It’s gratifying to work for REACH magazine, Dayton’s favorite direct mail coupon magazine when I can go into a restaurant the week after our magazine hits the streets and see excitement and even relief in the eyes of the servers. I’m not going to publish the name of the restaurant in my blog, but if you want to hear about it in person I would tell you. But, I had lunch there today. I asked  the maitre d’ how things were going this week. He saw that I was with REACH magazine and with a smile on his face said that their daily sales were between 3 times and 5 times higher than they had been in many prior weeks.

I could see that having people to serve was a relief as he seemed to have lots of energy in his step.

Weeks before, when I was talking to the owner about REACH, the owner explained that he was spending $300 for this and $400 for that and business was very slow. Why should he pay more for REACH magazine? I explained the secret about REACH magazine, that just about everyone LOVES Reach magazine and that it will stay around the home much longer than magazines made with newsprint or ones that have a bunch of ugly coupons on the front cover. And REACH is not by subscription like the newspaper so everyone in his primary marketing area will receive it and see his ad.

He listened, then he reluctantly signed for 6 issues of REACH and given the situation and his concern about being able to pay at proof approval with each issue, I explained that I would allow him to skip or postpone a mailing if money was a problem. In fact, I said, if you are not completely happy with the results, I will let you cancel the the remaining agreement so long as he notified me well in advance of the proofing deadline. I picked up the first payment for the first ad when business was still very slow.

Now I will have the pleasure of asking for payment for something that may actually save his restaurant. For some reason I don’t think it will be as difficult to write that check.

Our November REACH magazine cover features the Wright State basketball team. On the back is a coloring contest for kids to be able to win a family package to The Nutcracker Ballet sponsored by Kettering Health Network and Vectren. Until our kids were in high school, we made it a family event each Christmas to go out to dinner and then to The Nutcracker Ballet. When I interview random consumers about REACH magazine, they tell me that things like this are some of the things that make them LOVE Reach, then they go on to explain that having restaurants and a variety of different businesses to look through makes REACH fun to look at and worth keeping ahold of for many weeks.

Since I’ve been representing REACH for many years I know this about consumer views. It just always surprises me when I go to present REACH to a business and many business owners have no idea. If there are others in the room, sometimes I will just hold up the most current magazine and loudly ask, “DOES ANYONE GET THIS AT HOME?” Immediately people chime in with, “Oh yes, we love REACH magazine.” or something of that nature. At that point the business owner becomes more receptive to discussing the value of advertising in REACH. But, still it surprises me that retail, restaurant, and service businesses do not ask their customers about things like this. It sure would make my job a whole lot easier if they did!

If you would like me to go over how REACH works, just give me a call at 937-478-6222 any time. That’s my cell phone number since I am out and about quite a bit.