PUTTING IT ON THE MARKET
Long before you get your shop into running condition and you are able
to fill orders, you and your associates will have talked over the best
way that should be adopted to put your article or machine on the market
so that it will bring in the largest returns in the shortest time.
Here again the method you will choose and use will depend on what you
have to sell and the backing you have to sell it with. Just as there
are only seven original jokes and all the others that you see and hear
are worked over and out of them so, too, there are only a few _basic
principles_ in the art of selling goods but these are modified into a
thousand and one schemes.
~How Best to Do It.--~How? Aye, that’s the question! But even as you
have had the genius to invent a new and useful time, labor and money
saving device--there will, among the men you have surrounded yourself
with, rise up one whose brains teems with schemes of ways and means to
dispose of the factory’s output at the greatest profit and you may have
a few stray ideas too as to how the thing can best be done.
In every business however small or large there should be frequent
_conferences_ of the partners, or of the heads of departments, and
to save time and to conserve energy it is better that these meetings
should be held at certain times each week, or oftener, when all of the
matters of the office and shop can be discussed freely and threshed
out. Indeed it is the common practice of every business concern where
there are a number of departments for the heads of them to get together
every day in conference to learn the viewpoints of the others.
[Illustration: FIG. 98. FROM THE MANUFACTURER TO THE CANVASSER, THENCE
TO THE CONSUMER]
By this method every one knows exactly where the business stands for
that day not only in his own department but in the other fellow’s as
well and he conducts his part of it accordingly. This welds the whole
business into an efficient unit instead of having it made up of a bunch
of straggling ends. If the business can’t be put on a paying basis
under such favorable conditions then you had better get a new partner,
hire a new manager or call in the old sheriff.
~Agents Wanted.--~Hundreds of small patented inventions as, for
instance broom hangers, pinless clothes lines and burglar alarm traps
are sold by the manufacturers of them directly to small agents all over
the country and who, in turn, sell them by making a house to house
canvass. See Fig. 98.
The amount of your sales under this plan will depend on the number of
agents you are able to secure and generally on the persuasive ability
of the rhinoceros skinned peripatetic to sell the good housewife
something which she truly doesn’t want. But should your invention be
one of exceeding merit--and of course it is--then the path of the
itinerant salesman is made glad and he sees a rose for every prick of
the thorn he gets.
Agents can be had by running small ads in the daily and Sunday papers
in the large cities under the classified head of _Agents Wanted_. There
are advertising agents who will _run_ an ad for you in 15 or 20 papers
throughout the United States, whose combined circulation runs up into
the millions of copies and all for a $10 bill. An ad of this kind can
also be run in such magazines as _Popular Mechanics_, _Popular Science_
and a dozen other like publications.
~The Mail Order Business.--~The two chief plans for working a mail
order business are (1) by selling direct from your shop to the consumer
and (2) by selling your product to agents whom you start in the mail
order business.
To work the first plan there are two ways by which you can get the
names of prospective buyers and these are (a) by running small ads in
the papers and magazines and (b) by buying a list of the names of firms
who make a business of classifying and selling them.
Regarding the first plan suppose you have invented a new _blood testing
apparatus_ in which case you couldn’t possibly hope to sell it to any
other class than doctors. Now you can buy a list of all of the doctors
in Boston, or of any other city, in Illinois or any other State, or of
all of them in the whole United States from _Boyd’s City Dispatch_, 19
Beekman Street; _Rapid Addressing Machine Company_, 374 Broadway, and
R. L. Polk and Co., Inc., 87 Third Avenue, all of New York City.
[Illustration: FIG. 99. FROM THE MANUFACTURER TO THE ORDER AGENT,
THENCE TO THE CONSUMER]
When you get this list you can then send out to each doctor a nicely
gotten up _folder_ or _booklet_ and a clearly worded letter, which you
can have _mimeographed_, that is duplicates made from the original
typewritten letter, and according to business rules and regulations
these ought to make a noise like a lot of orders.
Lists of men and women in every line of business, profession and trade;
including R. S. Dun and Company’s list which is guaranteed 99 per cent.
accurate, can be bought of the above concerns that are classified to
fit whatever article or device you intend to market. This is one way of
conducting a mail-order selling campaign.
The second plan as outlined above is to run small two to ten line
classified ads for agents offering to start them in the mail order
business. See Fig. 100.
Your proposition to each prospective agent who replies is something
like this: you will give him, provided he buys, for cash in advance,
of course, one dozen, one gross, or a dozen gross of the product you
manufacture, the exclusive territory of a city, a county, or several of
them, or of an entire State as you choose and according to the quantity
he buys.
Included in the price he pays, you furnish him with so many letter
heads and envelopes with his name printed thereon as _manufacturer’s
agent_; printed circulars or folders, a _series of follow-up letters_
and whatever else is needed to start him in the mail order business
except the list of names and the postage stamps he will use. It is up
to him to get these accessories.
~A Series of Follow-up Letters.--~By a series of follow-up letters is
meant that a number of different letters, say six, are written up in
such a way that each one makes a stronger appeal to the consumer than
the one he gets before.
Let’s say that your agent sends a circular describing the merits of
your _patent mailing box for eggs_ to an egg grower in the rural
district and with it a letter stating how glad he would be to receive
an order from him for a dozen mailing boxes, the price, etc.; if, now,
in ten days’ time no reply is forth-coming the agent mails him a second
letter, stating that he can’t understand why he hasn’t heard from him,
et cetera and so on. If this brings no response the agent mails a third
letter in another ten days saying that since he (the agent) has used
several stamps in writing to him suppose that he (the egg grower) sits
down and uses a stamp on him and so forth and _e pluribus unum_, as
Artemus Ward used to say.
And so the letters are mailed until the series of six have been sent
out at ten day intervals. The idea is that as the letters, each of
which is a little stronger than the one before it, reach the egg grower
with clocklike regularity the value of your patent mailing box for eggs
will sink deeper and with more telling effect into his _cranium_ and
that somewhere between the first and the last letter he will conclude
he had better order a dozen or more boxes.
If the sixth and last letter does not bring an order the agent may then
conclude that the chickens are dead, or that the roosters are sleeping,
or else that the egg-grower doesn’t want the mailing box and he knows
that he doesn’t want it. At any rate it is time for the agent to quit
wasting stamps on him.
~Selling Through Sales Agents.--~Turning now to big business one of the
most successful ways now in vogue to sell goods is the one adopted by
automobile manufacturers.
By this method the manufacturer sells his product to his own sales
agents and these in turn sell them to the consumer. Both the
manufacturer and his agents advertise, the former nationally, that is
he tries to reach all the people, and the latter locally, that is in
his own territory.
The result of their joint advertising is inquiries and these the
sales agent follows up by personal solicitation. Fig. 100 shows
diagrammatically how the scheme works out.
~Selling Direct from Factory to Consumer.--~A large number of
manufacturing concerns have built up profitable businesses by
advertising in various publications and dealing directly with the
consumer. See Fig. 101.
[Illustration: FIG. 100. FROM THE MANUFACTURER TO THE MANUFACTURER’S
AGENT, THENCE TO THE CONSUMER]
Many products, especially those in the nature of machines, can be sold
by this method where they could not be marketed in any other way.
Take as an example the larger sizes of hand power printing presses.
One firm has sold thousands of these machines through the persistent
use of small advertisements where only a few could have been disposed
of through dealers of any kind, for the reason that there is not a
sufficient demand for them in any one locality.
Any article, device or machine can be sold directly to the people
through the medium of cleverly displayed advertisements placed in the
right publications. When you get ready for an advertising campaign
write to any advertising agent--and he also advertises--telling
him what it is you have to sell and he will send you a list of the
periodicals which will reach the class of folks who will be interested
in your commodity and also quote you advertising rates. But of
advertising I shall have something more to say later on.
[Illustration: FIG. 101. SELLING DIRECT FROM THE FACTORY TO THE
CONSUMER]
Where you sell direct to the consumer you should also use, of course, a
series of attractive _pictorial_ cards, circulars, folders and booklets
which describe your offering in terms of glowing color and cold, hard
facts. Don’t try to deceive your customers for no business can be
conducted on misrepresentation and last, and besides it is just as easy
to enthuse with the truth as it is to equivocate, _not to use a harsher
and uglier word_.[6]
A series of follow-up letters should also be used and lists of the
people you want to reach are sometimes as useful, and occasionally more
so, in bringing results as advertising. In fact every art and device
known to the system of business should be freely used where there are
no middlemen.
~Selling Through the Trade.--~The older plan for a large manufacturer
to dispose of his goods is through the retail stores, but this is a
more costly and a harder way than by the direct method of reaching the
consumer.
The reason for this is that the manufacturer does not deal directly
with the retailer, but must do so through a lot of middlemen of whom
there are in some cases not less than three and often more.
[Illustration: FIG. 102. SELLING THROUGH THE TRADE]
Figure 102 shows how many different concerns stand between the
manufacturer and those who buy his goods; the manufacturer turns his
product over to the _commission man_ who unloads it on the _jobber_ or
_wholesaler_, who sends _drummers_ on the road, who make the _retailer_
buy it, who hands it out over the counter to his _customers_, who are
merely acquaintances of his.
All of the middlemen make big profits while the manufacturer and
the retailer have to be satisfied with a very small margin and the
consumer knows that he is paying several prices too many for the
article he buys.
The advantage, though, of handling your product through middlemen lies
in the fact that you can very often get a commission man, or a jobber,
to contract for the entire output of your factory, and sometimes a
certainty of this kind with small fixed profits is better than taking a
chance of putting a large sum into advertising with the uncertainty of
large profits or of no profits at all.
~Getting Publicity.--~Going back once more to the time when you have
completed your model and your patent has just been granted, it is often
a good idea to give some _publicity_ to your invention.
By publicity I mean to get some _write-ups_ in the papers and some
articles in the magazines and if you go about it the right way it will
not cost you anything for space and sometimes the editors will even pay
you for your contributions.
When you have reached the stage where you want some publicity write up
a clear description of say 500, 1000 or 2000 words, depending on the
importance and intricacy of your invention, and have a typewritten copy
made of it; next have some good 5 by 7, or better, 8 by 10 photographs
made of your model from different viewpoints. Small kodak pictures are
of no value in obtaining free publicity for clean-cut, large pictures,
count for as much or more with the average editor than either subject
matter or written copy.
Now the kind of publications in which you will want your article to
appear will hinge on the class of readers who will be interested in
it. But let’s suppose that it is a new machine, or a new electrical
apparatus of some sort or other. If it is a machine send your
typewritten article to the editor of the _Scientific American_,
Woolworth Building, New York; if your photos and article appeal to the
editor as being new and novel he will most certainly print them in his
paper.
In an article of this kind it is not good policy to crack up yourself
or put in your street number, as this savors too much of trying to get
a page or so of advertising in the body of the paper free of charge;
your name and the city where you live are enough to include in the
article, but in a letter accompanying the latter you can send your
detailed address. And you can send in another article and photos to the
_Engineering Magazine_, 140 Nassau Street, New York; _Machinery_, 140
Lafayette Street, New York, and other publications of a like character.
Should your invention be electrical, or have a single electric element
connected with it, send your article to the _Electrical World_, 239
West 39th Street and to the _Electrical Review_, 13 Park Row, both of
New York, and the editors of either of these publications will most
surely and gladly accommodate you with space for your contribution.
The purpose of having articles appear in these _technical_ papers is
not so much to sell your product as it is to give you an _authentic_
article in a standard publication which you can refer to and reprint
from for distribution to those whom you may want to interest either as
partners or shareholders. Reprints are also useful for _circularizing_
agents or consumers after you have your factory in shape to take care
of the orders.
Should your invention have to do with mining send in your article and
photographs to the mining papers, if it is in the notion line mail it
to the dry-goods papers and so on for no matter what you have invented
you will find one or more trade papers in that particular field who
will give you the desired publicity.
After some good technical, or trade paper has published an account of
your invention the daily and weekly papers in your home-town are apt to
be impressed with the importance of what you have done and one or all
of them will give you quite a write-up.
~Advertising.--~While publicity and advertising are one and the same
thing in that both of them make known to the great body of buyers the
merits of your invention I have _arbitrarily_ divided them into two
classes calling (1) everything that is printed as straight reading
matter in a paper and free of charge _publicity_ and (2) all that is
displayed to attract the attention of the reader and paid for at space
rates as _advertising_.
You can begin an advertising campaign with a very small outlay of
capital by running a ½ inch, one column wide ad in ten or a dozen
papers or magazines as a starter. To have your ad _displayed_ as
you want it, that is the style of type and the illustration that
goes with it, get your local printer to set it up and have as many
_electrotypes_ made from it as there are papers you intend to buy space
in. Then all you have to do is to mail one of these electrotypes to the
publisher and it appears in his paper exactly like the type from which
it was made and it can be used over and over again.
This _stereotyped_ kind of an ad which meets the reader’s eye in nearly
every publication he picks up will finally get through the pores of the
calcium salts which form his skull and impress the sensitive area of
his brain, or, to use the language Evelyn doesn’t like, it _gets on his
nerves_ and he will read it. Every time he sees it after that he will
remember its message and then when the _psychological moment_ arrives
and he wants your product he will send to you either for a catalogue
and price-list or for the thing itself.
Larger ads should have the reading matter and the cut changed
frequently, but it is always well to use some design, or a name (see
Chapter XII), which stands out boldly in relief so that it will flag
the attention of the reader immediately he turns to the page where it
is displayed. The rest of the ad must then be catchy enough to induce
him, or her, who sees it to read it, and last of all it should contain
some gem or germ of knowledge which he, or she, will carry away and
think over and always to the end for which your ad was written and
designed--and that is to buy your product.
Writing alluring ads requires inventive ability but of an order very
different from that which produces a new machine. Hence there are
inventors who make a specialty of writing ads but they are content to
call themselves originators.
Should you have a product that you intend to give wide publicity to,
whether it is your intention to sell to the consumer direct or to
sell to him through the retail trade, it is a good plan to engage the
services of an advertising firm to conduct the campaign for you.
If you are going to spend $1,000 or $100,000 on making your product
known among men and women and popularizing it so that everybody will
buy it, or wants to buy it, it is well to have an advertising agent
or firm get up the ads, place them in the papers where they will do
the most good--in a word engineer the whole thing for you while you
are superintending your factory and your partner is taking care of the
orders--then all you have got to do is to count the _shekels_ that roll
in or out as the case may be.