PLAN No. 675. MANUFACTURING, ADVERTISING PLAN
In a city of about 125,000 inhabitants, a complete list of the names of the manufacturers, their addresses and the names of business managers and the telephone numbers was made, each on a card. These cards were arranged alphabetically and a man was put on the ’phone for about ten days inquiring of each firm what articles they manufactured, the trade name of the article being put on the back of the card. The result was that over 1,200 different kinds of articles were made by some 300 manufacturers. Then a dummy, made up, giving a page to the matter, the size of a newspaper, and in the center was placed a cartoon favorable to the manufacturer. This was to be sent to the people in the surrounding towns. Each article made, was listed alphabetically with the name of the article appearing first and after this the name of the company. These 1,500 articles made about two pages of matter. After 2,000 of these were prepared by the printers the salesmen started calling on all manufacturers in the community, at the rate of eight to twelve a day, and presented his proposition to them, which was as follows:
To run in forty papers surrounding the town in which they were located, going to something like 45,000 homes of farmers and people living in small towns. For this they were to pay $10.00 a thousand. Most of the manufacturers, rather than run a line or two, desired to run display, putting in the picture of the article they made and a little statement concerning its virtue of same and giving their addresses.
Five weeks of this kind of soliciting resulted in more than $1,000 worth of contracts being signed up, and many thousands of dollars worth of business prospects for in the future. The salesmen were taken off and the general salesmen of the company followed up the prospects, with the result that over six thousand dollars was made from the plan. This meant a net saving on the part of the company of $3,500 to $4,000.
This is a good plan and a fair way to cover the people in the farm community for the manufacturer. He then covered other classes of advertising in the same way.