Leaflet distribution has been a part of the marketing efforts of many London businesses for decades. For restaurants, estate agents, flower shops, roofers and others it has become an indispensable tool.
But it has changed in many ways over the last 10 years. Let’s talk about one aspect of leaflet distribution and that is designing a leaflet in 2020 and 2021.
London has been a densely populated city for a long time but it’s population is still growing and with that comes oversaturation in many marketing channels.
This phenomenon is not new and it is not exclusive to leaflet distribution. It touches on pretty much every possible marketing technique you will be using as a business owner in London.
Local trade magazines have swelled up, outdoor marketing has taken over almost every free inch of public space, facebook and instagram ads are highly saturated and many leaflets come through people’s doors.
The answer to this can’t be stopping your marketing efforts. That makes no sense. A reasonable adaptation is to get better at each individual marketing discipline and understand it more deeply.
Designing a leaflet in 2020 and 2021 is no different. Here are some of the most fundamental design principles that you will need to stick to if you are looking to run a leaflet distribution campaign in London.
Simplicity
Very few businesses offer only a single service or one type of product.
A lot of especially small businesses in London tend to be able to service a whole range of customers with a wide variety of skills and services.
As a result their leaflets are often trying to advertise too many things and can become confusing. The most important thing about leaflet design in a crowded market like London is to keep your message clear.
One primary and one secondary message is the absolute maximum.
If you are running an Italian restaurant you can focus your leaflet on the fact that you are doing a wine tasting at your location and that you have great pasta. But you absolutely shouldn’t include something as important as the fact that you now deliver food as well.
Something like this should be kept for a separate leaflet. Modern distribution techniques allow for multiple drops and segmented campaign and as such you can choose to advertise multiple messages and services but generally only in separate campaigns or drops.
High quality photography
As the leaflets are becoming simpler in terms of design photography is taking a more of a front seat. Especially for Restaurants, Hair Salons, Estate Agents and other business of this kind.
We generally advise our clients to keep one side of the leaflet almost exclusively devoted to a high quality photograph.
For restaurants this is obviously a photograph of their food. For a hair stylist it would be a high quality photograph of a particularly popular or impressive hair style.
You want to show your work or product to your potential clients clearly and without any ambivalence about what you do. The photographs can be taken at your premises by a professional or they can be sourced online by your designer.
We hope that this article about designing a leaflet in 2020 and 2021 has been helpful. We will continue with more information on this topic in our next blog. If you have any questions or if you’d like to book a campaign please feel free to get in touch with us here..
