The Local Vibe, answered plainly

The Local Vibe is an exclusive 9x12 community mailer shared by sixteen local businesses, one slot per industry, mailed free to local households through USPS Every Door Direct Mail. Each edition mails to about 5,000 addresses, each ad can carry the business's own QR code, and 9% of each card's gross revenue goes to that card's local charity partner. It is a Savino Marketing publication.

About 5,000. A market is about 10,000 households split into two rotation groups, and each edition mails to one group. All four editions in a year are about 20,000 addressed pieces across those same roughly 10,000 households, so every address in the market is on the route list twice a year. What the USPS paperwork proves is that the pieces were accepted and paid for and that every active residential delivery point on the selected routes was addressed. It does not prove delivery, receipt, or readership, and no mailer can prove those.

Your shop does not have to be on the route list. Your customers do. USPS carrier routes are added whole, and the list stops at roughly 10,000 households across both rotation groups. If the people who buy from you live on the gold and blue streets, this is your market, gold mailing this edition and blue the next. If most of them live on grey routes, tell us. Route lists get drawn from where customers actually live.

Ad slots run $569 to $689 per edition depending on position: back middle $569, back corner $599, front middle $659, front corner $689. Split across an edition's roughly 5,000 addresses, that works out to about 11 to 14 cents per address. The sponsor square is a separate $199 per-edition fee.

Mailing your own 9x12 postcard to about 5,000 addresses runs roughly $3,000 or more all-in: about $1,300 in USPS EDDM Retail postage at $0.26 per piece (usps.com, July 2026), plus printing, which for a one-off retail run starts around $1,700, before design and prep labor. A slot on The Local Vibe runs $569 to $689 per edition, about 11 to 14 cents per address, with postage, printing and the AI Ad Builder included. The trade: mailing solo gets you the whole card. A slot gets you one ad among sixteen, with one business per industry.

The founding sponsor is the business a market gets drawn around. They pay the same ad rate as every other advertiser plus a $199 sponsor fee for the edition they sponsor, they name the charity on the card, and their square sits on the front. Founding sponsors also make a donation of at least $500 directly to a charity they choose, and we publish it; it never passes through us. Founding is permanent; the square is decided one edition at a time.

No, not without your say. One business per industry prints on each card. If a second business in your industry wants in after you have claimed it, they print on your card only if you agree. Otherwise they move to the next edition or get a full refund. That is the one real limit here, and it is built into the card.

Not yet. Our first card is open for placements now, and the first drop is slated for November 2026. This is our first edition, so this page will say so plainly until it mails.

Full refund of everything paid to Savino Marketing for the first edition, any time before that edition's print deadline, no questions asked. That covers both the ad slot and the $199 sponsor fee. If your edition has not mailed by its mail-by date, your paid placement carries to the next edition automatically, and a full refund of everything you paid Savino Marketing stays yours for the asking, one click, until that next edition goes to print. On a prepaid multi-edition contract, the same applies to every edition that has not mailed. Your charity donation is not refundable by us because it never passes through our account, which is why we suggest timing it to the print commitment.

Four times a year: each edition mails to one of the market's two rotation groups, alternating, so every address in the market is on the route list twice a year. Each card sells until it fills or hits its print deadline, whichever comes first, and the current status is always on the card page. Our first drop is slated for November 2026, and each card shows its own mail-by date (the Fall card's is February 28, 2027). A placement on an edition that does not mail carries to the next edition automatically, and a full refund is one click away on request.

Current markets are available in the Greater New York City Metro Area and New Jersey. Our first market, Great Kills, is open on Staten Island, NY. A new market opens wherever a founding sponsor steps up: we draw it around that sponsor's business, about 10,000 households split into two rotation groups.

You design it yourself with the AI Ad Builder, free with every slot: it researches your business, pulls your real logo and brand colors, and drafts the ad with you. Your QR code is composited in automatically, you approve the final proof, and nothing prints without your sign-off. Already have artwork? Send that instead.

No. We never receive it, hold it, or remit it. You choose the charity, you send the donation yourself, and the receipt has your name on it. You tell us when it goes out so the card and the impact report can be accurate. Separately, Savino Marketing donates 9% of this card's gross revenue to that same charity, which is our own money, not yours. How your donation is treated on your return is a question for your accountant. Nothing here is tax advice.

EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) is the USPS program that puts a mail piece in every mailbox on the carrier routes you choose, with no mailing list and no postage permit. It is how every Local Vibe card mails. Retail postage is $0.26 per piece (usps.com, July 2026), and printing a solo run comes on top of that, which is exactly why sixteen businesses sharing one card changes the math. You don't need to run your own EDDM mailing to advertise. Each edition of The Local Vibe is one EDDM mailing, shared by sixteen businesses.