Solo or shared delivery?
Questions about the effectiveness of these two delivery methods are one of the most common things we encounter when talking to new clients. There is a definite financial advantage to running a shared delivery service but is there a boost in quality of delivery or impressions when the leaflet is delivered individually?
We firmly believe that shared distribution is the most efficient and effective way to run a leafleting campaign. There is no identifiable advantage to delivering a single leaflet in a solus system if the metric we care about is the number and quality of impressions on the doormat.
Let us run you though a short scenario.
When the householder comes home at night, he or she will pick up any letters and leaflets from the doormat. The next day when they leave for work at 8am the doormat is still empty from the night before.
What happens during the day?
Royal Mail, TNT, and UK Mail come deliver their letters and leaflets in your letter box between 7.30am and 4pm. All other leaflet companies will also deliver during this time period.
When the householder returns home in the evening they pick up all of these letters and leaflets at once.
Since the householder collects all of his or her mail in a single moment it is impossible for a solo distribution to have effect on response rates.
The householder collects all leaflets and deliveries at once. It is not clear which leaflet was delivered on its own or with other leaflets.
Most solo-only companies start their deliveries around 8am. This means that their leaflets are covered by other mail, letters and leaflets within a couple of hours.
The Private Postman operates a shared delivery, adding two non-competing leaflets to yours.
We also have an afternoon delivery service slot for this very reason. We aim to deliver later so that your leaflets will be on top of the pile as the householder arrives in the evening.
As you can see this is why we always recommend going with our shared distribution system when planning a leafleting campaign. We can provide solus distribution services to clients that insist on this form of delivery but it tends to be uneconomical and doesn’t bring any better results than shared distribution. Especially when done correctly.
We make sure to never share leaflets of competing companies or companies from the same type of business. We always have only a single restaurant, single estate agent or landscaper on each distribution round. This effectively eliminates any potential conflict and gives each client complete control of an area in their niche every week.