//Direct Mail & Print
Print advertising in the magazines your customers actually read.
Local magazines can put your business in front of defined communities without another feed competing for the click. We choose publications by circulation, audience and geography, design the ad for the page it will live on, and give each placement a trackable response path.
Print advertising did not die. It got specific. Community and lifestyle publications can reach defined local audiences, but the publication has to earn the buy. We look at circulation, geographic distribution, reader profile, placement and cost before recommending one. A print advertising agency earns its keep by knowing which titles reach which neighborhoods, negotiating the placement, designing an ad that looks like it belongs in the magazine rather than interrupting it, and tracking the response.
We place print advertising in local magazines across Orange County and the markets we serve, and we design the ads and the print collateral in-house: menus, brochures, rack cards, event pieces. For a medical practice client we designed magazine ads and a trifold service guide, delivered print-ready, with the brand carried from the screen to the front desk. The same discipline applies to a full-page ad: one message, real proof, a reason to act, and a QR code so you know it worked.
//Before we book it
The publication has to earn the placement.
We compare its documented circulation and audience with your customer base, then look at the offer, cost and measurement plan. If the audience match is weak, we do not recommend the buy.
//What you get
What print advertising includes.
Title and placement selection
Which local magazines reach the neighborhoods and households you want, at what circulation, on what schedule, and what a placement should cost.
Negotiation and booking
Rates, positions and packages negotiated on your behalf, with the editorial calendar in view so the ad lands next to the right content.
Ad design and copy
An ad designed for the page it will sit on: one message, one offer, real proof, and a brand that looks like it belongs in the magazine.
Print collateral
Menus, brochures, rack cards, event invitations and in-store pieces, designed and typeset in-house, delivered print-ready.
Print production
Files prepared to each publication's specifications, proofs checked, and printers managed for the collateral.
Tracking
A QR code, a dedicated landing page, a tracked number or a code on every placement, reported alongside your digital numbers.
//What is usually broken
Where print advertising usually breaks.
Too much in one ad. A page tries to carry every service, every offer and every reason to choose the business. Nothing gets enough room to matter.
The publication was never qualified. The buy was made from a media kit or sales call without checking circulation, geography and audience against the customer base.
Response was never instrumented. No dedicated URL, QR code, phone number or offer code means direct response is difficult to separate from everything else running.
The creative ignores the publication. The ad is designed in isolation instead of for the dimensions, surrounding editorial and reader context of the placement.
//Receipts
Read related case studies
Medical practice
Magazine ads and a trifold service guide
Designed in-house for a medical practice and delivered print-ready, with the brand carried from the website into print.
Read the case study
Technology company
Paid ads in a strategic geo-targeting campaign around its market's biggest conference
Ads that reached attendees where they were and content from the event itself, written up as a playbook the company can run again.
Read the case study//Two-minute quiz
Is print advertising your next dollar?
Four questions give our founders useful context. They do not generate an automatic prescription.
Question 1 of 4
Do your best customers live in specific, affluent neighborhoods nearby?
//How we work
How we place print.
- 01
Match the title to the customer
Circulation maps against your customer base, so the placement goes where your buyers are, not where the sales rep is.
- 02
Negotiate and book
We ask for current rates, positions and available packages, then show you the placement cost before anything is booked.
- 03
Design for the page
An ad that belongs in the magazine, with one message, real proof, an offer and a QR code, delivered to spec.
- 04
Track and decide
Scans, page visits, calls and codes reported per placement, so the next booking is decided on evidence.
No cost. Starts with a short conversation with our founders.
//What you can count on
How we operate.
//Common questions
Things we get asked first.
What does magazine circulation mean?
AAM defines total circulation as the total number of distributed copies, including paid, verified and certain nonpaid circulation. Circulation is not the same thing as total readership.
Alliance for Audited MediaWhat is a magazine's rate base?
AAM defines rate base as the publisher's estimate of how many copies it expects to distribute during the reporting period. Actual circulation and rate base are not the same number.
Alliance for Audited MediaWhat is bleed in a print ad?
Bleed is artwork that extends beyond the final trim edge so small variations in trimming do not leave a white edge. The publication's specifications determine the required amount.
Adobe InDesign User GuideWhy are commercial print files usually prepared in CMYK?
CMYK uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black process inks for commercial printing. The final color profile still needs to match the printer or publication specifications.
Adobe InDesign HelpCan a print ad be tracked?
Direct responses can be measured with a unique URL, QR code, phone number or offer code. Campaign parameters can identify traffic that reached the site through that URL, although they cannot count every person who saw the printed ad.
Google Analytics Help, Custom campaigns//Not sure this is the right service?
Good. The diagnosis is our job.
Talk to our founders. We will look at the business and tell you what we think should happen first.
//Related services
The work this connects to.
Every Door Direct Mail: the offer, the piece, the routes, the printing and the drop.
Practices, med spas and clinics: local search, ads that clear policy, and trust.
Paid search and paid social planned together and judged by what they produce.
//Definitions
What the initials actually mean.
Defined in a sentence, with a link to the organization that owns the term.
A USPS service that delivers your piece to every address on the postal carrier routes you choose, with no mailing list to buy. You pick the neighborhoods, and the postage is a fraction of first-class.
Source: USPS: Every Door Direct Mail