That was seven years ago. Today the husband has a big office, with plenty of help, in a down-town office building, and is recognized as one of the best hydraulic engineers in the state.
PLAN No. 84. PROGRAMS FOR “MOVIE” THEATERS
A man who had considerable experience in theatre-program advertising decided that if some money could be made from publishing one program a great deal more could be made with several programs. The following experience proved his reasoning was right:
Visiting the managers of five leading motion-picture houses, he offered to furnish each with an attractive program twice a week, free of charge, provided he could have the bill three or four days in advance. He was to have all the money received from advertisements in the programs. They all accepted his proposition, and he called upon the printer, who usually set up his matter. He explained that there would be two editions of each program every week, those containing the bill for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to be distributed at the various theatres on Wednesday, while that for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was to be distributed on Sunday, that all ads. were to stand for at least one month, while the bill was to be changed twice a week, and this, of course, enabled the printer to name a very low rate for the printing.
He gave each theater twice as many programs for each day as there were seats in the house, so as to reach both the afternoon and evening crowds, and added 200 or 300 to that number for distribution on Sunday, the big day of the week.
He selected the five theatres as near each other as possible, as most of the advertisers were in that vicinity.
He usually ran about sixteen pages of ads., though during the holidays he would have as much as twenty-four pages most of the time; and as he printed about 20,000 programs a week, he had no difficulty in securing good prices for the ads. The advertisers soon found it was well worth all it cost, and the originator of the plan realized many thousands of dollars from it.
PLAN No. 85. MESSENGER SERVICE
It was a woman who originated the plan of establishing a messenger service to meet the needs of a large number of people who are not regular patrons of the larger messenger agencies and who often have special messages or articles requiring prompt and trustworthy delivery.
At a total cost of less than $30, she fitted up her kitchen as an office and as headquarters for the boys whom she engaged for this service, circulated a few hundreds cards, with her address and telephone number, among the class of business people she wished to reach, had blanks printed for the names and addresses of those to whom messages were sent, with space for their acknowledgement of the receipt of whatever was delivered, and inserted a few ads. in the local paper, announcing the beginning of her new enterprise.