Introduction
Every leaflet distribution campaign stands on four pillars. A quality design, well selected area for distribution, properly executed delivery and the number and timing of drops.
A lot of attention is generally devoted to the first three aspects mentioned above. The last one, repetition, is often overlooked. It is however one of the more important things to consider for anyone looking into advertising their services with leaflet distribution.
Repetition is an important part of many forms of advertising. Whether we are talking about TV ads, social media or print ads. You can read up some more on repetition in marketing in general here.
Let’s have a look at how this works for leaflet distribution specifically.
How do repeated leaflet drops work?
Delivering your flyers to the same households multiple times in a controlled way with exact breaks between drops has been difficult to do in the past.
The control over timings of deliveries and tracking just wasn’t there. With modern tracking, distribution and stock control systems, we can plan and execute repeated drops much better.
When it comes to actually running repeating campaigns in the same areas, It is always a good idea to leave multiple weeks between each drop to avoid exposure fatigue.
We can demonstrate this on an example of a fictional three drop campaign.
The way this works is as follows.
The first drop will have a percentage of recipients keep the leaflet or act on the offer included. A portion of the leaflets will, however, be discarded. (If you are interested in more statistics about leaflet distribution, have a look at our blog focused on the topic)
The two subsequent drops spread out 3-5 weeks apart are then aimed at growing the brand recognition in the minds of local residents.
This is meant to develop familiarity and awareness. Doing three leaflet drops within an approximately fifteen week period is one of the ways one can structure a campaign for new restaurants, cafes or other businesses moving into an area.
To fully inform all local residents of a new location of a business, multiple drops can be helpful.
After the three initial drops, it can be reasonable to stick to less frequent deliveries to maintain one’s position in the local market and stay competitive. This will all depend on the kind of service or product your business is offering and which area of London one is operating in.
What are the benefits?
One of the unique powers of leaflet distribution is the fact that you can reach every single household with an accessible letterbox in your local area.
By delivering your leaflets repeatedly, you increase your chances of getting through even to the households that did not see your leaflets on your first drop.
This could be happening in an area with larger homes and households that receive a lot of mail. Some parts of London are more interesting to marketers and as a result there is more inbound material coming through the door.
In these cases it’s possible that your flyers get missed. Repeated deliveries can help with this.
Developing mindshare is another desired goal of repeated drops.
Combining leaflet campaigns with other forms of advertising like geographically targeted social media ads can help with this process as well.
A good example would be a local vet clinic (see more about flyer delivery for veteterinary clinics in this blog). If the clinic delivers their flyers to every household within walking distance from their location 2-4 times a year and runs well crafted social media ads focused on their area while no other competitor does so. The clinic can hold a real advantage.
Who should use repeated leaflet drops?
Some types of businesses benefit from repeated flyer drops more than others.
Businesses dealing with household related products and services, window or blinds companies, restaurants, cafes or takeaways can often benefit from a well-designed repeated leaflet distribution campaign.
The best way to determine whether your business can benefit from repeated drop campaigns is getting in touch with your local reputable flyer delivery company.
There are many elements that can go into the decision making process determining whether more than one drop is suitable for a business in a given area. As such, consulting a professional is a good idea.
Use a variety of designs
One of the great things about modern stock control systems is that they allow you to use multiple designs for repeated campaigns. You can use this to have a slightly different design delivered each time.
This can be used to reduce exposure fatigue, focus on a different service/product with each drop or to build up to an event.
For example, if you are opening a new Italian restaurant in your local area, you can use the first drop to let everyone know your opening date. The second drop can advertise your three best dishes and your third drop can advertise a wine tasting event that is going to be taking place in two weeks at your location.
If you are able to get mulitple designs produced, you can plan fairly complex campaigns.
What should you look out for?
When you’re deciding on which company you are going to use to conduct your flyer drops you want to pay attention to a few things.
You want to make sure that your distributor has a way of resolving and logging any complaints from people who don’t want to be receiving flyers.
If someone complains about receiving leaflets, your distributor should take their address out from any future deliveries. This is important especially if your flyers are going to be coming through each door repeatedly.
Talk to your distributor and ask them how they handle complaints and how they make sure that they can honour any requests to exclude an address from future deliveries.
Another thing you need to check before you decide to have a distributor do a repeated drop for you is the mapping system they are using.
The mapping system should be reasonably accurate and detailed.
The number of pamphlets you should be using for each area or postal sector will depend on many variables. How many business addresses are in each area? How many undeliverable apartment buildings and local authority housing addresses are being removed from the system?
Your distribution company should be able to answer these questions for you to ensure that your leaflets are not being wasted.
Finding the right distribution company for you is important, as there is a lot of information and advice that one can benefit from when working with a professional and experienced distributor.
