Negotiated and ran a 10-publication national print program reaching 1M+ combined circulation per cycle, with 100% on-time delivery across 12 months.
For twelve months I owned the print lane end to end: negotiating insertion orders with every publication's ad manager, building the media budget and calendar, trafficking every ad through Jira, and putting the final touches on each ad in InDesign before print-ready submittal, at 100% on-time delivery.
A national equipment brand needs to be in front of woodworkers and metalworkers every month, and print is where that audience actually lives. The catch: ten publications means ten rate cards, ten close dates, and ten ad managers, with full-page placements running $7K to $11.5K at rate card. And print is unforgiving. Once an issue closes, it closes, and a missed date is a hole in the calendar a brand cannot buy back.
I negotiated directly with the ad managers at all ten titles and built the relationships that kept pricing below rate card cycle after cycle, including a remnant-inventory buy that put Grizzly in Popular Mechanics, a 401K-circulation national title, at trade-pub money. Every insertion order, vendor invoice, and close date ran through a media budget and calendar I owned, and every ad moved through Jira and final InDesign touches to print-ready submittal on time, twelve straight months. The program reached more than a million in combined circulation per insertion cycle, and when I onboarded The Fabricator as a new title, the buy extended past print into a co-branded paid social campaign on the publication's own channels.
Negotiated insertion orders directly with ad managers at ten trade and consumer publications, built the media budget and tracked every vendor invoice against the planned calendar, and ran each ad from copy and design through print-ready submittal. The reach: 1M+ combined circulation per insertion cycle, anchored by Popular Mechanics (401K, secured as a remnant-inventory buy at a fraction of rate card), WOOD (350K+), Woodsmith (149K), Fine Woodworking (130K) and The Fabricator (52K), plus Popular Woodworking, ShopNotes, Home Shop Machinist and Machinist's Workshop. Full-page placements in this category run $7K to $11.5K at rate card; long-term relationships with every print manager kept pricing below it, cycle after cycle.
Onboarded The Fabricator as a new publication and shipped placements in six consecutive 2024 issues, February through July, every one verified in the publication's archive. The buy then extended past print into a co-branded Paid Partnership video campaign on The Fabricator's Facebook in April 2024. The placements kept running after my tenure ended; the relationships outlived the role. "Such a joy to work with while onboarding The Fabricator and running our social campaign." Melissa King, Advertising Sales Manager, RK Media.
Print buying taught me what no dashboard can: leverage comes from relationships. The ad managers who knew I would never miss a close date were the same ones who called first when remnant space opened up. That is how a brand lands in a national magazine for trade-pub money.
