268 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



and blend to obtain a mild, suitable 

 flavor. 



By constant perseverance this 

 small direct to the customer peddling 

 business soon grew to use all the 

 honey the writer could produce. The 

 next thing resulted in having to pur- 

 chase the entire crops of several 

 other beekeepers in order to accom- 

 modate the demand. As time went 

 on, a Ford car took the place of the 

 push cart. A large part of the busi- 

 ness developed into a mail order 

 system. People who had used the 

 honey told their friends, our circulars 

 and cook books more than paid, al- 

 though it may have seemed an un- 

 necessary expense. 



During 1915 the writer, having fin- 

 ished college, took charge of a honey 

 exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Expo- 

 sition in San Francisco. Here a new, 

 important discovery in the way of 

 the direct to the consumer market- 

 ing was found. It may be a surprise 

 to the reader, also, that three-fourths 

 of the pails sold during the 1915 Ex- 

 position were ordered by men. I 

 therefore conceived the idea that if 

 I opened up a honey store on Market 

 street, San Francisco, in the heart of 

 the business section, it might prove 

 successful. This we did in 1916, and 

 have found our method very profit- 

 able. We have placed an observation 

 hive in the window and on Saturday 

 afternoons we sometimes give a live 

 bee demonstration, where thousands 

 of people passing by are greatly 

 amazed at beholding a boy in a bath- 

 ing suit pour handfuls of live bees 

 over his head, and even putting them 

 in his mouth. All this arouses inter- 

 est and is the best and cheapest ad- 

 vertising. In spite of the high rents, 

 our business promises to be very suc- 

 cessful. 



Strange as it may seem, our cheap- 

 est package of honey is 40c, with the 

 exception of comb honey. I might 

 mention that we also handle at our 

 store cakes made of honey. 



Another means of very successful 

 advertising is our lectures and live 

 bee demonstrations given before 

 various church societies, lodges, 

 clubs, etc. For such demonstrations 



we issue a ticket which gives admit- 

 tance to the lecture. 



These tickets are given free to the 

 church societies. They are allowed 

 to sell them for 5, 10 and ISc, or even 

 25c, and keep the proceeds them- 

 selves. At such a demonstration a 

 hive is opened under a bee tent made 

 of mosquito bar and the bees handled 

 in the freest manner; the people are 

 shown the queen, drones and work- 

 ers and other interesting things 

 found in every colony of bees. The 

 demon.-tration is accompanied by a 

 lecture, after which honey refresh- 

 ments are served. The refreshments 

 are composed of honey direct from 

 our pails and spread on small crack- 

 ers. A liberal distribution of facts 

 about honey and other circular lit- 

 erature is handed out. Through such 

 a demonstration it is not uncommon 

 to bring about the sale of several 

 hives of bees, as well as obtaining 

 many permanent customers as con- 

 sumers of our product. 



As I said before, it is my practice 

 to continually call on and keep at our 

 customers. So we have devised a 

 scheme by which we obtain the names 

 of those who buy over our counter. 

 We do it in this way: In our window 

 we advertise a free 5-pound bucket 

 of honey, given away each week, and 

 each purchaser is requested to write 

 his name and address on a ticket, 

 which is then divided, the half which 

 they keep bearing our name and the 

 stub, to be dropped in a bo.x, bearing 

 theirs. One person out of several 

 hundred each week is fortunate 

 enough to win a bucket. He is noti- 

 fied by mail and asked to call at the 

 store for his prize. The remaining 

 stubs contain names and addresses of 

 actual users of honey and honey 

 cakes. To these we send literature 

 and advertising matter, and invaria- 

 bly we receive repeat orders. There 

 are many other phases of our direct 

 to the consumer business, but space 

 prevents us mentioning more at the 

 present time. 



and once the customers arc accus- 

 tomed to look for the honey man lit- 

 tle time is required to cover a 25- 

 mile route. Such a tank would be a 

 useful addition to the equipment of 

 an apiary. 



Honey Tank Carried in Car for Retail 

 Sales. 



A Honey Route 



There are many places where a 

 fine trade in honey can be readily 

 established if the beekeeper makes 

 regular trips over the route. At Les- 

 lie, Georgia, Mr. T. W. Livingstone 

 and his son-in-law, Mr. J. R. Hudson, 

 have found it possible to dispose of 

 a large amount of honey in this 

 manner. The picture shows their 

 large closed tank which is loaded on 

 the auto and carried from place to 

 place over the route. The use of this 

 tank relieves them of the necessity 

 of buying containers of various sizes 

 and also saves the customer the cost 

 of the container. The honey is drawn 

 directly into any kind of pail or jar 

 which the customer happens to have 

 at hand. The tank is tight, so there 

 is no danger of flies or dirt getting 

 into the honey, and if any is left on 

 the return from a trip no harm is 

 done, as it need not be removed un- 

 til the next trip. While some cus- 

 tomers will only buy two or three 

 pounds, many buy a liberal supply, 



Advertising Your Business 



By J. D. Gustin. 



THE subject of advertising is one 

 that is often neglected in places 

 where it should receive the 

 most attention. At some time in the 

 experience of every man who pur- 

 sues a single line of business to any 

 appreciable extent the question of 

 advertismg will come in for consid- 

 eration. 



In the larger lines of commercial 

 enterprise the advertising problem is 

 delegated to the solution of experts 

 who prepare the matter and deter- 

 mme the methods of its distribution. 

 But in the more limited lines every 

 man is his own ad writer and circu- 

 lator. And oftentimes, if not always, 

 the subject of advertising is of more 

 importance to the small business 

 than to the large one, for the reason 

 that any waste from injudicious ex- 

 penditures represents a higher per- 

 centage of loss. On the other hand, 

 advertising which brings a quick and 

 profitable return furnishes the means 

 for business expansion and makes 

 possible a quicker success. 



The question whether advertising 

 pays is no longer a live one. The live 

 question is what advertising will pay 

 best and bring in the most prompt 

 results? There are many sides to 

 the more or less numerous views of 

 the correct answer, and opinions dif- 

 fer widely. The history of advertis- 

 ing successes reveals many curious 

 features, and if the history of adver- 

 tising failures had been preserved, 

 doubtless it would have its many les- 

 sons. 



Nevertheless, there are some fun- 

 damental principles upon which prac- 

 tically all agree. The first of these is 

 that the advertisement which "catches 

 tlie eye" of the prospective customer 

 IS the most valuable. Advertisements 

 are now almost "nevvs of the day," so 

 universally do people pay attention 

 to them. Newspaper advertisements, 

 billboards, blotters, stationery, stuf- 

 fers, etc., have become almost a part 

 of the daily mental menu of the aver- 

 age man whose eyes are open at all 

 times to the things around him. Yet 

 It is a conceded fact that a large por- 

 tion of it is of a low standard of 

 value compared to the things that 

 really "catch." 



By "catching the eye" the adver- 

 tising man does not mean merely 

 tliat the advertisement shall pass 

 within the range of vision of the 

 passer by, but that it shall be such as 

 attracts his interest. It may be a 

 incture, it may be a "slogan," it may 

 be a dash of color standing out con- 

 spicuously, it may be any one of a 

 thousand or more objects in which 

 it forms a part of the group, but 

 whatever it may be, if it has the vir- 

 tue of arousing the interest of those 



