How to Advertise a Retail Store, Mail Order Advertising and General Advertising
A retail advertising manual by A. E. Edgar, a merchant in Windsor, Ontario, published in 1907 by The Outing Press as its second edition.
What it is
A retail advertising manual by A. E. Edgar, a merchant in Windsor, Ontario, published in 1907 by The Outing Press as its second edition. It teaches by reprinting more than five hundred newspaper ads clipped across the United States and Canada, and saying what works and what fails in each. Part I splits the retail ad into eight parts: space, firm name, headline, illustration, argument, description, prices and display, with a chapter for each, plus chapters on classes of buyers, timeliness and talking points. Later parts cover store papers, circulars and a clothier's mailed follow-up campaign, windows and outdoor signs, contests and premiums, sale and clearance advertising with a long list of sale names, a chapter per trade from banks to shoes, the Chicago catalogue houses, trade marks, type, proofreading and the neighborhood store.
Why read it now
Three rules hold. Print the price: Edgar argues that an ad without one leads most readers to assume the item costs more, and a price that only appears at the counter feels like a trick; UK consumer law now bans drip pricing on the same logic. Test the spend: he says only constant experiment tells a merchant how much space pays, which is the case for small controlled budget tests. Know the product: his eight questions for finding talking points (what it is, what it is for, who uses it, its price against rivals, what it is made of, its advantages) still make a working copy brief. What has dated: his advice to reach 500 people ten times rather than 5,000 once runs against current evidence that brands grow through broad reach, though it fits a follow-up sequence sent to a known list. His schemes aimed at schoolchildren would meet restrictions on marketing to minors today. Use: before writing a product ad, answer his eight questions in writing, then put the price in the ad.
Passages worth keeping
The three objects involved in advertising are worthy of close attention; first, to familiarize the public with the name of the firm or individual; second, to acquaint them with the class, quality and style of goods; third, to make sales.
للإعلان ثلاثة أهداف بالترتيب: أن يعرف الناس اسم المتجر، ثم نوع بضاعته وجودتها، ثم أن يبيع.
Every reference to a competitor advertises that competitor more than it does the goods intended to be advertised.
كل ذكر للمنافس في إعلانك دعاية مجانية له، فتحدث عن بضاعتك أنت لا عن بضاعته.
The question of how much space to use can only be answered by constant experiment.
لا توجد قاعدة ثابتة لحجم الإنفاق على الإعلان، والتجربة المتكررة وحدها تكشف ما يربح.
One cannot help feeling that a trick has been worked, and every one hates to be tricked.
حين يخفي الإعلان السعر ثم يكتشف العميل أنه فوق قدرته يشعر بأنه خُدع، ولا أحد يحب أن يُخدع، فيتجاهل إعلانات المتجر بعد ذلك.
It is far better to advertise effectively to 500 persons than to merely reach 5,000 with doubtful results.
يرى المؤلف أن مخاطبة عدد قليل من العملاء المحتملين مرات متكررة أنفع من الوصول إلى عدد كبير مرة واحدة، وهذا يصح في حملات المتابعة لقائمة معروفة.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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