WEIGHING CIRCULATION 1. The value of an advertising medium.—There are two problems in selecting an advertising medium. First, what class of mediums should be used? Sec ond, in the class or classes chosen, which particular mediums will aid the most in accomplishing the de sired purpose? In this chapter we are to present certain considerations which will help in solving both of these problems. There are some questions to be asked about any class of mediums before one can properly choose it in an advertising campaign, and there are other questions to be asked and answered about individual mediums to determine their com parative ability to aid the advertiser. Ordinarily it is not enough to listen to the claims of those who present the merits of different mediums there is much that the advertiser or his agent must do to supple ment the available data about the different forms of direct mediums, periodicals and signs before he can be sure that he has selected just the right methods of carrying his advertising message to that part of the public that he wants to reach.
The value of any advertising medium is determined mainly by the answers to two questions : 1. What is the cost per possible purchaser reached by the medium? 2. What is the prestige of the medium in the minds of possible purchasers? Only the first of these questions is considered in the present chapter. It should be noted that this question does not refer to the cost per reader. Cost per reader and cost per possible purchaser are two very different things. If an advertiser wished to know the cost per reader, all he would have to do would be to divide the advertising rate for the unit of space by the number of subscribers and other readers of the publication. A page rate of $1,000, in other words, divided by a proved circulation of 100, 000, would give a cost of one cent a page for each reader of the periodical. Unfortunately, however, each reader is not necessarily a possible purchaser of the advertiser's goods, nor does every reader of a me dium necessarily see every advertisement in it; there fore it is necessary to consider other things than mere numerical circulation.
2. Cost per possible purchaser.—Every advertiser must decide how much he can afford to pay to reach every possible purchaser to whom a medium might appeal. This is a difficult matter, the decision vary ing with each individual case. The factors involved are well illustrated by the answer of an advertising man who was once asked, "If you had only one •os sible purchaser in the United States, how would you undertake to advertise to him? Would it be advisable to use any advertising under such a circum stance ?" He replied: "If I owned a mine valued at $10,000,000 and wished to sell it to one steel mag nate in the United States who could afford to buy it, and this man was not approachable in the beginning thru personal salesmanship, I might be willing to spend many thousand dollars in advertising that mine to that one man. My problem would be to study him and to use every advertising medium which would reach him. I should attempt to find his favorite pub lication, and I could afford to take full pages or even double pages in that publication. If I found that he had no antipathy for signs, I might arrange to have signs placed near his favorite drive, facing his office window, facing his favorite window in his favorite club and every other place where he might be ex pected to be. I should be willing to spend several thousand dollars on a booklet telling of my mine and of the opportunities it afforded. I should adver tise to this man's friends, that they might talk about my mine. In a case of this kind I could afford to spend thousands of dollars per possible purchaser." Fortunately, there is more than one possible pur chaser for most advertised articles, but the things to be considered in the selection of mediums remain the same, regardless of the number of people whom the advertiser hopes to reach. The cost per possible pur chaser is not a simple problem ; it involves a variety of considerations which have to be correlated and har monized before the final answer is given.