type of windows we display.
In this window we had an
artificial fireplace with artificial flames behind
which electric lights burned in a manner sim-
ulating real tongues of fire. Hanging on the
fireplace were children's stockings and strewn
over a child's chair before the fireplace were
some tiny garments. A stuffed dog which
seemed to be asleep completed the lifelikeness
of the scene. In this instance we had a repro-
ducing piano and a phonograph of a make we
carry bringing up the rear.
This window was a great success and was
viewed by thousands of persons in the short
time it was kept on display.
Early Preparations
For quite a number of years we have begun
well before Christmas to make preparations for
the holiday trade. Every season has shown a
gain in business over the preceding one. In
1924 the Christmas business was fully 20 per
cent greater than that of 1923 and the 1923
business was at least 20 per cent greater than
the 1922 business. I attribute this steady in-
crease in sales to these efforts.