Introduction
If you offer gutter cleaning services, having control over your own advertising is crucial.
Like in many other fields, there has been a push from apps and large tradesman directory-style sites trying to insert themselves between you and your clients.
On these apps and sites you are often ask to be listed next to all of your competition with limited control over how you get to present yourself and your services.
In that kind of environment, it’s a good idea to look for tools that will allow you to have as much control over how you present and advertise your services as possible.
Using leaflet distribution is one way you can do this. You control what your leaflets look like and where and when they are delivered. Leaflets are one of the most effective ways you can become proactive about acquiring new business in the areas you want.
The design of a gutter cleaning flyer
Leaflet design should be simple. It’s a good idea to dedicate one side of your flyer to an attractive image and use the other side to describe your services in more detail.
The image side of your flyer should also contain a clear headline that describes what you do. The image should attract attention, your headline should provide context and an interested home-owner can then read more details about your services on the other side of the flyer.
The image you use can be of your work specifically or you can use a relevant photo from one of the online stock image sites.
If you have a website, a promotional video or a healthy number of reviews and testimonials on your google business profile you can use QR codes to drive traffic to these.
If you’re not sure what a QR code is or how you can create it, have a look here.
Besides a QR code that can take your potential clients to your website, you want to include multiple ways for people to contact you. Make sure to display your phone number and email address prominently.
It’s always a good idea to include a testimonial from a happy customer on your flyer as well.
Try to keep the amount of text to a minimum. Include the elements we mentioned above and mention the most relevant services you provide.
If most of your business is focused on gutter cleaning but you also provide roof and window cleaning services, you can mention gutter cleaning in your main headline and the auxiliary services in smaller text on the other side of your flyer.
If you want to know more about how you can structure a leaflet have a look at our blog dedicated to the topic.
Area selection
Using an established leaflet distribution company will pay great dividends when it comes to advertising your gutter cleaning services in the long term.
A good flyer distributor will be able to help you select and target areas with the highest proportion of households that are likely to use your services and respond to your flyers. Demographics, types of properties and previous experience can all play a role in area selection.
A well targeted campaign that focuses on privately owned residences will yield better results than blindly targeting whole postcodes.
If done correctly, area selection will save you money as you are not going to be delivering to irrelevant addresses.
Think about which parts of London you are most interested in developing more business in and discuss this with your distributor. Ask them for their input and see if they might be able to advise you on areas you haven’t thought of.
Combine leaflets with door knocking and online ads
Flyers can be made even more effective when combined with other advertising methods.
Knocking on the doors of a few neighbours in an area where you are doing a gutter cleaning job is a common practice. This can be made even more effective if you’ve already had your flyers delivered in the area.
Repeated exposure breeds familiarity. If a homeowner has seen your leaflet before you knock on their door, they are more likely to respond positively.
You can triple down on this effect and also run online ads targeting the same area you’ve already canvassed and are physically working in. Many online advertising platforms like Facebook allow you to target users in very specific geographical areas.
The repeated exposure that comes from combining physical media and online ads can have a good affect on your conversion and response rates across the board.
If you use door knocking as a part of your advertising make sure that you understand the regulations https://www.gov.uk/doorstep-selling-regulations
Residential vs Commercial gutter cleaning
If you also provide commercial gutter cleaning you will want to create a separate flyer for this. Traditional leaflet delivery campaigns focus on privately owned residences. If you want to target businesses you will have to do that with a separate B2B campaign and a separate B2B leaflet.
When it comes to gutter cleaning services, landing one large business client can be considerably more lucrative than even a number of private clients.
Leaflets can be helpful in reaching out to business owners in some parts of London but keep in mind that B2B flyer campaigns are considerably more expensive per leaflet delivered than B2C campaigns.
B2B campaigns also tend to take longer and always require a different design of your leaflet to your B2C drops.
Before embarking on a B2B campaign, discuss the particular way your services work and which areas you are able to work in with your leaflet distribution company. They should be able to tell if B2B drops are for you or if you’ll be better served by sticking with targeting private households.
If you want to know more about B2B drops, you can find out more on this page dedicated to the topic.
