Leaflet distribution is one of the most effective ways of marketing your business to local areas in London.
It provides perfect penetration of a local market which no other form of advertising can offer.
Your leaflets can make their way into every household in your selected area no matter the demographics of the residents.
But what is a local area and how is it defined?
Let’s have a look at how to target and market to your local area with leaflet distribution.
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Why local area?
London is one of the most competitive markets in the world. Advertising in an environment like this can be costly.
Wasting your marketing budget or using it ineffectively can be detrimental to the survival of your business.
That is why we need to be careful to target only the people that are most likely to be interested in our services and not wasting energy and resources elsewhere.
This concept should inform your choice of the London area you decide to market in.
Local business
If you mostly focus on servicing the geographical area close to your location your decision here becomes simple.
It can be geographical as well as based on demographics. Let’s have a look at a restaurant as an example of how we can determine what a local area is for a business.
First we determine whether the restaurant in question runs take-away/deliver services or not.
At this point it is probably safe to assume that after the Covid19 lockdowns most restaurants that have survived are running some version of this service.
We then have a look at the radius from their address within which the restaurant delivers. That is our first point of reference.
If you are running a gym you’ll target households that are going to use a very similar methodology.
Advertise to households within walking distance of your location as well as areas further away that match your target demographics and have good transport connections.
We look at the price structure of said gym and determine whether there are any places beyond walking distance that have good transport connection and perfectly matching demographics.
Sometimes all one needs is a place with perfectly matching demographics for your business three tube stops away and another area of 10,000-20,000 households can be targeted with leaflet distribution.
London-wide business
On the other hand you might be doing business all over London or focus on online services. You are likely to require some niche targeting.
Maybe you are a personal trainer and you like training people in their local parks. In that case you will want to target households all over London that are within a 5 minute walking distance from a nice park.
Maybe you are running a large business but mostly focus on specific demographics. Whether it’s age or another socio-economic status.
In this case you’ll want to target only the parts of London where these demographics are heavily represented.
Your offline marketing partners
This is why it’s very important that you choose your leaflet delivery company carefully.
Your distributor should be able to advise you on where exactly your leaflets should be delivered based on your needs.
They should have an in-house mapping system that excludes undeliverable addresses. This system should be based on geographical areas as well as demographics.
Decisions about where exactly your local marketing campaigns should focus can’t be made carelessly or without at least basic feedback from an experienced distributor.
Make sure that your company of choice has someone you can speak to about your plans and someone who can advise you.
Leaflet Marketing
As we are mostly talking about leaflet marketing in this article it would be good to establish some basic principles that apply to this marketing method.
Leaflet marketing gets to everyone – The unique thing about leaflet marketing we’ve already touched on is the fact that when you select an area for your campaign, you will reach every household within it.
With other forms of advertising you are likely to miss out on some demographics based on interest, the types of technology they use etc…
Your leaflets on the other hand will make their way through every door in the part of London you’ve selected. This is a unique advantage leaflet marketing has and one that many businesses take advantage of.
Types of leaflet marketing – The most common targets for leaflet campaigns are privately owned residential households.
If you want to target businesses or council housing you will most likely need to use a slightly different system. Ask your distribution company about how they separate these three types of addresses.
Keep it simple
Your leaflets should be simple in design and format. Always use a professional designer and high quality photography.
Your flyers need to be clearly legible from a distance while looking professional.
Stick to a simple A5 leaflet format unless you are otherwise advised by your distribution company.
Think long term
Leaflets can get you a quick boost if needed but they work best when used long term.
Planning months ahead and building brand awareness in the London areas you care about is the way to go.
Leaflet marketing combines well with digital
Many companies use leaflet marketing to advertise digital services.
As many digital advertising methods are quite crowded nowadays, leaflets are being used to gain advantages in some niches.
A good example would be a delivery restaurant again. With a smart use of a scannable QR code on the leaflet a local restaurant can send the recipients of their leaflet directly to their delivery app profile.
Leaflet marketing also works well when combined with digital advertising. Running a leaflet delivery drop in a local area following a short geographically targeted facebook ad campaign can bring fantastic results.
And then what?
So now we know where your local area is and how large it is. You know how many leaflets you need to cover this area in full and which parts of London you want to target.
At this point we tend to recommend for our clients to consider the repeated leaflet drop technique. This allows you to deliver your leaflets to the same homes multiple times with pre-determined rest periods between each drop.
Repeated drops
As we’ve mentioned above, leaflet marketing works best when applied over the long term.
This often includes delivering your leaflets to the same households repeatedly. This technique relies on the basic fact that repeated exposure to marketing materials works.
TV ads, Facebook ads, Outdoor advertising are all based on you seeing each ad multiple times.
With leaflet marketing you can decide exactly how many times and when you want people to see your advertising.
Some examples of long term campaigns based on repeated drops can be
– 6 months long campaign with drops every 8 weeks
– 3 months long campaign with drops every 4 weeks
– two drop campaign with a 3 week rest period between deliveries
The decision between how many drops to each household should be made and how long the periods should be should be made between you and your distribution company.
It will be based on your goals, budgets and the specific character of the local areas you are targeting.
You can read more about repeated drops and how they work here.
Summary
The principles of finding your local area and deciding where you should focus your leaflet campaigns are simple.
With that said it is always good to talk to your distribution company before committing to a campaign as one can easily make critical mistakes.
Don’t be afraid to ask for advice and no matter the size of your campaign always insist on talking to a real person before committing.
Leaflet marketing is not rocket science but you need to be using experienced professionals who know London and their craft well.
We hope that you now have a better understanding of both leaflet marketing and targeting of your local area after reading this 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..
