The Harvester World: Volume 2, number 9, June 1911

              Current Advertising
Double-Barreled Advertising
A dealer may know every man in his territory and he may be known and liked by everyone in return, and yet he may not get all the business that is due him. ® This condition is true of all local mer¬ chants whether they sell farm machines or whether they sell groceries. ® A possible customer often goes to a neighboring city to get something which he can buy just as good and just as cheap from his own neighbor. Often this is done not from any idea of local disloyalty, but because the fact has not been driven home that the best place for him to trade is in his own town. He has not been convincingly shown that the prices of almost all standard articles have been so standardized that he can buy them from Bill Smith, three miles from his farm, as cheap as he can from John Jones & Com¬ pany, twenty miles away.
ffi In connection with our advertising, we are constantly coming in contact with instances bearing out this statement.
ffl As a Company, we are great advertisers. We find that it lessens the cost of our sales by preparing the way for our salesmen. We do a national business, hence we advertise nationally, so that the clientele of all our local dealers shall know, at least, the use, qual¬ ity, and trade name of our product, ffi This advertising brings hundreds of re¬ plies direct to the Chicago office. We sort these and forward them to our local dealers, ffl The sad commentary made on these replies is that more than frequently we refer to a local dealer an inquiry from his own town, signed by his own neighbor, a couple of miles or even a couple of blocks from his place of business, ffl We have attempted to analyze these cases, and our conclusion is that where this occurs the dealer does not make enough use of local advertising mediums. We emphasize the word "local." Few dealers could profitably adver¬ tise in the big journals of national circulation. Their cost is prohibitive, and their readers not sufficiently concentrated. We use the farm journals—the best in the world for a company doing business in a wide territory.
ffl Every farmer who is up-to-date enough to use modern machines reads one or more of these farm papers. They are educational, splendidly edited, and wholesome reading for the whole family. It is through them that we get the above mentioned inquiries. ffl In the same way every farmer reads his local paper. He depends upon it for local news, ffi Here is where the dealer comes in. Here is his chance to do some double-barreled ad¬ vertising of his own. How? The answer is by concentrating on his own store every line of our national advertising which might be read by anyone of his possible customers, ffi It is easy for a dealer to know what farm papers are read in his community, and he can easily find out what advertisements of this Company are current.
ffi We never have, however, known a dealer to say—"Goto! That advertising is my ad¬ vertising," and rush pell-mell to the print shop and fill up a half page of his local paper with this announcement—" If you want to look over that Cloverleaf manure spreader, that Bluebell separator, that Famous gasoline en¬ gine, that New Bettendorf wagon, or that Deering binder which you saw advertised by the International Harvester Company of America in The Farm Home, Wallace's Farmer, The Farm Journal, or any other farm paper which you read, just drop in my place of busi¬ ness. I am their agent in this town. I have their machines all set up on my floor. They advertise for me, but I sell the machines. Come in and inspect them for yourself." ® A live dealer using a few straight from the shoulder announcements like this will soon find that no business which is due him gets to the neighboring town. He will soon find that inquiries come direct to him instead of to the home office of the advertising firm. He will soon have the entire community looking up to him as the accredited demonstrator and repre¬ sentative of the big, well-known, nationally advertised firms.
ffi    This means greater business prestige and a bigger, more profitable business, ffl    We put this forth as a suggestion.