HIDEAWAYS is distributed to the cottage docks on Lake Muskoka, Lake Rosseau, Lake Joseph, and Lake of Bays. We take a tremendous amount of pride and work with steadfast care in the production of HIDEAWAYS and we produce one issue annually. Once and once only per year - and that's by design.
VIEW HIDEAWAYS VIDEOBecause we produce HIDEAWAYS ONLY ONCE each year, we have twelve months to make it a better, more impressive publication and one that is worth keeping. We can spend more time developing our layouts, more time on our photo and video shoots, and more time working on our architectural, building, property, and lifestyle Feature Articles. The result is a publication that is a cut above. As we like to say of the Big-Lakes cottager picking the annual issue of HIDEAWAYS up off their dock, "It's worth bending over for."
Here at HIDEAWAYS, we spend a lot more patron resources on finishing options than other magazines. Refinements like our gold-foiled masthead and soft-touch UV coating on the cover take HIDEAWAYS to the next level aesthetically. Essentially, we like to design HIDEAWAYS as a coffee table book. It's attractive and professionally-produced with the aim that Big-Lakes cottagers will be proud to not only receive it but also to leave it out on the coffee tables of their cottages and boathouses.
This attention to detail is critical to the success and distinction of HIDEAWAYS: If we can keep an issue in view and out of recycling boxes, we've won the game for our advertisers - but, we've also provided value for our Big-Lakes readership. The Big-Lakes cottagers on Muskoka, Joe, Rosseau, and Lake of Bays know that HIDEAWAYS comes out only once a year. It's rare, it's special. When the Big-Lakes market have HIDEAWAYS delivered to their docks, they actually want to receive it. That's the real HIDEAWAYS advantage.
For over 25 years, we have operated a successful marketing communications, design and development company here in Gravenhurst, Muskoka, where we focus on custom creative advertising design, analysis, and strategic development. Although we serve clients throughout North America, when we launched HIDEAWAYS in 2014, the majority our local clients were Big-Lake service companies. Many of these clients had been advertising in publications that published issues once every two weeks, or once a month. This meant that our clients were spending an excessive amount of marketing dollars in what we knew was a low return-on-investment endeavour.
The typical Big-Lake cottager is only here in Muskoka for four to five weeks or less, every year.
So for our clients to advertise in publications charging $3,000 - $5,000 per page, with sales pressure to lock in to six- or even eight-issue contracts—well, it's never made sense to us.
AND IT STILL DOESN'T MAKE SENSE NOW.
Our objective has always been to create a publication that is far and away the best in Muskoka to effectively reach the Big-Lakes cottager - and we only do it once a year.
When this audience comes to the cottage, they're in a far more relaxed state of mind than they are during their day-to-day work-lives. They have more time to sit back and enjoy a quality publication that speaks to them in a distinctive and meaningful way.
It is one thing to produce a publication that is high quality of good intention, and has merit. It takes another skill set entirely to ensure that it gets directly into the hands of the people whom it is intended to reach.
WE DON'T WANT EVERYBODY.
At HIDEAWAYS, we ONLY focus on the Big-Lakes market. It's been that way since day one. That's the market that's important to us because that's the market that's important to our advertisers. And because we speak to the Big-Lakes cottager quite specifically, when HIDEAWAYS is delivered to the dock, and they pick it up, they intrinsically recognize the differences in material, design and layout quality, tone, and approach that make HIDEAWAYS Muskoka's only Big-Lakes focused, dock delivered, coffee table-worthy publication.
While many Big-Lakes cottagers (approximately 82%) live in the GTA, a significant percentage are global residents with multiple residences and multiple recreational properties. Some of them come from overseas, and many from the U.S. Trying to reach this market on an individual basis is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to do. For a very limited window every year, the Four Big-Lakes see a mass influx of seasonal population.
Distribution has always commenced the last week of June and always been completed by the end of the first week of July. This equates, from our perspective, to over 750 kilometres of distributed shoreline in, on average, eight days.
The efficiency of our distribution is crucial because we do our best, for our advertisers, to get the message out to the market as quickly as we can. If we took a month to distribute the magazine that would mean an extra three weeks when our advertisers' messaging would be delayed in reaching its desired market. For us, that's simply unacceptable. That's why we take great pride in our quick, efficient distribution. It's key to our clients' business goals, which means it's key to ours, too.
Our presentation racking system reflects the quality that is evident in every issue of HIDEAWAYS. They're attractive, they're stable, and even more importantly, they're positioned in interior locations only where people cottaging on the Big-Lakes are going to be.
Our presentation racks are in establishments like high-end marinas, the Muskoka Airport, interior designer décor stores and fine dining restaurants. There are 25 custom HIDEAWAYS presentation racks strategically located around the Big-Lakes. Whether they are in and around the Big Lakes to look for a cottage of their own, or visiting cottager friends, our target market is sure to encounter HIDEAWAYS via one or more of our custom racks. Our custom presentation racking system is one way that we augment HIDEAWAYS' distribution meaningfully for our patrons.
Georgian Bay Airways is a local Toronto-to-Muskoka charter company that flies its patrons from Toronto to their cottage in Muskoka. Ideal for those who don't want to sit in the notorious traffic that besets cottagers on their way up to Muskoka, Georgian Bay Airways offers Big-Lakes cottagers the opportunity to charter a float plane that will drop them off at their cottage dock and pick them up lakeside when they're ready to fly back to the city. HIDEAWAYS is the exclusive in-flight magazine for Georgian Bay Airways. Having HIDEAWAYS in the seatback of every one of Georgian Bay's charter flights is great for their passengers, great for our patrons, and great for HIDEAWAYS as well. We’re proud of our longstanding relationship with Georgian Bay Airways and look forward to many more charters for years to come.
Every Feature Article since 2014 is carefully presented on our website Hideawaysmagazine.com. It's an excellent, mobile-friendly resource for those looking for Big-Lakes focussed inspiration and service support.
Our Editorial Features are selectively chosen for each issue. Our editorial mandate focuses on architecture, design, building structure, property, and Big-Lakes lifestyles. In addition, HIDEAWAYS continually presents a range of products and services necessary and appealing to the high-net-worth, Big-Lakes lifestyle. This editorial focus is what keeps HIDEAWAYS interesting and relevant to its readership as it very deliberately speaks to their specific needs and desires.
Production is already underway on this year's issue of HIDEAWAYS and we're excited to feature some of the finest cottage properties that we've seen yet.
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