Eva Miklos has an artist’s eye and a marketer’s mind — a good combination for the president of ADG Printing, a Lynnwood-based company that offers design, print and mail services for businesses’ marketing needs.
“We specialize in postcards. About 80 percent of what we do is postcards,” said Miklos, a nurse of 15 years who left that profession to found ADG Printing with her husband, Gabe, in 1984.
Six years before, the two had moved from their native Hungary for a chance at a better life in the United States, she said. “At that time, Hungary was a communist country. You felt that you were controlled in every way.”
Today, Miklos, her husband and their younger son, Andrew, are enjoying the entrepreneurial demands of running ADG Printing. While Gabe’s background in computer programming enables the company to stay on the leading-edge of digital printing technology and Andrew oversees the day-to-day operations, Eva’s strengths lie elsewhere.
“I’ve always been the more artistic, so I do more of the design and marketing and customer relations,” said Miklos, who enjoys embroidering and painting with watercolors when she has a spare moment.
But those moments are few for Miklos as ADG Printing continues to grow. The company, which inhabited a portion of the Miklos’ Edmonds house for a number of years, moved to its current location, about 5,000 square feet of space on 36th Avenue W., in 1992.
“As we grew, we just needed more space,” said Miklos, noting that ADG Printing, a U.S. Postal Service-authorized mail house, is “one of the top 100 direct mailers in Washington.”
Miklos estimates ADG Printing has served 15,000 customers in its first 24 years, with “70 percent return customers.”
“We have a good customer base we market to; we have to keep in touch,” said Miklos, whose company sends out about 20,000 marketing postcards each month just for itself.
ADG Printing’s customer base is largely composed of members of the real estate industry, photographers and local businesses, she said. “We (serve) a lot of artists. We do large-format printing, or giclee. We do specialize in it because we do get the colors right. We reproduce it 1-to-1.”
The company operates with a staff of 12, including five graphic designers who can help customers create their marketing materials. Clients can stop by the office to browse through a product “showroom,” stocked with postcards, business cards, brochures and other samples of ADG Printing’s work.
“We’re really not an advertising agency, but being in the business so long, we can tell clients what works best,” Miklos said, noting that there’s always a designer on hand for clients who want to drop by.
“… Also, we answer the phone. There’s voice mail, but we try not to use it. Our customers love that they can call and get a real person,” she said. Even with such personal service, more and more customers – about 70 percent – order online at www.adgprinting.com for the sake of convenience.
ADG Printing has kept up with the digital revolution, replacing older machines with Canon digital presses. The move has enabled the company to decrease waste while producing high-quality materials, Miklos said.
“We’re environmentally friendly,” she said, noting that earlier this year the company began partnering with American Forests, a nonprofit organization that plans to plant 100 million trees by 2020.
“With every order (we receive) we plant a tree. It’s kind of a nice way of putting something back,” Miklos said of the partnership, which will first focus on replanting in areas devastated by the California wildfires.
A member of the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce, Miklos’ community involvement includes supporting the arts.
“We sponsor the Edmonds Arts Festival every year,” she said. “When there are juried shows for artists, we always give. We work with the Watercolor Society every year to produce the program for their show.”
For more information on ADG Printing, located at 19231 36th Ave. W., Suite D, in Lynnwood, go online to www.adgprinting.com or call 800-342-3282.
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