EVEHING LEDGER-MIEADELPHIA', WEPfrEBPAY,' MAY 19, 1016;
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WHERE TRADE IS BRISK
TYie second of four advertisements descriptive of The Saturday Evening Post
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Those who seek the explanation for the signal
advertising success of The Saturday Evening Post
usually overlook one chief factor.
They know that it has 2,000,000 circulation
weekly.
But they do not realize that the return it yields
to advertisers is due not solely to the brute force of
a huge circulation, but also to the finesse of a sys
tematic distribution which gets that circulation in
the heart of the markets most profitable to the
advertiser.
Where trade is brisk, there the Post is strongest.
Where Post sales are light, there the sales of
other commodities are likely to be the most difficult.
The unique selling plan of the Post has given
it a distribution which necessarily parallels the
commercial possibilities of each section, each city,
each district. Post advertisements, therefore, most
thoroughly cover those places where are the best
opportunities of sales for the products advertised,
and do not disperse their energy in unpromising
territories.
This somewhat extraordinary condition is due
to the fact that the Post is sold not as a magazine
is sold, but as a commodity is sold.
It has not clung to the traditional method for
distributing publications which is, in effect, turning
the output over to a selling agent.
Instead, it has developed to the highest degree
the exclusive individual sales organization of the
manufacturer.
This organization consists of:
(a) A central head at Philadelphia.
(b) 8 territorial sales managers and 40 highly trained
correspondents.
(c) 50 roadmen, calling on and developing local agents.
(d) 2000 district agents, each in charge of a small territory.
(e) 50,000 boy agents in all parts of the country, working
under the supervision of the district agent
And this organization is a permanent one. The
mortality among the boy agents is less than 10 per
cent 90 per cent of them continue to sell the Post
from one year to the next. And 85 per cent of their
sales are to regular customers at whose houses or
offices they call.
This broad organization studies the potentialities'
of every section of the country, down to the most
minute sub-division. If a swift wave of prosperity
runs over a community, that community at once
responds with increased sales of the Post the very
place where increased sales of most advertised
products may be obtained. If a certain street in
some city develops greater activity, there the Post
sales mount immediately. Each agent has a quota
which he is expected to reach, and this quota is
continually revised to meet changing conditions.
One day in Chicago the police department
suddenly decided to enforce an old ordinance forbid
ding the sale of magazines or weeklies on city
newsstands. Other publications lost heavily, but
through quick work by Curtis representatives on
the spot, the Post that week had 95 per cent of its
normal circulation in Chicago.
This Post system gives it in effect 50,000'
movable newsstands, which can follow channels of
trade and tap the points where people congregate.
They do not have to wait for sales to come to them.
They go to the sales.
In other words, the system involves a promotion
as well as a distribution which is just what every
manufacturer tries to get.
Alert, prosperous, accessible communities pro
duce larger Post sales in proportion to population
than those which are depressed, or declining, or
difficult of access. ,
And the alert, prosperous, .accessible com-,
munities offer the best opportunities of sales for
other commodities; there the most dealers are
located; there the salesmen call most frequently.
The advertiser in the Post, therefore, is exerting
a minimum of his effort in talking to people who
will not buy his goods and to communities where
his goods are not on sale.
A maximum of his effort goes to the intensive
cultivation of the brisk and promising markets.
The circulation ofUhe Post parallels commercial
opportunity.
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THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA
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The Country Gentleman
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I LAiII I : The Ladies' Home Journal The Saturday Evenina Post
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