Part 8

Most of such posters which cannot be purchased of stock lithographers can be made up by the local printer or newspaper office in one or two colors, with or without wood-cut illustrations, but the more attractive the poster can be made, the better the results will be.

The beauty of posting for the local advertiser is that he knows his advertising cannot be scattered. It will go right in his own territory, and he will not be paying for any waste circulation outside. Then, too, he can select his locations, supplement his special poster with hand-bills to the farmer, newspaper announcements and special window displays to connect his store with just what he is advertising at the time he is advertising it.

The fact that everybody knows the local merchant is no argument against advertising. They also know “the other fellow,” and advertising alone, combined with fair dealing, will give you the lion’s share of the trade.

The local merchant to-day who doesn’t advertise should at least advertise his business for sale, and in the next ten years posting will, I predict, be developed into one of the greatest forms of advertising for the local merchant. It is so big, so forceful, so always-before-you-and-never-to-be-thrown-away that it is bound to command unusual attention in the small town or city.

Talk it over with your local bill-poster and let him help you with suggestions gleaned from his experience.

Business is built up on confidence. It’s a game of confidence between buyer and seller, but woe betide the advertiser who considers it a confidence game. You must “Make Good” with the consumer to insure future sales and only in repetition lies success and reputation.

Checking the Service

“To Err is Human”

The Bill-Poster is just as prone to errors, both of omission and commission, as men in any other business, and while in the case of Associated Bill-Posters service is guaranteed, it is advisable even with them to check wherever possible so as to make sure that service has been actually rendered as guaranteed.

The importance of this is illustrated in the writer’s own experience with every showing that goes up. The following are but a few of the “errors” that were discovered by check, even in large towns where the bill-posting plants are supposedly at their best. Posters have been found put up on the leaves of a double gate which stood open all day. Posters have been put up on walls covering windows, and the paper was punched through to let in the light. Occasionally posters are put up with a sheet blank; one section of the poster was probably left out by the lithographer in collating, and the bill-poster made no effort to replace it. Other posters have been found on fences not high enough to accommodate the whole poster and strips have been torn off at the top or bottom. Showings have been billed that our checker found never went up. Paper has been covered at the end of two or three weeks and never replaced. Once in a while checkers run across a town where a strike is on among the bill-posters, and the paper disfigured by big smudges of lamp black.

The best time to make this check is open to some difference of opinion. Some advertisers prefer to check just as soon as the paper goes on the boards so that complaints may be adjusted early in the life of the showing. Others prefer to check toward the end of the service so they may satisfy themselves that the paper has been kept in good condition, and that none of the stands has been covered by other paper. The advertiser who is posting generally will, however, be glad if he can have check made any time during the life of the posting, especially in towns where he has no local representative.

The main difficulty on a general showing is to secure people to make the check. In towns where you have branch houses, local salesmen, or exclusive dealers, check lists may be forwarded to these. Otherwise it is necessary to depend on your traveling salesman covering the towns in his territory during the life of the posting, or else send the check lists to some local dealer, with a request that he look over and report on the showing for you. Arrangements for checking can also be made, we understand, through the telegraph companies who would have the work done by one of their messengers.

Four things are necessary to watch in checking the showing, viz., Position of the boards on which your paper is posted; position on the boards; condition of the paper; and contiguity to your own posters or those advertising competitive products.

In regard to the first you will of course want a fair share of the paper to go on boards in the center of the town, on the most traveled thoroughfares. You do not want the paper all on the outskirts of the town, or posted in alleys and other inconspicuous places. In regard to the position on the board, the ends of the board are of course preferred positions, and the more posters you can get on corners the stronger the showing will be. In regard to the condition of paper, a glance will be sufficient to satisfy your checker whether the paper is in good order, or whether it needs renewing.

It is also desirable that no two of your own posters be posted too close together on the same board (as a matter of fact it is best to put up each poster on a separate board) and of course it is decidedly objectionable to have paper advertising competitive products put up next to your posters.

The following are illustrations of forms used in checking.

It is important to remember in this connection that complaints should be filed promptly with the bill-poster, and, wherever possible, the checker himself should call on the bill-poster and arrange for the adjustment of complaints while he is on the ground. Where adjustment cannot be made by the checker on the spot, and correspondence is necessary, complaints must be made within ten days from the date of expiration of service.

Connecting Poster Advertising With Sales

“That good old Ship—Salesmanship”

Sales results depend upon advertising and the advertising results upon salesmanship. The two are so closely allied as to be all but inseparable, and the Advertising and Sales Managers should pull together as one team.

If you have salesmen on the road keep them thoroughly informed about the advertising you are doing in their territories. Give each salesman a list of the towns which you intend to post in his territory, and do it in advance in order that he may acquaint the dealer with the fact and use the publicity as a sales argument. The salesmen or members of your advertising crew, if you have one, should also be able to use the fact that you are going to post a town to secure window displays in advance from the local dealers, in order that their stores may be connected with the advertising and secure a certain portion of the demand.

Give your salesmen either a sample of the poster to be used—or, better still, a small reproduction of it which he can carry around and show the dealer as Exhibit “A.”

A splendid method of connecting your posting and window displays is to get out a one sheet poster, hanger or banner for window use, the same being a miniature of the poster itself. The repetition of the poster design in the store window at the place where the article can be purchased will be strongly supplemental, will tend to freshen the mind of the consumer as having seen the poster and create a desire to buy and try at just the right moment.

I have found in a long experience with advertising and salesmen that a good live traveller is always awake to the benefits of advertising, and that nine times out of ten it is the result-producing salesman who uses your advertising matter intelligently rather than wastefully and who takes advantage of all your local advertising to use as a lever on the merchant for bigger business.

Checking your local posting by salesmen is of two-fold value. Where the work is honestly and intelligently handled, you not only get an above-the-ordinary checking report, but you impress the salesman, especially if he seeks out each individual location, and spur him on to more active sales work.

The live-wire salesman realizes that in these modern days of fierce competition the aid of advertising is of vital importance and that without it his work would be anything but easy sledding.

To sum up this chapter in a nut-shell:

Acquaint your salesman fully about your local advertising.