London based companies have been using leaflet distribution as a part of their marketing strategies for decades. Leaflets have stood the test of time and their successful use has not gone away with new technologies being introduced.
This includes more recent shifts with the introduction of social media and online marketing overall. Large multinational companies as well as small local tradesmen are using online advertising methods as well as leaflet distribution.
However, like any other form of marketing, leaflet distribution is effective only when done correctly.
So, what do we need to do to make sure that our leaflet distribution campaigns are as successful as possible? What are the principles one must adhere to when planning and executing a leafleting campaign. What should one avoid?
We are going to attempt to answer these questions in this article.
1. High Quality Design
What your leaflets look like will have a very real impact on the success of your campaigns.
You are going to be investing in the printing of your flyers, storage, delivery and planning. With all this time and resources invested, you don’t want to negatively affect your results with a subpar design.
One of the more important pieces of advice we tend to repeat when speaking to our clients is simple. If possible, work with a professional when designing your leaflet.
There are many small details that one has to keep in mind when working on a flyer design. Even if you have decent photoshop skills you are not likely to have the same level of experience and sensitivity as a professional would.
One of the advantages of having a good design is that you can reuse your leaflet for other campaigns. Just change the date or a few details on the flyer for each drop. If your leaflet is still relevant, you can get multiple successful campaigns from a single design.
Having a professional design created is not an investment that is spent after the first drop.
Photography
The quality of photos used on your flyer will have a big impact on how your design comes across. As leaflets have become simpler in design and message over the last decade, photography has become a more important element in the game of leaflet design.
The success rates of your distribution campaign largely rely on the quality of your design and good images are a large part of that.
Thankfully, you have multiple options for getting high quality images. Depending on your budget and the type of business you are advertising you can either work with a professional photographer to create custom images or use one of the many stock photo databases.
For some businesses, stock images are completely suitable. For others, including custom photography on your flyers can make a big difference. You can discuss what the right approach is for you with your designer or distribution company.
2. Keep your format simple
Simplicity is the name of the game in leaflet distribution. This applies to design as we mentioned above, as well as the paper you are printing your flyers on.
When you go to a printer’s website, you will inevitably run into many options for formats, paper weight, finish and more.
You will likely come across a good amount of technical terms that you might have not seen before. Here is a short guide through some of these
GSM
GSM refers to the weight of the paper you are going to be printing on. In general you want to keep your flyers between 200-300gsm. Very thin leaflets can be more prone to being damaged in transport and during delivery.
On the other hand, if we use paper that’s significantly over 300gsm, we can end up with leaflets that are simply too thick and heavy. Somewhere between 200-300gsm is where you want to be.
Matt/Gloss finish
These terms are fairly straightforward but the choice between them might not be. In general we recommend our clients use matt finish for their leaflets as it can be more resilient.
Size/Format
In terms of formats, you have many options in the world of leaflet printing. A4 folded flyers, A5, DL size, Gatefold, Z-Fold and many more.
In general we tend to advise our clients to stick to A5 single page leaflets. A5 leaflets are cost-effective to print and don’t create any extra logistical issues for distribution.
3. Consult your leaflet distribution company
If you have any questions about your campaigns it is a good idea to consult your leaflet distribution company directly.
This can include your design, where and how many leaflets you are printing, the timing of your distribution and also which areas of London you are going to be targeting.
Your leaflet distribution company will have experience in the business and their view should be considered.
A good professional distribution company is going to have an understanding of local areas in London. They will know how to time your distribution to hit the highest number of people at the right moment in your target area.
The input a good leaflet distribution company can give you on your flyer design can also be very helpful. At The Private Postman we offer free design feedback to all our clients.
4. Think locally
Your designs, frequency and timing of your campaigns should reflect the character of the local area you are delivering in.
Considering the types of households your lealfets are going to be delivered to can help inform your design and frequency of delivery. Households that receive a lot of marketing material might need a different approach to quieter parts of town.
5. Deliver more than once
Repeated exposure is an important concept in marketing. It is by design that you, as a customer, are seeing a particular TV ad more than once. The same applies to social media advertising, outdoor advertising, print and more.
Leaflet distribution is no different. Delivering to the same households repeatedly can be a sensitive topic and should be done only when one knows that the intervals between deliveries can be carefully controlled.
Thanks to modern flyer distribution techniques, stock control systems and tracking this is now possible. Repeated deliveries are something worth discussing with your distribution company as they can be a great tool.
6. Combine your leaflets with your online marketing/presence
Leaflet distribution is a purely offline method of advertising. By their nature flyers have some specific advantages and disadvantages when compared to the world of online marketing.
The way we target demographics with flyers is different, distribution schedules are different to online ads and the physical nature of the flyer brings different logistical challenges as well.
With that said, the fact that a flyer itself is a purely physical and an offline medium doesn’t mean that it has no interaction with your online presence.
If you are targeting a given area of London with flyer distribution, you can follow this up this with a targeted facebook ad campaign focused on the same households. This way you can end up reaching your potential customers repeatedly via different approaches.
You can also use your flyers to advertise your online presence.
For example, if you are running a restaurant and you are using one of the many food delivery apps, you can use flyer distribution to drive traffic to your food delivery app profile.
Rather than fighting for higher positions in search results within these apps you can side-step your competition and get your flyers into every household in your delivery radius.
If you include a QR code on your flyers it becomes easy for people to visit your profile and order food.
Online and Offline methods of advertising both have specific advantages. Many sophisticated marketing campaigns include elements of both.
7. Pick a company with good tracking
So how do you know that your leaflet distribution campaign has been executed properly? How do you know that your distributor has delivered all your leaflets as agreed and in a good condition? Tracking is the answer.
Any established and reputable company in the leaflet distribution business is going to have some form of tracking in place.
Here we are going to go through the system we use at The Private Postman as we believe that our tracking is the most comprehensive in the industry.
GPS
All our distributors carry a GPS device on their person when delivering. The data from these devices is later collected and superimposed over a google maps style layout.
These files are double checked by our tracking team after each delivery round as well as shared with you.
The data is in high enough resolution that you can see the distributor walking up to each individual door and/or letterbox taking away any doubt about whether they have delivered your leaflets.
These files act as proof of delivery at the end of each campaign. The accuracy of the GPS system is key here. Please feel free to read more about this on our tracking page.
Live Tracking
On top of this, every time one of our distributors starts a delivery round we inform you in real time about their location and immediate delivery plans.
You will get a new message approximately every 800 deliveries. This way you know in real time exactly which parts of your distribution campaign have been finished and where the distributors are delivering your leaflets currently.
This also means that you can come see your leaflets being delivered at any point anywhere in London. And most importantly you can do so unannounced.
This brings a high level of transparency and forces us to perform at a high level at all times. Any of our many dozens of clients can show up at any time to see their flyers being delivered by us anywhere in London.
8. Plan ahead (events etc…)
Leaflet distribution campaigns have the highest success rates when they are well planned and prepared ahead of time. The distribution schedule shouldn’t be too packed and your design and print process should be done properly with enough time to consider all details.
Even though at The Private Postman we can deliver hundreds of thousands of leaflets for any of our clients in a short amount of time, it is still best to spread your distribution out a bit more.
A week at a time
Leaving at least a full working week to get your design right is a good practice. Even your designer does a great job, you will be going back and forth with small changes. This in itself can take a few days even if everything is going smoothly.
You also want to leave another working week for your printing and delivery process. Many larger printers will have a 24hr turnaround service available. However, the world can be an unpredictable place and driver shortages or other disruptions can change this schedule.
Having a whole week set aside for the printing process to go through and for your leaflets to make their way to your distributor’s warehouse is the way to go.
Your distributor will also run a weekly leaflet distribution system. This means that they will most likely be working with at least 7 days of deliveries planned ahead of time.
This means that if the distribution schedule your distribution company is operating is from Tuesday to Tuesday and they receive your leaflets on a Wednesday morning you will have to wait till next Tuesday for your first deliveries.
Keep this in mind and plan ahead to avoid disappointment. Once the distribution machine is moving, the number of leaflets that a good company can deliver every day is considerable. However, there are number of steps before getting to the point of distribution and non of them should be rushed.
9. Select the right households
One of the most important steps in the planning process for your campaign is deciding exactly where you should target your leaflet distribution efforts.
Deciding on which parts of London and households should receive your leaflets will have a great impact on the success of your campaign.
You should consult on this closely with the distribution company you are choosing to work with.
An experienced distribution company will have a good sense of where to find specific demographics, which areas might look better on a map than in reality and where it makes sense for you to keep some leaflets for repeated distribution.
When you are going through this step in the planning of your campaign ask your distribution company to share their mapping system with you and let them walk you through the process.
10. Stick to Door to Door
There are many forms of leaflet distribution. Hand-to-hand which relies on handing out leaflets in busy areas at strategic times, Door-to-Door, B-to-B leaflet deliveries and others…
The one method of leaflet distribution that most people should be focusing on is door to door. This is simply a technique that relies on your leaflets being put through letterboxes and doors of privately owned residential addresses in areas that are important for your business.
It is the most effective and efficient form of leaflet distribution that brings the best return on investment for most businesses.
The other methods mentioned here can work in specific situations. However, 99% of the time Door to Door leaflet distribution targeting privately owned residences is going to be the right approach.
The number of leaflets you will be able to deliver using Door to Door is going to be considerably higher compared to Hand to Hand or other methods.
Door to Door leaflet distribution gives you a great ability to target demographics, to focus on specific local areas, run carefully curated repeated deliveries and operate in a system that is very streamlined and cost efficient.
Summary
We hope that the ten points we’ve elaborated on in this article have been helpful to you. If you have any further questions please feel free to get in touch with us here .
