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Leaflet drops work. Some of the largest companies in the world as well as most local small businesses use leaflet drops regularly.
However asking whether leaflet dropping works is similar to asking whether TV adverts work or if Google Ads are effective. The answer has to inevitably be – ‘Depending on who is doing it and how well’.
The approach to leaflet dropping has changed quite a bit over the last 15 years. It used to be that a business would print a few thousand leaflets, contact a local flyer distribution firm, pick a postcode to target and hope that all the leaflets get delivered.
The landscape is completely different now. The industry has developed and
adopted new techniques and flyer distribution has become a very sophisticated marketing tool.
- 1. How to know if my leaflet drop worked?
- 2. Repeated drops
- 3. Why do leaflet drops work?
- 4. Shared vs Solus
- 5. Area selection
- 6. Leaflet design
- 7. Quality of delivery
How to know if my leaflet drop worked?
The way you measure whether your leaflet drop was successful will depend on the goal of your campaign.
You might be looking for an immediate uptick in clients contacting you about a specific service. On the other hand your drop could be a part of a longer term strategy of brand building in a given area.
If you want to know whether your leaflet drop has worked you need to know exactly what results you are looking for.
Discount Codes
Using codes is a great way of finding out exactly how many people have responded to a specific leaflet drop.
You can create unique codes for each campaign you want to track and offer a discount to people mentioning it when contacting you. This way you can track which campaigns worked and infer the variables responsible for the success.
Discount Codes are great if you are looking to build interest in a specific product or a service from your drop. Tracking them however won’t tell you much about the longer term and brand building effects of your drops.
Tracking website/social media visitors
A good way to judge whether your leaflet drops are working is by paying attention to your social media and website visits.
Your leaflets should prominently display your social media handles or your website URL.
If you are focusing on long term results and are running repeated campaigns you can observe trends over the periods of months.
You don’t want to obsess over details in your google analytics but you can look for signals and patterns.
If you run three drops over a six month period can you see an uptick in website visits corresponding to the timing of your drops? If so, are these visits from the areas you targeted?
Carefully looking for signals in your analytics can give you an idea of the effectiveness of your leaflet drops.
Repeated drops
Maybe the biggest improvement to the effectiveness of leaflet drops in the last 20 years has been the introduction of focused repeat delivery campaigns.
These campaigns rely on delivering your leaflets to the same households multiple times with carefully planned periods of rest between each drop.
Your flyers can remain the same for each delivery or the designs can change depending on the goal of each campaign.
These campaigns can consist of anywhere between 2 to 8 drops. You should generally plan for at least a 3 week window between each delivery.
The planning here is crucial as you want to make sure to avoid annoying the recipients with too many deliveries. The rest periods and potentially varying your designs is very important.
When done correctly, after the first delivery these campaigns register a considerable uptick in responses from each subsequent drop.
The careful planning and execution required here is possible thanks to modern delivery methods and stock control systems.
Why do leaflet drops work?
According to the research done by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
– 89% of people remember receiving a specific leaflet through their door (this is more than any other form of advertising)
– 45% keep leaflets they find interesting in their home for later reference
– 90% of people are happy to regularly receive flyers
There is something about physical forms of advertising that connects with people.
Obviously online advertising in its various forms works. The targeting possibilities when using Facebook or Google ads are fantastic but the impressions themselves are quite ephemeral.
There are unique benefits to getting a physical piece of marketing into people’s homes.
It is not possible to ignore a leaflet that has landed in one’s letterbox. Even if the offer on the flyer is not interesting to the recipient they need to physically interact with it.
A well designed leaflet therefore can be seen many times and slowly create brand awareness that would be difficult to achieve otherwise.
Shared vs Solus
Most people understand the difference between Shared and Solus deliveries.
Shared delivery means that your leaflets will make their way through each letterbox together with 1-2 other flyers. Solus delivery means that it’s only your flyer that is being delivered.
There are differences in price between these methods as multiple clients share the cost of each delivery between them on a Shared system.
However many people still believe that because Solus campaigns are more expensive that they provide you with a better response.
This is simply not true. Studies as well as experience tells us that there are no differences in response between Shared and Solus drops. They both work but there is no difference in delivering 1 or 3 leaflets at the same time.
Delivering more than 3 flyers at a time is not recommended but up to and including 3 registers no difference in customer reaction.
Distribution companies recommend solus drops when there are no other clients to share with you in a specific area on a given week. Not because they work better.
When you can, always go with a Shared drop.
Area selection
This has to be one of the most important things in finding out whether leaflet dropping works.
The ability of your leaflet distribution company to help you select the right areas for your campaigns is crucial.
The way to find the best area selection for a given leaflet drop is to combine information about the types of clients you are looking for with local insight from your flyer distribution company.
We can’t break down areas only on the basis of average incomes or house prices. There are many more elements to consider.
Things to consider are
– The age group breakdown of the locals,
– Whether the households are mostly families or cohabiting single professionals,
– Do the homes have gardens etc…
Your leaflet distribution company has to have a real granular understanding of London. Especially when it comes to knowing where one can find various demographics.
Door to door campaigns work when you spend time carefully selecting the best area to target.
Leaflet design
Graphic design is something that many flyer distribution companies outsource but absolutely shouldn’t. It will be one of the key parts to answering whether leaflet dropping works.
If you already have a beautiful design from your own designer we can use it for your campaign.
A good door to door company will have experts on staff to help either tweak your current design or build a new one from the ground up. As such It’s always a good idea to get feedback from your door to door people on your designs.
Even if you are already happy with what you have.
When leaflet dropping, one has to keep in mind that the design is actually what delivers your message.
If all your leaflets are delivered perfectly, in great shape to the ideal areas but the design is confusing or not clear, your leaflet drop will inevitably fail.
We offer free design consultations to all our clients to help them get the most from their leaflet drops. High quality graphic design is a crucial element in making leaflet dropping work the best it can.
Quality of delivery
So, you have selected your areas well and have the perfect design. The next step is ensuring that when leaflet dropping your flyers come through the letterbox in the best shape possible.
The way we make sure this is the case is as follows. We never deliver in the rain to avoid water damage. We never fold leaflets through letterboxes. Our delivery and supply chain is tailored to treating your printed leaflets as carefully as possible.
On top of this we operate two independent tracking systems that allow you ‘the client’ to come and see your leaflets being delivered at any time without notice.
That way you can always be sure that your leaflet drop is going according to plan and each flyer is delivered in perfect shape.
When you are selecting a company to work with on your leaflet drops you need to make sure that the basic quality control mechanisms described above are taken seriously.
To find out how leaflet drops can help your business get in touch with us here.
