XXXIX.ATTRACTING FARMERS TO TOWN
If you are a country town merchant, you are at the mercy of the weather, and trade suffers accordingly. The farmer is a good customer, and you must offer some inducement if he is to be persuaded to make his customary trip to town when the weather is bad.
Practically everybody likes motion pictures, and the farmer is probably as keen a fan as his city cousin, only circumstances preventing him from attending so often.
I know of a merchant down in Harrisonville, Missouri, who got wise to the fact and presented his farm customers with free motion-picture theater tickets. He now finds that the weather makes not a particle of difference.
How, then, can you make certain of doing good business every Saturday, rain or shine? I would suggest that you try out the self-same stunt.
In the first place, the local motion-picture exhibitor, being a business man, is always on the warpath for opportunities for increasing his patronage, so, if you approached him on the subject of selling admission tickets at a reduced price, he would undoubtedly come to terms with you.
It might be well that you ask him to put on mostly rural pictures. This may seem like carrying coal to Newcastle, but it has been proven that rural folks much prefer farming subjects.
This settled, mail two complimentary tickets, with a letter about the character of the program, to your farmer customers sufficiently in advance to be used, and mark them good for only the Saturday matinees.