Ladera Ranch Magazine is getting ready to publish this summer.
Owners and publishers Devon Hocker and Erinn Igarashi have been putting together the final touches.
The glossy magazine is set to be mailed to about 12,000 people in their homes.
Some copies also are going to doctors and law offices, spas and model homes.
Hocker and Igarashi said they’ve always dreamed of starting a magazine.
Both have “roots in publishing,” Igarashi said.
Hocker, a real estate agent in Ladera Ranch, works in display advertising sales for Irvine-based BowTie Inc., publisher of pet and various other magazines.
Igarashi owns a marketing shop called Custom Marketing Solutions and publishes a magazine called Avenues for The Irvine Company’s apartment unit.
The two women met shortly after Hocker started “laying the groundwork” for Ladera Ranch Magazine.
“Within two weeks (we) were business partners,” Igarashi said. “This magazine is our baby. We are giving it all we have.”
Ladera Ranch Magazine is set to target Ladera Ranch and surrounding areas, including Las Flores, Wagon Wheel, Mission Viejo and San Juan Capistrano.
Hocker and Igarashi said they’re funding the publication without any investors.
The first issue cost more than $65,000, they said.
The magazine plans to include profiles on business and community leaders, stories on events and charitable groups, restaurant reviews and real estate information.
Hocker and Igarashi work from their Ladera Ranch homes and tap help, including a sales and marketing coordinator, a public relations shop, staff photographers and Five Three Design in San Clemente, which acts as creative director.
The first issue, expected in July, now stands at 64 pages. The publishers hope to see the page count grow.
So far, they said they hooked several advertisers, including automakers, such as Mercedes and Audi, Countrywide Home Loans Inc. and IndyMac Bank, the Irvine arm of Pasadena’s IndyMac Bancorp Inc.
Hocker and Igarashi have some competition.
They’ll be going after some of the same advertisers that other local publishers target, including Santa Ana-based Freedom Orange County Information, a unit of Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc. that publishes the Orange County Register and other titles, and Newport Beach-based Churm Media Inc., publisher of OC Metro and others.
“We aren’t concerned about competing against Churm or Freedom,” Hocker said. “We see our magazine as being unique and more niche.”
More Work, More Workers
Irvine-based online marketing shop Capita Technologies Inc. continues to build its staff while bringing in more work.
The company hired 15 people in 2006 and a few more this year bringing its staff to 33, Chief Executive Charlie Granville said.
People were brought in across the board, including senior technical project managers and graphic flash designers.
Capita also taps three to six contractors “at any given time,” he said.
“Our sales pipeline is very large, and we expect to hire more of these types of resources in the fall,” Granville said.
Capita builds Web sites, handles online promotions, banners, loyalty programs and wireless promotions, among other services.
The company also sells software that monitors the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
Capita brought in three clients this year: Verizon Wireless, Unilever and Kaiser Permanente.
The shop’s New York office has been working closely with advertising agencies and getting Capita more work in online “eMarketing,” Granville said.
“The remainder of the year looks strong with the pipeline growing and Capita’s agency partnership expanding rapidly,” he said.
Capita recently hired a project manager and some Web programmers, Granville said.
The shop is helping more clients create Web sites in multiple languages, he said.
“Capita is able to incorporate multilingual sites to a campaign for a small percentage of the total campaign cost,” Granville said.
PR Wins
Madison Alexander PR Inc. in Irvine has some new clients.
The shop beat out an undisclosed number of agencies to win work from the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, Irvine.
Other new clients won without reviews include Web search company Local.com Corp. in Irvine and Valicore Technologies Inc. in Irvine, a provider of computer engineering services.
The shop also is doing some projects for Zeus Technology Ltd. in Mountain View and Teranetics Inc. in Santa Clara.
Madison Alexander PR has six workers.
