Sales]
All of the information of practical value can be combined with a record
of insertions on the form shown in Fig. 17, using a sheet for each
publication. The record includes the date of order, space, subject,
copy No., cut No., dates of insertion, checking, and proofreading, the
date and amount of bill, and the number, amount, and average cost of
sales. The record of sales should be entered monthly from the detail
record.
[Illustration: Fig. 18. Daily Record of Sales of Advertised Goods in a
Retail Store]
These sheets are filed in a loose-leaf binder, indexed alphabetically
under the names of the publications. One sheet will accommodate the
full yearly schedule for a monthly or weekly publication.
_Retail Advertising Returns._ To check returns from retail advertising
is quite a different problem from checking returns from keyed ads in
monthly magazines. There are no keys, and no mail inquiries to be
traced. But a record of general results is very desirable, and it is
possible to obtain records which will, at least, indicate the increase
in sales due to advertising.
Results of retail advertising must be measured by comparison; if a
department store advertises handkerchiefs as a leader for Tuesday,
_all_ handkerchief sales for that day would not be due to the
advertising, but it is legitimate to credit advertising with any
increase over normal sales. If correct sales records are kept, it will
be possible to tell the exact amount of handkerchief sales for that and
every other day in the year.
[Illustration: Fig. 19. Detailed Record of the Shipment of Street Car
Cards]
A close check on returns can also be obtained by requiring each
sales person to put a distinguishing mark of some kind on sales for
advertised articles. Proofs of the day's ads, showing the articles
advertised in the department, should be mounted on cards and hung in
each department, that the sales person may know when advertised goods
are sold. If made large enough, the card can be ruled for a tally of
sales, and each sale of advertised goods tallied.
[Illustration: A CORNER IN THE SALES ROOM AT THE CLINTON ST., CHICAGO,
PLANT OF THE WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY]
There should be an office record showing the results of advertising for
each department. In comparing these records sales alone cannot be used,
for the weather, and unusual events calculated to increase the crowds
in town, must be considered. To-day's sales of an advertised article,
with unfavorable weather conditions, probably will not equal the sales
of the same article one year ago, which was circus day. If daily
records, similar to that provided in the form shown in Fig. 18, are
kept, they will soon become very valuable to the advertising department
of any retail store.
[Illustration: Fig. 20. Record of Street Car Contract and Net Costs]
STREET CAR ADVERTISING
Street car advertising is of a general publicity nature. It is
intended, not to secure direct orders, but to influence sales by
keeping the name of a commodity before the public. It is local in its
effects, influencing sales only in the cities in which the cards are
used.
Street car advertising is now controlled by a small number of agencies,
who own the space in the cars in the different cities throughout the
country. Through one of these agencies, contracts can be made for space
in street cars in any city in the country.
The rate for street car advertising is based primarily on population,
the _circulation_ consisting of the number of passengers carried. When
the advertiser buys space, he pays for having his card appear in a
specified number of cars, for a stated period. As a rule, the rate is
for monthly periods, with special discounts on yearly contracts, and
cards are changed each month. On certain contracts the agency will
include extra service, without additional cost, by running cards in a
number of extra cars, which are put on during the rush hours.
If desired, the agency will design the copy and print the cards, making
an additional charge for the service. Many street car advertisers
prefer, however, to furnish their own cards. This is probably the
better plan for advertisers who maintain efficient copy departments.
Although this book is not intended to teach the technical details
of the art of preparing copy, it may not be out of place to suggest
that copy for street car cards is in a class by itself. Experienced
advertisers have found that to use wordy arguments on a street car card
is a mistake. The card must catch the eye, for it is expected to arrest
the attention but a moment at best. A picture that tells the story at a
glance, large type, and plenty of color seem to meet with most favor.
The special records required for street car advertising are simple,
consisting of records of contracts. A form for such a record is shown
in Fig. 19. This can be on a card or loose leaf. The form is headed
with the name of the city and instructions for shipping. Below the
heading, is a monthly record of the copy No., subject of the ad, size
of cards, and other necessary data including the gross and net cost.
On the reverse, Fig. 20, is a detailed record of the contract, and a
record of total costs. These sheets are filed in a binder or in a card
tray, indexed by cities.
OUTDOOR ADVERTISING
Outdoor advertising is the term used to describe all such forms of
publicity as bill boards, signs, painted or printed posters, etc. This
is strictly general publicity advertising.
Like street car advertising, outdoor advertising is thoroughly
organized, and the sale of space is practically controlled by a few
companies. Local bill posters, who control the boards, or _stands_,
as they are technically known, have their own national organization
which standardizes the practices of the business, regulates rates, and
insures the advertiser against paying for service that he does not
receive.
Rates for this class of advertising are based on population and the
relative desirability of the location. In a city of 500,000 population,
a stand which 150,000 people pass daily is worth more than one in
another section of the city, which is seen but by 50,000 people.
The advertiser pays for his space on the basis of the number of stands
used, size of posters or signs, relative number of _down town or
preferred position_ stands, and length of service. Rates are figured
for periods of one week, two weeks, one month, and longer.
The records of outdoor advertising are very similar to those of street
car advertising. By changing the column headings of Fig. 19 from cars
to _stands_, the form shown answers every requirement.
No outdoor or street car advertising campaign of national scope should
be undertaken until provision has been made to take care of the
business. The _trade_ must be covered first; when the ad appears on the
boards the goods must be on the dealers' shelves.
Indeed, this is a most important factor in any publicity campaign
intended to create a demand for goods sold through the retailer.
Every possible preparation must be made in advance to secure a wide
distribution so that the consumer attracted by the ad will find it easy
to buy the goods. Making known the name of an article in a locality
where it is not carried in stock, or without telling the consumer where
it can be bought, can result in little advantage to the manufacturer.
WHERE ADVERTISING AND SALESMANSHIP MEET
A very effective method of producing sales--most largely used in
campaigns intended to secure direct orders, by mail--is the use of
circulars, booklets, and form letters. This literature is advertising,
but to use it to secure the best results requires the application of
a certain amount of salesmanship. The advertising man may prepare
an attractive piece of printed matter, well-written and containing
convincing arguments, but unless judiciously used, the time and study
put into its preparation is wasted.
A large quantity of such literature, distributed indiscriminately,
would probably bring some business, but the best results are obtainable
only when its use is concentrated; when it is confined to a particular
class and followed up in a systematic manner. Knowing his goods and the
class of people who use them, the salesman is naturally the best judge
of where and when to use those forms of advertising which he turns into
salesmanship by mail. The discussion of systems of record and methods
of use of this form of literature is taken up under the head of the
_sales department_.
SALES DEPARTMENT
The sales department proper is in charge of a sales manager, who has
immediate authority over his subordinates and is responsible for
the results secured by his department. No position in the business
organization carries with it greater responsibilities, for on the sales
manager rests the burden of marketing the goods at a profit.
Without entering into a discussion of the science of salesmanship, the
writer takes the liberty of suggesting some necessary qualifications of
a sales manager.
He must be thoroughly imbued with the importance of his work and have
an abiding faith in his ability to get the very best results out of
his department. He must be enthusiastic and capable of imparting his
enthusiasm to others.
He must _know_ the goods, be they pianos or investment bonds. He must
believe in his goods and his house. Unless he feels that his house is
the best on earth and offers goods second to none, he cannot produce
the full measure of results of which he is capable.
He must know the goods of his competitor and what methods his
competitors are using. He must be willing to abandon his own pet
schemes when they fail to produce, or to adopt a new plan, even though
originated by another.
He must be a close student of human nature with the capacity for
judging men. He must be a salesman in every sense else he is in no
position to judge the qualifications of those in his employ.
On the other hand, the sales manager should be given full control
of his department, until he proves to be incompetent. While other
members of the organization will be consulted before a new campaign is
launched, when the plans have been approved he should be permitted to
_try them out_ without interference. Assuming that he is a competent
man in the first place, he will be the first to detect the weak points
and set about to find a way to strengthen them.
Many a sales manager has had his usefulness impaired by the
interference of others before he has had an opportunity to give a
selling plan a fair trial. Selling campaigns have been discontinued
before the turning point was reached, because someone higher in
authority lacked faith; when they would have proved successful, if
carried out as originally planned.
This is not an argument for a stubborn adherence to plans, regardless
of consequence--any sales committee is liable to make errors--but
before the campaign is launched the extent to which it shall be tried
out should be decided. If the sales manager is given an appropriation
of $500.00, or $5,000.00, for a trial, he can work intelligently, but
if told to go ahead, and then ordered to stop before his campaign is
well under way, he should not be charged with a failure.
Another thing that the sales manager should control is the question of
salaries paid to the salesmen. We maintain that the amount of salary
paid to a salesman is of no moment provided he is a profitable man.
A $10,000.00 man who sells goods at a cost of 10% is more profitable
than the $5,000.00 man who sells at 10%, or even 9%, because of the
greater volumes of his business. The management should gauge the sales
department by net costs, not by the amount of individual salaries.
BRANCHES OF SALES DEPARTMENT
The sales department is logically divided into two branches--mail
order and personal salesmanship. The mail order branch is that part of
the organization which has to do with the promotion of sales by mail.
The personal salesmanship branch is the division which makes sales by
personal contact with the customer.
The work of the mail order branch is conducted by
correspondents--letter salesmen--assisted by clerks to look after the
routine of the department.
The personal salesmanship branch is conducted, primarily, by salesmen
who visit the customers and personally sell goods. In many lines, the
personal salesmanship branch is supplemented by agencies, who come in
direct contact with the customer.
There are businesses in which the dealers, who carry the goods in
stock, are assisted by both the mail order and personal salesmanship
branches in making the sale to the customer. An example is the piano
business in which inquiries are referred to dealers, the dealer and
prospective customer followed up by mail, and the traveling salesman
sent to assist the dealer to close the sale.
THE MAIL ORDER BRANCH
When the mail order branch is spoken of it does not refer necessarily
to an exclusive mail order business, but the term is used to identify
the department in any concern which uses the mails to promote sales.
While there are many exclusive mail order houses, employing no personal
salesmen, there are practically no exclusively personal salesmanship
houses. There may be no effort to secure direct orders in this manner,
but the mails are used to influence sales. Extensive circularizing
campaigns are conducted for the purpose of making known to the consumer
the merits of certain commodities, which are sold only through dealers.
In the sense here used, such campaigns are within the province of the
mail order branch.
=Form Letters.= An important factor in the conduct of the mail order
branch, is the use of form letters. In a campaign intended to secure
direct orders, the form letter takes the place of the personal salesman.
The form letter presupposes a uniformity of conditions. It is written
to appeal to certain desires of the recipient; its arguments are based
on the supposition that the same desire exists in the minds of all to
whom it is sent, and that the same arguments will cause its readers, as
a class, to yield to those desires.
The result of a form letter campaign depends on the extent to which the
letter fulfills its mission in adapting itself to the conditions of
the class to which it is sent--its adaptability to the mentality and
environment of its readers. The same argument will not appeal to the
mechanic, farmer, merchant, and banker.
The failure of most form letter campaigns can be traced to one of two
causes--failure to adapt the letter to existing conditions, or lack of
judgment in selecting a list for a trial. The goods offered may be used
by plumbers and lawyers, but the same letter should not be expected
to _pull_ with both classes. Like the selling talk of the personal
salesman, the letter should be changed for each class.
Other conditions, also, must be studied. Iowa may have harvested
a bumper crop, while Kansas suffers from a drought; mills in the
Pittsburg district may be running overtime, while Buffalo is in the
midst of local labor disturbances. All of these local conditions
influence the results of the letter campaign.
As to lists used for trials, the more usual mistake is in the use of
too small a list. Some sales managers, who have mailing lists of from
25,000 to 100,000 names, profess to try out a letter with a list of 300
to 500 names. A list of this size is not sufficient to give an actual
test of the pulling power of any letter. Some of the most successful
letter salesmen give it from their experience that the very smallest
list from which a safe test can be made is 1,000 names.
_Keying Form Letters._ It is just as necessary to _key_ form letters
as to key magazine ads. The key makes it possible to trace results.
The question of keying is most important when a series of letters is
used--which is true in most campaigns--for it then becomes necessary to
check the returns from each letter in the series. When one letter only
is sent to a given list, the replies received from that list can be
safely credited to the letter.
There are several methods of keying form letters, among which are
the following: the reader may be requested to address his reply to a
certain department; he may be offered a sample or some novelty; or the
letter may be written in the first person singular so that replies will
naturally be addressed to the writer.
The writer confesses to a preference for the last named method. The
average mail order buyer likes to feel that he is receiving personal
attention--that there is someone in the house to whom he can write,
instead of addressing the house. A personal touch can be put into the
letter signed by an individual that is impossible in a letter signed in
the name of the house.
[Illustration: Fig. 21. Detailed Record of Form Letters Mailed]
There are those who contend that only the name of the house should
be used, that the name of an individual should never be signed to
a letter, and who have printed on their letter heads the phrase:
"_Address all communications to the company, not to individuals._"
While it is perfectly proper to use every legitimate means to keep the
name of the house before the public, there is a good deal of senseless
fear that the prestige of the house will be usurped by the individual.
In some quarters this fear has resulted in the adoption of ridiculously
extreme rules and regulations. One incident in the personal experience
of the writer will serve to illustrate the point. Having occasion
to request a favor from a certain manufacturer--a favor which would
be granted, if at all, by the advertising manager--and knowing the
advertising manager personally, he addressed the request to him, using
his title in connection with the name of the firm. Somewhat surprising
was the following letter, received a few days later:
DEAR SIR:
We have your favor of the 12th, addressed to our Mr.--------, and
your request will receive the attention of the proper individual.
Our method of handling correspondence is such that, to insure proper
attention, all communications should be addressed to the company. We
request that you observe this rule in the future.
Yours truly,
No more reason for the fear that the house will be injured by the
personality of one of its correspondents can be seen, than that the
personality of the salesman will have greater weight with customers
than the reputation of the house. If the personality of an employe--be
he a personal salesman or a correspondent--is worth anything in a
business way, the benefit accrues to the house that employs him.
There is one other objection to the use of the name of the writer of
the letter, and it comes from the United States Statute making it a
criminal offense to open mail addressed to another. But this objection
can be easily overcome; any employe whose name is used will sign an
order authorizing the opening of letters addressed in his name, unless
marked _personal_.
[Illustration: Fig. 22. Record of Sales Resulting from Form Letters]
_Form Letter Records._ A copy of each form letter written should be
kept permanently. The copies should be filed in a manner that will
make it easy to refer to them. For this purpose an arch file or binder
is most satisfactory. The letters themselves may be punched for the
file, or the loose-leaf scrapbook idea can be adopted, pasting several
letters on one leaf.
Each letter should be given a number for the purpose of identification,
whether or not it appears on the letter itself. The copies should be
arranged in the file in numerical order, but where there are several
departments or divisions using form letters, they should be divided by
departmental indexes.
It is also well to keep a second copy of the letter with a sample of
the enclosures, as the enclosures may have an important bearing on the
results. These copies may be preserved in the manner suggested for
filing copies of ads and printed matter.
When a form letter is written, a record form, as shown in Fig. 21,
should be started. This may be on a card or loose leaf; the latter is
preferred on account of the larger space for the record. The heading
shows the No. of the letter, the subject, name of the writer, its
No. in the series to which it belongs--first, second, or third--the
enclosures, and the names of any special lists used. The body of the
form provides for a record of letters mailed during the year, with a
monthly record of total costs.
The sheets are arranged in the order of letter Nos., in a card file or
a loose-leaf binder.
The reverse of this record form is ruled, as shown in Fig. 22, to
provide a record of sales resulting from the use of the letter. Sales
can be entered daily or weekly, but the daily record is recommended.
The methods of obtaining the details for these records is described
later.
=Follow-up Systems.= A necessary and very important factor in the
success of a business transacted through the mails, is the follow-up
system. And in a business in which sales are made by personal salesmen,
the follow-up is used for certain purposes, and is as important as
though used to secure orders.
To follow-up is to keep after, to keep in touch with, and to keep a
certain subject before certain individuals. Whether used to secure
orders or make collections, the idea of the follow-up is the same,
though it is better known as a system for promoting sales.
The follow-up arises from the same necessity that compels the personal
salesman to call on a prospective customer more than once--often many
times--before the first order is secured, and continue to call to
hold his trade. The follow-up simply makes use of letters and other
literature to take the place of the personal salesman.
Mechanically, the follow-up system is a _system_ or _method_ that
insures the sending of the right literature at the right time.
Letters--both form and special--catalogs, booklets, folders, circulars,
and mailing cards are all used in the process of following up the
prospective purchaser; the automatic method of showing when each piece
of literature in the series should be sent, is the follow-up system
itself.
[Illustration: Fig. 23. Vertical File Drawer Equipped as a Tickler]
_Tickler Method._ The simplest method of handling the follow-up system
is to use a tickler in which to file memoranda or correspondence by
dates. A tickler consists of a file equipped with a set of indexes
numbered from 1 to 31 to represent the days of the month, and 12
indexes printed with the name of the month. The monthly indexes are
arranged in order, and the daily indexes are placed in front of the
monthly indexes in numerical sequence. The file may be a vertical
correspondence file, a card tray, or a flat desk file.
In using the tickler for a correspondence follow-up, letters are filed
back of the index representing the day on which the subject is to
receive attention. Each day the letters filed behind that day's index
are removed, and after receiving attention, are filed ahead to the next
follow-up date.
If it is desired to have a letter come up for attention in another than
the current month, the day of the month is noted on the letter, and it
is placed back of the monthly index. On the first of the month, the
index for the previous month is placed at the back of the file, which
brings the current month's index to the front. All papers that have
been filed back of the monthly index are then distributed by dates. A
correspondence file drawer, equipped as a tickler, is shown in Fig. 23.
For a small amount of correspondence, the use of the tickler is very
satisfactory, and it is also used to excellent advantage for keeping
track of the many matters that require attention at a future date.
A tickler should be included in the equipment of _every_ office, no
matter what the line of business.
_Card Follow-up._ For most extensive follow-up systems, the card index
is used, for the reason that a card is easy to handle, occupies but
little space, and can be adapted to any classification desired. A
card is used for each prospective customer, or name on the list to be
followed up, and should bear the name and address and a brief history
of the efforts made to secure an order, or accomplish the object of the
follow-up.