DOOR TO DOOR MARKETING

Leaflets are one of the most powerful ways for you to market your business. If you want to make sure that you’re using them to your advantage, then here are some tips. Benefits of Leaflet Distribution There are many benefits to choosing leaflet distribution over other forms of traditional marketing. One of them is that you don’t pay any VAT on the printing of the leaflets. Leaflets are classed as being designated throwaway material by the UK government, meaning you don’t have to pay any VAT (but only on the print – standard rate on the distribution maybe applicable) on them. This helps to lessen their cost. They’re also cheaper per word. With digital advertising, you have limited space, and you also have the continuing cost of paying for online space. When you compare this to the cost of bulk-producing leaflets, you’ll soon see how cost-effective they can be. You can also pack more information than you think onto a piece of A5 or A6 paper. Lastly, you can make a great impression with a leaflet. With a TV advertisement, the experience lasts 30 seconds. With a leaflet, you can get many impressions, as the leaflet is set to one side, passed onto a friend or stored somewhere memorable. The more your target audience sees the leaflet, the more likely they are to invest in your services. Maximising your Door-to-Door Campaign The best way for you to get a leaflet into the hands of your customer would be for you to post it through their letterbox. 60.5% of households read leaflets that are posted through their letterbox too, according to the Data & Marketing Association. Some of the things you need to consider if you want to maximise your campaign include location targeting. Are you going to target specific streets and areas? Is the company you’re going through going to be able to tailor the delivery to meet your needs with that? You also need to consider the local press. Are you going to distribute your leaflets inside a free magazine or newspaper? However, be careful with this solution because the magazine or newspaper can be a big distraction away from the leaflet. With the cost of leaflet distribution being so low (often less than one-tenth of a 2nd class stamp), this is excellent advertising because the printing of leaflets is also low and very good value. Targeting Your Door-to-Door Leaflet Distribution The most common form of distribution would be for you to either drop leaflets through letterboxes or for you to hand them out in a busy area, such as a bus station, at a local event or even at a shopping centre. This helps you to put your focus on the audience you want to cater to. There’s no more effective way for you to market your brand than by pinpointing who you want to target and door-dropping a visual representation of your brand. When it comes to dropping leaflets, you can also tailor your drops, in relation to what you’re marketing. If you’re trying to push your high-end boutique then you can concentrate your advertising in places where the income might be higher than usual. If you have a restaurant that is out of the way, concentrate on the area that immediately surrounds it. Geographically localised campaigns are great too. Leaflet distribution is great at targeting a specific location, which is ideal if you want to break into a new market. With 85% of the UK taking their time to sift through what appears in their letterbox each day, door-to-door distribution is a great way for you to expand your customer base. Measuring the Success of Your Leaflet Drop When trying to measure the success of your leaflet drop, you must have a baseline. The average response rate to a leaflet campaign is 1% (can be lower with home improvements and higher with food). When tracking your response, you can add a deal to the flyer. Use the code Summer Flyer or something similar as a discount code, so you can track how many people are entering it. Add a QR code too, as this gives you the chance to target who is coming from the QR code specifically, allowing you to keep a tab on your leaflet distribution. You can also set up a specific website where the QR code leads if you want to invest heavily in your campaign. Lastly, include a form. If you add a form to your flyer, it prompts people to hand the form back to you. Collect any completed forms so you can gauge how responsive your campaign has been. By doing this, you can gain customer details for the future. A taxi firm might use this to gain new customers, as repeat customers are likely to physically show up at the business regularly. Tips for Effective Door-to-Door Marketing If you want your door-to-door marketing to be successful, you need to create a good leaflet. Target specific areas, and always make sure that you create a custom leaflet for different purposes or different demographics. Maps, sign-up forms and extra information can always be accessed by adding a QR code, to keep your leaflets modern and sleek. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Leaflet Distribution One of the mistakes you need to avoid when it comes to leaflet distribution is making sure that you don’t use just anyone to distribute your leaflets. Hire a tried-and-trusted company (preferably one that GPS tracks every delivery person) and give some thought to how you’re going to track your success rate. In regard to your leaflet design, poor text alignment and too many colours are major issues, so avoid them if you can by planning your design as well as coordinating it with your brand. So, as you can see, leaflet distribution is an effective way for you to market your brand, and if you follow the above tips, you should be able to kickstart your campaign in no time at all.

1. Framing your key messaging Like digital advertising, leaflets allow you to feature a headline and a grabby image to pique your customers’ interest. Unlike digital, however, a two-sided leaflet will enable you to put further information about your product, service or event at your customers’ fingertips – without them having to expand a social media post or clicking on a link. For this reason, leaflet advertising scores a healthy 4.4% response rate in comparison to the email response rate of 0.12%. 2. Return on investment For many businesses, ROI is God when it comes to advertising spend and, leaflet advertising shines in this department. Cheaper than TV, radio and press advertising – and more reliable than digital marketing methods, cheap printing and laser targeting mean that leaflets will consistently deliver a robust return on investment for businesses. 3. Worth the paper it’s printed on While digital marketing may have its moments, they are usually just that, moments. With this type of advertising, it’s incredibly easy to scroll past or to have Facebook refresh your page, at which point an advert is gone. Leaflets, on the other hand, have a much longer life span. It’s a simple fact that you can’t simply scroll past a leaflet and, while you can, of course just put it in the bin, studies show that 79% of leaflet recipients will either keep it or pass it on to friends or family. 4. Relationship building blocks Leaflets are proven to be highly effective for promoting local concerts and events – but that’s not all. Leaflets and flyers can also be handed out during an event to inform customers of future events that may interest them. This can be extremely useful as, when a person is enjoying themselves at an event, they are likely to be receptive to repeating the process – and will therefore hang onto the leaflet and, in many cases, take further action such as visiting the website. 5. Tangible = trust We often make the mistake of thinking that digital rules the world these days; however, this is very much not the case. Many people, and not necessarily older folk, are reluctant to put their trust in the internet as a way of making purchases – and perceive a tangible advert such as a leaflet as much more trustworthy. 6. Flexibility With digital advertising – even when you pay for extra – you will only have limited space in which to showcase your products or services. The beauty of leaflets is that you don’t have to stick to the simple one-dimensional version. Folded and gatefold options offer the opportunity to include as much detail as you like; without having to resort to squeezing up the text or using teen-style abbreviations. 7. Samples When creating a leaflet campaign, it’s possible to include a sample of your product with the leaflets. Particularly effective for food and drink products, samples allow your potential customers to try your product for free – something which is proven to increase sales for a huge number of companies. 8. Improved targeting While digital advertising may promise super-focused targeting, it rarely gets it right. For customers, this means money wasted on messaging, missing the target and therefore being ignored. At Premier Leafleting, we offer intelligent targeting for your leaflet campaign, meaning that we don’t just target a particular area – we can drill right down to a specific street and even a particular door. This means that every penny of your budget is spent accurately and relevantly. 9. Multi-platform targeting Contrary to popular belief, leaflets and digital are not mutually exclusive – just the opposite, in fact. Many marketers choose to give their leaflets extra oomph by adding QR codes which take customers straight to a landing page or website, thereby increasing the ways in which the customer can access the information. 10. Diversity While digital advertising may be convenient, it offers limited ways of reaching customers, namely those that happen to be online. Leaflet marketing, on the other hand, offers a much further reach through a number of distribution methods which include: 

• Door-to-door distribution – As the name suggests, this involves a team of distributions physically posting your leaflets through customers’ doors. With this format, you can choose Solus Distribution, whereby only your leaflet is delivered in any given drop or shared distribution, where it will be delivered along with non-competing ones from other companies.
• Hand-to-hand distribution – This method is designed to reach customers when they’re out and about in shopping centres and other places with a high amount of footfall. Here, your leaflets are physically handed to members of the public, and this method is super effective for local businesses such as restaurants, hair salons and independent stores – particularly when the leaflet includes a time-sensitive money-saving offer.
• Business to business – In 2023, collaboration is the name of the game for small businesses and at Premier Leafleting, we can help to facilitate those new partnerships with business-to-business distribution. For this model, we deliver your leaflets to local non-competing businesses, who may then display them on their premises, thereby fostering collaboration and a sense of community.

 It all adds up As the cost-of-living crisis rages on, businesses can ill afford to waste money, particularly on their marketing budgets which, in many cases, are stretched tight already. As we’ve shown in this article, leaflet marketing is an effective – and cost-effective way of making your budgets go further, as well as your marketing reach – to find your potential customers wherever they may be. If you’re looking for a marketing boost for your business that doesn’t break the bank, our friendly and professional on hand offer of advice is free, offering you no-obligation quote. We can help with every aspect of your campaign – from designing your leaflets to creating a distribution map to make sure that every penny of your budget works as hard as you do.

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