For centuries alchemists have striven to make gold, when right at our very doors lie mines of untellable richness.
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The rich ore lies in the farmer’s pocket. Your ad is the pick axe which lays bare the nuggets. Consider these facts. The combined annual incomes of the American farmers total nearly seven million dollars. This is more than half the combined incomes of everyone in the entire United States.
Practically all of this $7,000,0000 is being spent every year for something. If you are not getting your share, it is for just one of two reasons:
First – You have something the farmer cannot use;
Second – You have not put the merits of your article before him in the proper way.
As to the first objection, in this day when the farmer has electricity, the telephone, the automobile, it is difficult to say who really has an article the farmer cannot use.
The second objection is the wall that keeps many manufactures from this big farm profit. Many who rush into the magazines with their copy forget that with a very small part of the appropriation now used they can reach a population which has the spending of more than half the nation’s entire expenditure.
If half of the money of this country were being spent by plumbers, for instance, you would place your advertising in plumbers’ trade journals. You would know they read these publications while you would not be so sure of their reading any one of the scores of handsome, expensively printed national magazines. Then why not use farm papers which are the trade papers of the farmer, the man who really has the spending of half the nation’s income?
Some gold mine, this. Eh?
Right now is the time for the quiet determined chap on the back seat to arise and announce “Farm paper advertising doesn’t pay because I tried it.”
Why, bless your heart, man, – of course it didn’t. Neither would gold mining pay if you used a soft metal pick or staked your claim six miles away from the ore vein.
We told you in the beginning that the farm proposition is a gold mine, -your copy the pick and the publication the vein. Now, if your pick is soft metal, that is if you have copy not specifically prepared for the class of people you are going to reach, you will never get beneath the surface. And if you don’t exercise judgement in staking your claim, that is, selecting the mediums, you won’t find any gold when you do dig.
But, if your copy has the right angle, if it contains the arguments which appeal to the farmer, and if this copy is placed in mediums having circulation proportionate to the price, circulating in the correct territory and having the proper editorial body and reader-support you will get returns as manyfold as those promised the seed of Abraham.
Author: Paul Lessing
Lessing Advertising Agency
Des Moines, Iowa
July, 1911
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I agree that the farmers are true alchemists, turning dirt into gold, year after year. However, there is a certain alchemy to the advertising that tries to reach those farmers.
First of all, the group is continuously changing and shrinking. Farms become fewer and larger. The definition of a “family farm” can be elusive as smoke. And corporate farms (whatever those are) take a bigger piece of the pie. For now I’ll just let you use your own definition of these two segments.
So, the right creative approach, the right angle, is a major key to successful ag advertising. The demographics, readership, reach and frequency can be judged in a mostly black and white manner. Pick your crop, pick your state, pick your demographics, and the farm papers are findable.
Since many of the farms are still family farms and also operate as a life style, the creative approach has to stand in two camps: a business buying decision and a personal buying decision. Combining the needs of a business with the desires of a personal life style purchase is, I think, the tricky part.
And that is where the alchemy of advertising exists!