Does leafleting work?

What is leafleting?

Leafleting is the distribution by hand of leaflets through letter boxes in residential areas. The basic idea is to take the message of your business direct to potential customers, and literally, put it in their hands.

Most of us see leaflets come through our letter boxes several times a week: from the local pizza delivery outlet to furniture polishers.

Businesses that send out leaflets in this way are, of course, trying to generate more business, and this is a fairly straightforward way of reaching the local population. With towns the size they are, it is quite easy to distribute anything from a thousand leaflets to 20,000 and get the message to people who are within reach of your business.

So, does leafleting work?

Inevitably, opinions vary. Do you define this method of marketing as “working” if you make more money that you pay out for the service? Remember that in the costs of setting up leafleting you have to pay the delivery company, the printers, and you have your own time to consider too. Depending on the price of your offering, you will need to calculate how many recipients of your leaflets will have to make a purchase before you see a positive return on your investment.

Percentage take up will be small, but it is hard to quantify it because it varies so much. Restaurants and pizza delivery firms fair quite well, but furniture polishers probably not so well. We all have to eat every day; we may not all need furniture polishers very often. It is often difficult to gauge the success of a leafleting campaign, because: how do you know if customers have acted on a leaflet or come to you in some other way?

Prompt action

There is little doubt that a leaflet is going to have a much better chance of being acted upon if there is some sort of offer involved. Some sort of voucher will often make a potential customer keep the leaflet for future use, and keep it until it is needed. Offers have to be worthwhile, of course! Using an offer unique to the leaflet will also give you all the information you need to determine whether you campaign is successful.

Good leaflet distribution services can be found here at Trusty Leaflet Distribution. You can find more information on posting leaflets here.

Print design is also important. You have about two seconds to make an impression once that leaflet is in someone’s hand! Eye-catching colours and a headline informing the recipient of why they should become a customer are good starting points.

Jack mack