The Democratic Sentinel

Advertise your Business.

Do not hide your light under a bushel. Whatever your occupation may be it needs support from the public, advertise it thoroughly and efficiently in some shape or other, that will arrest public attention. I freely confess that whatever success I have had in my life may fairly be attributed more to the public press than nearly all the other causes combined. There may possibly be occupations that do not require advertising, but I cannot well conceive what they are.

Men in business will sometimes tell you they have tried advertising and that it did not pay. This is only when advertising is done sparingly and grudgingly. Homeopathic doses of advertising will not pay perhaps—it is like a half potion of physic—making the patient sick but effecting nothing. Administer liberally and the cure will be sure and permanent. Some say they cannot afford to advertise; they mistake—they cannot afford not to advertise.

In this country, where everybody reads the newspapers, the man must have a thick skull who does not see that these are the cheapest and best mediums through which he can speak to the public where he is to find his customers. Put on the appearance of business, and generally the reality will follow. So with advertising. The farmer plants his seed, and while he is sleeping his corn and potatoes are growing. While you are sleeping or eating or conversing with one set of customers your advertisement is being read by hundreds and thousands of persons who never saw you or heard of your business, or never would had it not been for your advertisement in the newspapers. The business men of this country do not as a general thing, begin to appreciate the advantages of advertising thoroughly. Occasionally the public are aroused at witnessing the success of a Swain, a Brandreth; a Townsend, a Genin, or a Root, and express astonishment at the rapidity with which these gentlemen acquire fortunes, not reflecting that the same path is open to all who dare pursue it. But it needs nerve and faith—the former to enable you to launch out thousands on the uncertain waters of the future; the latter to teach you that, after many days, it shall surely return bringing a hundred or a thousand fold to him who appreciates the advantages of printer's ink, properly applied.