The Kind of Inquiry. HE other day, in the office of an advertiser, I had an opportunity of sitting down and spending five hours in reading letters received from farmers in answer to advertisements. This is a thing that should happen occasionally to every advertising man. He should get away from theory and from ideas of his own and spend a certain number of hours reading the letters of advertisers and seeing the other side of the question. The hours I spent in reading the letters I speak of did me good in more ways than one. Among the letters from farmers that I picked up and read was one from John Holden, asking for particulars regarding a machine. It was written on a cheap tablet, such as one might buy at a stationery store for five cents. The chirog Was cramped, the instrument of torture was a pencil. I passed the inquiry over to the manufacturer and asked him what kind of a man he supposed John Holden to be. He replied, "A very poor sort of a fellow, judging from his letter." I speak of this in passing because John Holden is a man I have known since I was a boy. He owns five hundred acres of land in one of the richest farming sections of Ohio. He is progressive and up to date. He has educated his sons in the best colleges and universities in the land. There is nothing you can think of that is the matter with John Holden, and yet in answering an advertisement he uses a five cent tablet and a stub pencil, all of which goes to show that "you can't tell." Announcement The new management of the Farm Star wish to announce that it Rural Free Delivery Routes in the States of Indiana, Illinois and Ohio and the paper will be The Farm Star The outlook is for a year carried 12,224 lines of paid advertising. J. C. SHAFFER, Publisher. Wm. H. RANKIN, Ad. Manager. C. J. BILLSON, Tribune Building, N. Y. The women of a household spend 90 per cent of the family income. McCall's is a woman's magazine. 700,000 Pay For it in Advance. THREE MILLION READ IT. They Spend $700,000,000 a Yea1. Are you getting your share of it? The greater portion of this circulation is among the highest type of country D. L. DAVIS, Advertising, Manager 113 West 31st Street, Advertising and Publicity. The Difference. By J. J. ROCKWELL. EVENTY-FIVE per cent of all the money spent in publicity is practically wasted. Publicity is the use of any medium that will give expression to the public of any statement, idea, design or name. Commercially, it is the use of space, such as magazines, newspapers, signboards, cards, blank paper, show windows and countless other methods of display. Publicity Is Not Advertising. There is as much confusion in these terms as there is in the use of the terms capital and wealth. Cap Wealth is any property (including money) used to gratify desire. ital is wealth used in the production of more wealth, or in other words, wealth in process of exchange. A sewing machine, a stove, or a bed, in your stock and for sale, is capital. Transferred to your home for your family's use, it is wealth. Now, advertising is the use of publicity to create more wealth. Publicity secures attention, arouses curiosity and breeds familiarity. Advertising uses publicity to secure the above qualities and in addition creates desire; directs that desire, suggests action, inspires confidence and makes the sale. Advertising is Publicity Plus Salesmanship. Publicity without salesmanship like a locomotive without steam. is From its ponderous size, unique design, or unusual place of exhibition, it may procure attention, and consequently curiosity and familiarity, but without steam (salesman ship) it won't carry the prospective purchaser to the final destination, namely, sales. The Theory Sounds Good, Let us Apply the Test of Facts. A Cleveland manufacturer of traveling bags began giving publicity to his goods. He spent $500. The investment did him some good. He had no method of coupling his publicity with his selling forces, however, and began to look upon “advertising" as a failure. Later, becoming convinced that publicity is not always advertising, he took another tack. His advertising began to pay immediately and he knew it no guesswork. He soon found that his advertising was selling goods, and he could tell exactly where, how, and how much, it was increasing his volume of business. Another Illustration. A Chicago manufacturer began a plan of publicity four years ago, sponding about $15,000 a year on space. He knew that his publicity created attention and, in a general way, was a good thing for his business-that's all he did know about. Last July he was shown how to inject selling force into his campaign, and today he can put his finger on a number of satisfactory accounts that have been secured by his advertising, and more coming all the time. One market which he had not been able to touch after seventeen years of effort has just been opened on an extremely satisfactory basis and his advertising did it. Owing to the widespread belief in organized. He must stand or fall on his proposition as a whole. Like a man's character, a business proposition must be taken in mass. Some of the most useless specimens of humanity, for instance, are spoken of as being men of "good heart." But they are not the kind of men we pin our faith to, or put our money back of. Thus, there may be a "good heart" in the campaign of publicity, but unless the entire body is sound, unless every vein and artery carries the good red blood of salesmanship to feed all the parts of the organization, there is going to be a case of "heart failure." Hurry Up the Copy! that the whole advertising campaign may be tilted over from success to failure, because of the missing of this one issue. HERE are certain things ant issue was missed. It is possible upon which every advertising magazine must have occasional items. They are like the newspaper editorials on "the coming of spring," and "the greatness of our city." I am asked to write an item on the subject of hurrying up copy. That is to say, of advertisers getting their copy in, so that they will not miss important issues, for copy should never be prepared hurriedly. In looking over the return sheets of an advertiser to-day, I find that last year one publication paid him better than all of the other publications on his list. The returns from this one publication, in fact, paid his advertising bills and guaranteed him a profit on the year's business. This particular advertiser has been repeatedly warned that the publication in question was closing its forms on a certain date, and that his copy must be sent forward. It was not sent. The import One sometimes wishes that there was in the advertising field a subsidized hurry-up man, who would have nothing to do but go up and down the land shouting his hurry-up message in the ears of every advertiser in the country. How many advertising campaigns have you and I seen go wrong because of unpreparedness. So many advertisers decide in January that they want to start advertising in February, when at least six months hard work is necessary in order to prepare them to begin advertising. I appeal in the name of the publishers; I appeal in the name of the advertising solicitors, and most of all, I appeal in the name of the Order Department man, and my message is "Hurry up, Mr. Advertiser." Enlightening Comparisons TH HE FARMERS of the United States have in TWO YEARS produced wealth exceeding the output of all the gold mines of the entire world since Columbus discovered America. This year's (1904) farm product is over six times the amount of the capital stock of all national banks; it is three times the gross earnings from the operations of the railways, and three and one-half times the value of all minerals produced in this country, including coal, iron ore, gold, silver and quarried stone. The steady advance in poultry leads to astonishing figures. The farmer's hens now produce one and two-thirds billions of dozens of eggs, and at the high average price of the year, the hens during their busy season lay enough eggs in less than a month to pay the YEAR'S interest on the national debt. The corn crop of 1904 yields a farm value greater than ever before. The farmers could, from the proceeds on this single crop, pay the national debt, the interest thereon for one year, and still have enough left to pay a considerable portion of the government's yearly expenses. Horses and mules reached the highest point this year with an aggregate value exceeding $1,354,000.000. The value of farms and farm property within four years increased about $2,000,000,000. Our farmers buy $100,000,000 worth of machinery a year. The improved financial condition of the farmer is indicated expressively by deposits in banks in several states in which there is so little manufacturing and mining that the conditions are chiefly created by agriculture. The above from annual report of Secretary of Agriculture, The Woman's Farm Journal Reaches Over 600,000 Farm Homes each month The one-time rate is about four cents per inch per one thousand copies, and liberal discounts are given for 100 lines or over in a single issue. Write for sample copies, circulation proofs and rate card. The distribution of circulation in states may interest you. Please address Advertising Department, The Woman's Farm Journal Western Office 66 Hartford Bldg. Chicago, Ill Largest FARM Circulation in the world ST. LOUIS, MO. Eastern Office 1402 Flat Iron Bldg. New York City. |