Advertiser Terms

These are the terms for advertising on a community card published by The Way Digital, a marketing studio based in Knoxville, Tennessee. They cover what you’re buying, when your card gets charged, and how to get your money back. They’re written to be read, not skimmed past. If something here isn’t clear, email jeff@thewaydma.com and ask before you pay.

What You’re Buying

A spot on an oversized card that is designed, printed, and mailed to approximately 2,500 residential addresses in a defined local area, once per month, through the USPS Every Door Direct Mail program. You share the card with a small number of other local businesses. Only one business per category appears on any given card.

Your monthly rate includes the design of your ad, printing, and postage. There is no separate setup fee, design fee, or per‑piece charge.

Sizes and rates

The reservation payment is half of your first month — not an extra charge on top of it. Together with the balance charged at press, it pays for your first mailing in full.

How Payment Works

1. You reserve your spot

You pay half your first month and your payment card is securely stored by our payment processor, Stripe, so we can charge the payments described below without asking you for it again. We never see or store your full card number. By checking the box at checkout, you authorize those future charges.

Your reservation is for a specific card in a specific area, at a specific size, in a specific category. We’ll confirm all four in writing when you pay.

2. We build your ad

We design your spot from your logo, your offer, and whatever else you send us, and we send you a proof. Nothing goes to press until you approve your proof. You can request changes; we’ll keep working until you’re happy with it or you decide to walk away.

3. The balance is charged at press

Once the card is full enough to mail and you’ve approved your proof, we charge the remaining half of your first month to your saved card and send the card to print. We’ll email you before this charge, not after.

4. Monthly billing begins

On the 1st of the month following your first mailing, your monthly rate is charged to your saved card, and on the 1st of every month after that. Each charge pays for that month’s mailing. Billing continues until you cancel.

An example, so there’s no ambiguity. You reserve a Single on March 4th and pay $150. The card goes to press on April 22nd and we charge the remaining $150. It lands in mailboxes the first week of May. On June 1st your $300/month begins, and it renews every 1st after that.

Refunds and Cancellation

Before you approve your proof

Your reservation is fully refundable. Email us and we’ll return it, no reason required and no questions asked. This applies no matter how long the wait has been.

We say this plainly because we don’t guarantee a print date. A card mails when enough businesses are on it to be worth mailing, and that can take six to eight weeks from the first advertiser — sometimes longer. We would rather wait for a card that’s genuinely good than rush a thin one into a mailbox with your name on it. If that wait stops working for you at any point before you approve your proof, you get your money back.

If we decide not to publish the card at all, we refund every advertiser on it automatically. You don’t have to ask.

After you approve your proof

Your reservation and the balance charged at press are non‑refundable. At that point your ad has been designed and the print run has been committed, and those costs are real whether or not you change your mind. Approving your proof is the point of no return, and we’ll say so when we send it.

Monthly charges — the 7-day window

After each monthly charge on the 1st, you have 7 calendar days to cancel and receive a full refund of that charge. Email us by the 7th and we’ll refund you and pull your spot from that month’s card.

After the 7th, that month’s charge is final, because by then the card is being finalized for print. You can still cancel — you just cancel forward, and you run in the month you paid for. There’s no fee and no notice period.

How to cancel

Email jeff@thewaydma.com. That’s it. No phone call to sit through, no form, no retention pitch. Your cancellation takes effect immediately and you won’t be charged again.

Your Category

While you’re an active advertiser in good standing, we will not sell a spot on your card to a directly competing business in your category. That exclusivity is the point of the format and we take it seriously.

It applies to the specific card and mailing area you’re on, not to every card we publish. It begins when your reservation is paid and ends when your advertising ends — if you cancel, your category opens up and someone else may take it. We define category boundaries in good faith and in writing when you sign up; if a genuinely gray case comes up, we’ll talk to you before we sell it.

Your Ad

• You own your brand; we own the layout. You keep all rights to your logo, photos, and copy. By sending them to us you give us permission to use them in your ad and in samples of our own work.
• You’re responsible for what your ad claims. Offers, prices, guarantees, license numbers, and any legal disclosures your trade requires are yours to get right. We’ll flag anything that looks like a problem, but we can’t verify it for you.
• Deadlines matter. We’ll tell you when we need your materials and your proof approval. If we don’t hear back in time, we’ll run your most recent approved ad; if you don’t have one yet, your spot rolls to the next card and your reservation stays refundable.
• We can decline an ad. We won’t print anything we believe is misleading, illegal, or a bad fit for the card. If we decline yours and we can’t work it out, you get a full refund.

What We Don’t Promise

We will not tell you how many calls you’ll get. Nobody honestly can. What we commit to is the mechanics: a professionally designed ad, printed and delivered to approximately 2,500 residential addresses in your area, every month you’re paying for it.

• No performance guarantee. Results depend on your offer, your market, your reputation, and how long you stay in. Direct mail rewards repetition; one drop is not a test.
• Delivery counts are approximate. Route sizes are set by USPS and shift slightly over time. Final delivery is carried out by the Postal Service, and delivery timing is outside our control.
• The card’s lineup will change. Which businesses appear alongside you, and how many, will vary from month to month. We don’t guarantee a specific number of advertisers or a specific position on the card.
• Design is ours to make. We build the card to work as a whole. You approve your own ad; you don’t approve the rest of the card.

Declined Payments

If a charge fails, our payment processor will email you and automatically retry over the following days. If it hasn’t cleared by the time that month’s card is finalized for print, your spot comes out of that month’s card and your category may be offered to someone else. We’ll try to reach you before that happens.

Changes to These Terms

If we change these terms, the version that applies to you is the one you agreed to when you reserved your spot, until we give you at least 30 days’ notice by email of the new one. If you don’t like a change, cancel — there’s no penalty for it. Rate changes work the same way: 30 days’ notice, and you can walk.

The Legal Bit

These terms, plus the confirmation email we send when you reserve, are the whole agreement between us. Our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before it arose. Neither of us is liable to the other for indirect or consequential damages. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Tennessee, and any dispute belongs in the state or federal courts serving Knox County, Tennessee.

How we handle your personal information is covered separately in our Privacy Policy.

Questions

Email jeff@thewaydma.com. If you’re reading this because you’re about to pay and something doesn’t sit right, ask first. We’d rather answer the question than refund you later.