for space in your paper. No agent will place business with you at a higher rate, because he knows you are taking business lower from his competitor. Therefore, that fact is the first calculation in determining how to get foreign business and get the money for it.
FIRST: Have one rate and stick to it. Unless you do that you are a goner.
SECOND: Do not sell preferred position at any price. The preferred position scheme was originated as a method of grabbing free insertions. The Tidings absolutely refuses to sell preferred position, yet it always delivers preferred position whenever possible, on the theory that the paper must produce results in order to justify continuance of the business. The foreman in the Tidings ofiice knows he will be called on the carpet for bad positions on foreign ads. and the third offense is capital and decapitable.
THIRD: Recognize the fact that the square foreign agent is a big asset to the country newspaper, cooperate with him in every legitimate way in helping him to get business. If there was no foreign agent there would be no foreign business. He is a creator of business for country papers and should be so regarded. Let him know you appreciate him and do not consider him a grafter, but a valuable asset. If he insists on grafting cut him out and tell him why. It will do him good.
FOURTH: Always keep your paper before the live agent. Send sample copies to the advertiser direct, telling him what he is missing by not using your paper and asking him to call his advertising department ’s attention to the value of your publication. The Tidings has secured many valuable contracts through the insistance of the advertiser with the agent that this field be covered.
FIFTH: Never quote your agent ’s discount directly to advertisers. That discount must be confidential, for, what use would the advertiser have for the agent if he could place his business direct on as favorable terms without the agent! Remember, the agent is and should be considered your agent. He is rustling business for you. Give him a chance to get it. Help him get it. The advertising card of the Tidings carries the gross rate, but is marked net. When it goes to a credited agency there is written in ink on the margin, “15 per cent commission to established agencies only.” That protects the agent.
These are some of the main principles which have given the Tidings more foreign advertising than other southern Oregon publications.
The Tidings rate has been raised from 8 to 17½ cents the inch in five years without losing a standard advertiser. We write it in the contract that no other advertiser has a less rate. To “stick, brother, stick” is a great factor.
James Sheehy, president of the student body of the University, and athletic editor of the Emerald last year, was appointed head of the food conservation drive here on the campus. How he worked it is not known, but now all of the houses are holding meatless, wheatless, and butterless days, and many of the women claim that they are eating less candy.
