Leaning On Dealers
We cannot depend much in most lines on the active help of jobbers or
of dealers. They are busy. They have many lines to consider. The profit
on advertised lines is not generally large. And an advertised article
is apt to be sold at cut prices.
The average dealer does what you would do. He exerts himself on brands
of his own, if at all. Not on another mans brand.
The dealers will often try to make you think otherwise. He will ask
some aid or concession on the ground of extra effort. Advertisers
often give extra discounts. Or they make loading offers - perhaps
one case free in ten - in the belief that loaded dealers will make
extra efforts.
This may be so in rare lines, but not generally. And the efforts
if made do not usually increase the total sales. They merely swing
trade from one store to another.
On most lines, making a sale without making a convert does not count
for much. Sales made by conviction - by advertising - are likely to
bring permanent customers. People who buy through casual recommendations
do not often stick. Next time someone else gives other advice.
Revenue which belongs to the advertiser is often given away without
adequate return. These discounts and gifts could be far better spent
in securing new customers.
Free goods must be sold, and by your efforts usually. One extra case
with ten means that advertising must sell ten percent more to bring
you the same return. The dealer would probably buy just as much if
you let him buy as convenient.
Much money is often frittered away on other forms of dealer help.
Perhaps on window or store displays. A window display, acting as a
reminder, may bring to one dealer a lions share of the trade. Yet
it may not increase your total sales at all.
Those are facts to find out. Try one town in one way, one in another.
Compare total sales in those towns. In many lines such tests will
show that costly displays are worthless. A growing number of experienced
advertisers spend no money on displays.
This is all in line of general publicity, so popular long ago. Casting
bread upon the waters and hoping for its return. Most advertising
was of that sort twenty years ago.
Now we put things to the test. We compare cost and result on every
form of expenditure. It is very easily done. Very many costly wastes
are eliminated by this modern process.
Scientific advertising has altered many old plans and conceptions.
It has proved many long established methods to be folly. And why should
we not apply to these things the same criterion we apply to other
forms of selling? Or to manufacturing costs?
Your object in all advertising is to buy new customers at a price
which pays a profit. You have no interest in garnering trade at
any particular store. Learn what your consumers cost and what they
buy. If they cost you one dollar each, figure that every wasted dollar
costs you a possible customer.
Your business will be built in that way, not by dealer help. You
must do your own selling, make your own success. Be content if dealers
fill the orders that you bring. Eliminate your wastes. Spend
all your ammunition where it counts for most.
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