We just wanted to give a little credit where credit was due.  If your business has copywrighting needs, don't hesitate to look Christine up.  She helped us with a great start to our Copywriting needs. 

She can be reached at christinewmeyer (at) roadrunner.com.

Thanks again Christine, for all your help.

Jonathan Martin

President of AdvertisingMagnets.biz

There are companies out there that will create and manufacture magnets for you at an expensive price (meaning: cheap!), in just about any shape and size imaginable. You have a shape, size, or color in mind? They’ll make it for you. Refrigerator magnets, though, aren’t just made for businesses. You don’t have to own a business to take advantage of their power to spread the word.

Wikipedia, which actually has an article about refrigerator magnets, defines them this way: “an ornament attached to a magnet that is used to post items such as shopping lists or report cards on a refrigerator, or simply as decoration.” I always thought that magnets were really cool, even as a kid. A magnet, for you trivia nuts, is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. I guess I thought they were cool because magnetic fields are invisible, and there’s something magical about an invisible force (like gravity, which is also cool).

Flat Promotional Magnets are a little different than the normal magnet, though. (By the way, the strongest magnet in the world is “called” an electromagnetic. It’s made from a coil of wire that acts as a magnet with an electric current passes through it. When the current stops, it’s no longer a magnet, and when the coil is wrapped around a material that is naturally attracted to magnets, like steel, the magnetic field is enhanced, making the electromagnet stronger.

Refrigerator magnets, though, don’t have distinct north and south poles, which act upon other objects and create the above-mentioned magnetic field, are made from composite materials constructed with alternating north and south poles on the same surface of the plane. This construction is more effective at “keeping the large planar magnet uniformly stuck onto the steel refrigerator than a uniformly-polarized magnet would be.” The technical term for this arrangement is “Halbach array. “ Also according to Wikipedia, you can see this by taking two identical refrigerator magnets and slide them against each other with the “magnetic” sides facing each other. What happens is that the magnets will alternately repel and attract as they are moved a few millimeters. Go ahead and try it; it really works. Now that’s cool!

Refrigerator magnets are ridiculously inexpensive. For example, a business card-sized, squared-shaped refrigerator magnet typically runs for twenty cents per 1,000.

The most typical kind of refrigerator magnet is business card- or post card-sized, usually in a rectangle. There are even varieties of sizes of this type of magnet; some can be quite large. The simplest magnet is simply a business card with a magnet on the back.

There are as many shapes of refrigerator magnets as you could think of. If your business is dentistry, how about a tooth-shaped magnet? Or a van, truck, car, or bus for a transportation or delivery business. Or the shape of a certain building. You name it, it can be made. One magnet company lists the twenty most popular refrigerator magnet shapes. They are, in the following order: apples, band-aids, books, trucks, clothes hangers, delivery vans, dump trucks, foots, hearts, houses, light bulbs, mortar and pestles, ovals, pizzas, refrigerators, stop signs, telephones, vans, and washing machines.

A magnetic memo board with erasable marker is a unique kind of refrigerator magnet. One example I saw had a magnet both in the marker’s cap and eraser, which can be attached to the Board itself or to the refrigerator. The pad of paper on the board has rounded edges, and has a designated advertisement area printed in full color and a blank space for notes.

Related to the above is a magnetic memo holder. (Say that three times fast!) It has double the advertising value; a business can place its name and information on the memo board and on the memo paper. Sticky notes could even be used. Both the board and the paper can be cut to any specification.

Adhesive magnets allow a business to make their own magnets. They can buy a sheet of magnets, usually rectangular-shaped but unlimited sizes, with adhesive on the back. Simply peel the liner away from the backing, and apply it to your business card, photo, or label.

These days, refrigerator magnets are used as souvenirs, as a kitchen decoration, as advertising mediums, and as novelty items. They are fabricated from magnet sheets printed and cut into all kinds of shapes and sizes. They cost less to make than a postage stamp, and their advertising value is incalculable. They are often made in business card size, and cut into shapes like cars, pigs, houses—everything you could think of. Photo frame shapes and notepads with magnets on the back on them are also common. They present all kinds of messages, and not just for advertising—mottos, inspirational sayings, and humor. They’re also used for fundraiser's, or for announcements of special events, or even for wedding favors.

The best advertising refrigerator magnets, of course, combine the message of a business with the above types of messages. People don’t throw away refrigerator magnets; they display them, and display them for years. An advertising campaign that costs pennies could last for a very long time. It’s easy to slap them on a refrigerator to hold up something important. Think of your own refrigerator. Of the ten or fifteen magnets there right now, I’d bet that most of them are advertisements. What better way for a business to keep its message in front of their customers, on a daily basis, for year after year?

Now think of the magnets that stand out through the clutter. They’re probably professionally-made. They’re probably well-made; you want them to actually hold stuff up, not weak magnets that slide down the refrigerator door after about a week. You want readable text on them, not printing that fades or peels.

Louise J. Greenfarb, who owns the largest refrigerator advertising magnets collection in the world, stores her collection on the exterior of her car. Did you know that there are companies that actually make advertising magnets for automobiles? Now, that’s taking a good idea to its extreme. Of course, it makes sense. A car is probably the biggest magnetized object in the world; why not put an advertisement on it, especially when it’s the company car?

Refrigerator magnets for your car.

Refrigerator magnets have become a great way to improve family communication, and low-tech, too. I mean, why send your loved one an email, or even a Tweet? They’re more likely to open the fridge at home to get a bite to eat than they are to check their computer. Refrigerator magnets are ideal to display your kid’s pictures, and their artwork, and so much cheaper and more convenient than frames. I know parents who display their kids’ report cards, help up by a refrigerator magnet.

I have a brother who makes lists about every conceivable thing. Shopping lists, to-do lists, work schedules, menus for the week. His family also invested in a board where they keep a pad of paper and a pen so that they could keep an on-going list of supplies they run out of.

Refrigerator magnets are such convenient little tools, aren’t they?

As of 2007, the world’s record for the largest refrigerator magnet collection was held by Louise J. Greenfarb, who owned 35,000 of the things. And no, she doesn’t keep them on her refrigerator—is there even a fridge large enough to hold 35,000 magnets? She keeps them on the exterior of her car.

Can you imagine being the owner of one of the businesses advertised by one of Ms. Greenfarb’s magnets? Talk about free advertising. That really is the point of the things, by the way. A business gives a customer a refrigerator magnet, the customer goes home and sticks it on their fridge, and everyone who visits them will see it. Let’s say that the customer decides to sell his or her house. A realtor will bring in scores of folks to see it, even in this depressed housing market, and in to see your business’ refrigerator magnet, with your number on it.

They say that the kitchen is the most popular room in the house, and where everyone congregates during a party. That’s why they’re such an effective marketing tool, and why every business invests in them.

David White, who played Larry Tate on the classic 1960s TV show, “Bewitched.”

No, if you’re like me, you probably thought “those things that get stuck on my refrigerator” when you heard the words “advertising magnets.” As a kid, I always thought advertising magnets were kinda cool. A magnet, for you trivia nuts, is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. I guess I thought they were cool because magnetic fields are invisible, and there’s something magical about an invisible force (like gravity, which is also cool).

Speaking of cool, Wikipedia (a resource I adore) has a cool article about magnets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet. Here’s an image from that article, which shows the kind of magnet I thought was so cool as a kid.

This image shows how the magnetic field of a bar magnet affects some iron filings. What makes the bar magnetic is that it attracts the magnetic properties of other materials, in iron filings in the above case. The strongest magnet in the world is an electromagnetic. It’s made from a coil of wire that acts as a magnet with an electric current passes through it. When the current stops, it’s no longer a magnet, and when the coil is wrapped around a material that is naturally attracted to magnets, like steel, the magnetic field is enhanced, making the electromagnet stronger.

Of course, that has very little to do with the topic at hand—advertising magnets, except it is cool information to know. Advertising magnets, which most of us connect with the magnets we put on our refrigerators, are what are known as “permanent magnets.” This means that it’s made from a material that remains magnetized. That’s why it sticks to another metal, like the metal that’s in our fridges. That’s why magnets are such ideal things to use to put notes on our fridges, and why having messages printed on them is such a good idea from an advertising perspective.