Introduction
There are many ways one can advertise a care home. In general, long term strategy and careful targeting should be a part of every campaign no matter the medium you are using.
At The Private Postman we specialise in leaflet distribution (see our page on this topic here) and as such we will mostly talk about how you can use flyers to market to the right people in the right areas.
Let’s have a look at leaflet delivery for care homes and whether it works.
To run a successful leaflet distribution campaign for a care home one needs to focus on a few important things.
Demographic groups
A care home can target a variety of demographic groups with leaflet distribution. (Here is one of the care homes we work with.)
One of the more responsive age groups will be the 70+ age demographic. People of this age tend to gravitate towards tangible and physical marketing methods and are willing to use the phone to enquire about a service they have an interest in.
They are also more likely to keep a leaflet if it uses the right design and has been printed on high quality paper. (You can see more statistics on this here)
On the other side of this will be drops that are advertising to the family of the potential care home customer.
These will be couples and families in their 50s and above. These households will require a slightly different approach to the design of your flyers as well as numbers of repeated drops.
A good delivery company will be able to help you identify where you can find these demographics in London and if needed target them with separately designed leaflets.
At The Private Postman we have an in-house design team that can help you develop a design that communicates your message clearly and that incentivises people to keep your flyers.
We also have relationships with some of Europe’s largest printing companies that allow us to print your leaflets on a wide variety of paper to make your flyer interactive and worth keeping.
Multi-drop campaigns
With an institution like a care home one needs to adopt long term marketing strategies.
In the world of leaflet distribution this will mean delivering to the same areas multiple times. This could mean running two drops in a 12 month period at strategic times or more regular deliveries .
You want to base the number of repeated drops every year on the types of households you will be targeting and the parts of London you will be delivering in. Your leaflet distribution company will be able to advise you on this.
A business like a care home benefits from mind-share much more than from short term marketing efforts. We want to condition a whole area to have your name come up in people’s mind as soon as a care home is mentioned.
So do leaflet deliveries for care homes work? The answer has to be Yes.
But it works the best if you think long term and approach your campaigns with a time frame of months or years.
Quality of delivery
The most obvious thing one needs to consider when running a leaflet distribution for a care home in London is the quality of delivery itself.
When you are choosing your distribution partner you always want to ask about the quality control systems your distributor has in place.
For example at The Private Postman we don’t deliver in the rain, we never bend or fold your leaflets unless absolutely necessary and we provide our clients with information about our deliveries in real time. See more information on this on our homepage.
It doesn’t matter how well targeted your campaign is or how great your design is. If your leaflets are delivered in the rain, folded and in a bad shape they will not work.
The fact that our clients are informed about where their deliveries are taking place is also very important.
In reality it allows them to come see their leaflet deliveries any time without having to inform us.
Tracking
A big part of assessing the quality of delivery is tracking. We’ve already described that we run a form of live tracking that informs you about your distribution as it is happening.
The more common method of tracking a leaflet campaign is through GPS.
Each distributor carries a GPS device on them when they are delivering. This tracks their movement and is later downloaded into a computer.
The data is superimposed on a Google Maps like format and sent to you as a proof of delivery. If you wish, you can retrace the steps of each distributor that was carrying your leaflets.
This is very helpful especially if you have questions about delivery to specific addresses or if you just want to make sure that everything went according to plan.
We have pioneered this method of tracking in London in 2009 and it has become an industry standard since then.
No matter who you choose as a distribution partner for your care home always check how their GPS tracking works.
Here is our page dedicated to tracking in more detail.
Getting more care home workers with leaflets
Getting a healthy influx of new workers has become a challenge for many industries in the last couple of years.
Care homes certainly have to deal with this issue and finding good sources of reliable workers is a must.
You can use leaflet distribution to find new workers as well as new customers. These campaigns will be completely separate targeting very different homes and areas.
However at The Private Postman we have developed systems that let you get as many workers as you need. Whether it’s 5 or 500.
We get your leaflets to exclusive overlooked markets with workers with no visa issues.
On top of this we deliver your leaflets on their own. As such you are not going to be competing with every other care home looking for workers like you would on online recruiting platforms.
Most importantly we can help you reach workers that are living locally to your care home.
Many restaurants, schools and other businesses are already using this system to a great effect.
To find out more about this please feel free to get in touch with us.
Leaflets + Online ads
Another thing worth considering is the fact that combining flyer deliveries with other marketing methods can enhance the effectiveness of both.
A good example of this would be using social media ads together with your flyer deliveries.
You can choose to target a specific area of London with your flyers. When the deliveries are finished you can wait a few days and target the same area again but this time with carefully crafted facebook ads.
In this case you want to use the same design elements in your facebook ads as you do on your flyers.
Having people see your ads both in the online and offline world compounds the effectiveness of both efforts.
Just make sure to keep your branding consistent and visible on your flyers as well as your facebook ads.
High quality images
Leaflet design over the last decade has mostly been evolving into simpler forms.
One side of the flyer tends to be devoted to a high quality image and the other side shares a few basic ideas with text.
Flyers with hundreds of words describing your service in great detail no longer work. You can keep this information for your website of information brochures.
Your flyers should be as simple as possible in order for them to be competitive.
Since one side of your leaflets is going to be almost exclusively devoted to a large image you want to make sure that you source the best photo you can.
It is great you can have your own high quality photographs made for you by a professional photographer on your premises.
However it is not necessary. There are many good sources of very good stock images on the internet you can use.
If possible, always consult a professional designer for your flyer designs.
You can also speak to your distribution company as they can help you make decisions on which images are the most suitable for you and your flyer.
So – Leaflet delivery for care homes, does it work? What do you think?
If you have any questions or if you’d like to book a campaign please get in touch with us here…
