Author: LeafletNetwork

With leaflet distribution, you are delivering unaddressed material and cannot guarantee that every letterbox within an area will be found or reached. Some properties even, do not have letterboxes or have them in unusual places. Even flats are unreachable on many occasions as without a key to the front door, our staff cannot get in to deliver.

No leaflet distribution company can guarantee 100% coverage.

There are many reasons why there may be missed properties on a distribution run, such as no junk mail signs, no access, resident refused etc.

For insurance purposes there will be reasons why delivery staff cannot reach a letterbox of some properties. These reasons can include dogs roaming and work being carried out on the house or garden.

Following a distribution campaign, you should receive a list of properties that were missed while the deliverers were out on the run. This should work alongside a coloured map indicating where was delivered.

If you have a friend or family member on a coloured road that did not receive a leaflet, you should see their address noted within the missed properties list.

When a leaflet lands on a door mat of a house, the deliverers are certainly not in control of who picks that flyer up and whether they pass it on among the household. In a lot of occasions, the first person picking up the leaflet will assign it straight to the bin and therefore other residents within the house will not have seen this. This is unfortunate but can result in some people suggesting they have not received the flyer, when in fact they did.

When a leaflet distribution campaign is completed, it is the duty of the distribution company to be able to prove that every flyer was delivered. 

With some ethical companies who have every intention of delivering all your leaflets, the staff they choose to employ can let them down massively. Most likely every leaflet distribution company has come across a staff member who has attempted to cut corners and sometimes not even deliver any leaflets at all.

This is where every distribution company should back check the campaign, looking into each area and team individually.

The most reliable source of back checking is to have every staff member carry a GPS tracking device, that records all their movements while out delivering. This will show a staff member walking up and around each of the streets and include them walking up and down driveways and gardens.

The GPS tracking device will also show the time in the area. This can be useful to see exactly what time a specific street would have been delivered.

There is the problem that the staff member could have just walked around with the GPS tracking device, but if they were already walking around the streets then why would they choose not to deliver and risk getting caught that way.

A way to have further confidence in the distribution run is to request door to door back checks. This is when a team leader follows around the streets a few hours later and knocks on doors. When a resident answers, the team leader will present a copy of the flyer and ask if they have received it. For these sorts of back checks, some distribution companies may need to charge extra to cover the wage of the team leader conducting these checks.

Other back checks that distribution companies can provide include:

• Telephone back checks – This is where an external company who has data of residents, including addresses and phone number, calls out to households to ask them if they received a flyer following distribution.
• Sign off sheets – These are when a member of the team calls into the store if it is in the area and gets a sheet signed to show that the client has witnessed the team in that area. This is not hugely reliable as staff members could just call in for the signature. This could be used alongside GPS tracking to ensure everything matches up.
• Secret Shoppers – This is when you have people in the area waiting to receive a leaflet. The team are not told about this address. If the street is coloured in and your secret shopper has not received one, then this will indicate that the distribution has not been completed correctly.

All back checks and follow ups should be completed within a few days of the distribution, otherwise they will not be valid or accurate.

Therefore, GPS tracking will always remain the best form of evidence, and other back checks should be used alongside this to add confidence to the run.

Leaflet distribution is one of, if not the best forms of direct marketing available to businesses. This is because you are giving every person in a household a physical advertisement that they can feel. A properly designed and printed leaflet is extremely effective in getting a message out. 

When you plan your distribution campaign correctly, covering every aspect you can, you can have some of the highest response rates out of all the marketing techniques. 

As with any marketing campaign, it would depend on the potential customer and what they subconsciously are most likely to engage with. Some people are more likely to respond to a social media advert, where some people will respond more to a physical leaflet.

Delivering your leaflets to the correct areas, following some audience and location research, will give your marketing campaign a great chance at being successful. When it comes to any form of marketing, it is important that you make more money back from the campaign that you spent conducting it. Leaflet distribution, when done correctly, is possibly the most cost effective.

Unfortunately, many businesses who have tried leaflet distribution campaigns, may not be entirely convinced. This could be due to poor planning or even using a distribution company who have not done a good enough job. 

There are many scams to avoid when choosing a leaflet distribution company, but when you have a team that are willing to complete the work correctly, leaflet distribution is an impressive marketing technique.

Before someone decides to buy your product or service, they need to feel like they know you. A good marketing rule of thumb to help customers make up their mind about purchasing is to ensure they hear your message at least 5 times.

This can be in the form of multiple avenues of marketing such as social media, pay per click etc. 

Retargeting builds visibility for your brand, allowing you to reach an audience that has already expressed interest in your products.

Leaflet distribution response rates will often increase the more times you target an area. While a lot of residents will purchase your offer on your flyer, the first time they see it. Others will not and getting the message back to them to remind them a second time will encourage a response from these.

We would recommend that you retarget each area once a month for three months. This will mean each household has received your flyer three times. If it is once a month, this is a great timescale, as the previous leaflet is still in the residents’ memory, whether they realise or not, and it is not too soon where it upsets potential customers. After the third time, you could have a break from targeting that area, not to overload your potential customers.

Consistency in leaflet distribution is extremely important and regular leaflet drops to regular areas is the best way to repeat business and gain more customers.

Unfortunately, in the world of leaflet distribution companies, there are many businesses and individuals offering the service who may not carry it out as it is intended and agreed to be done. There are many scams to avoid when choosing a company to distribute your leaflets. 

Therefore, the leaflet network was started. The companies who were doing a correct job of delivering the leaflets, were having to charge rates that were far too high to compete with the companies who were using other means. By having a network of distribution companies working together, we can lower the rates and match runs up with each other. This means for a more cost-effective job for the teams and a far more efficient and trustworthy service for our clients.

As each of the companies used by us are vetted and trained to get into the network, we have a far more trustworthy service. Each team must abide by our strict rules and back checks on jobs, so they must be able to provide sufficient evidence for distribution. After trialling many teams throughout the UK, we believe we have been left with the most efficient and secure teams there are.

Following an enquiry through our website, you will be forwarded to our current team in the area you selected. We will also have a copy of the job you are having completed for you. The distribution team will then complete the order with yourselves and provide all sufficient evidence to us as well as you to prove distribution was completed successfully. Using our in-depth demographic and mapping software, we can thoroughly check all information to confirm that it matches up. 

Teams used by us, risk losing membership with the network if they are to receive any bad responses or feedback. Therefore, they will choose to give you the best services possible including their best price for the job.

We highly recommend using our network to get your distribution campaign underway, as this is by far the most secure and trustworthy method in the UK at the moment for completing a leaflet drop.

When you are planning your leaflet distribution campaign, you should make sure that other avenues of marketing are offering the same deals. This can be extremely embarrassing if your leaflet is offering 20% off and then a customer goes to your social media to see you offering 50% off through that.

This can result in several negative outcomes. One outcome is that you receive no response from your distribution campaign, but loads from your social media, which is fine for you, but you have no accurate results to use for the next time you come to marketing. Another outcome is that a consumer loses trust in your company immediately and decides never to use you. This is a lost sale that you could have gained as a customer.

Another huge aspect of keeping other avenues up to date is to have a great website. If a customer reacts to your leaflet by visiting your website, and it does not reflect the same quality as your flyer, then this can leave the customer losing trust and again not buying from you. 

As mentioned in our design article, you should keep wording to a minimum on a flyer. This will cause the reader to visit your website if they would like to read more information. Your website can have as much information as possible as you are not usually limited with space for information. This can provide further answers to questions and further market your business for you.

Having a website that is in line with you branding and corresponds to your flyer will have a good impact on the trust a consumer has with your company. It shows that you are credible, and you are not likely to just take their money and run. Building trust with a potential customer is always important if you wish to convert them from a prospect to a returning customer. 

In some large marketing campaigns, leaflet distribution will be just one form of marketing that you choose to use to get your message out there. For example, if a company that makes cola, decides to launch a new product that is cherry flavour, they will push marketing through multiple avenues, including leaflet distribution, google adverts, YouTube adverts, TV adverts etc.

Coming at a consumer from multiple directions really does work well. However, this comes at a really high cost to the business. Therefore, you should choose the form of marketing that has the best return on investment, depending on your marketing budget. This often, when done correctly is in fact leaflet distribution.

Again, if you choose multiple forms of marketing for your campaign, then make sure they are all inline with each other, including the deals being offered and even the branding.

The timing of your leaflet drop can have a huge impact on your response rates. For example, you might not choose to sell shorts as winter is approaching. But if you were to sell them as Summer is approaching then your response rates will increase dramatically.

As this is your business, you will usually have an insight into when are busy periods for your products or services and when are quiet periods. You could choose to do a leaflet drop to advertise ready for quiet periods that you are expecting. This will help you generate an income during a time that is usually not too great. However, if your quiet periods are due to your products or services not being relevant to the consumer at that time, then maybe this is just something that your business will have to accept. It will be important to generate more income and customers during your busier periods to make up for these quiet times, so that is when you should conduct a marketing campaign.

As previously mentioned about shorts, businesses that may deal only in these will not have many sales during the colder months but should make enough income during the warmer months to cover the entire year. A lot of businesses are seasonal in this way.

Aiming for periods that you know the consumers will purchase your products or services will be one step in planning. You already know there is a demand during that timescale, and this should be advised to the distribution company who will take this into consideration when setting a deadline for the delivery teams.

Researching other companies and their time periods may help you with the timescale you choose. There are online forums where you could ask the question and see what worked for other companies and what did not. If you were to ask the distribution team you choose to use, they may have an insight into what worked for previous clients at what times also.

If you have a deadline date on your flyer for a deal or offer, then you must ensure all the leaflets are delivered with enough time left to make a purchase. This should be stressed to the distribution team, and they should stick to the agreed timescale as best they can.

Solus distribution refers to your leaflet being the only piece of marketing material being delivered to the area by the delivery team on that day. This means that, if there are no other distribution teams delivering to that area on that same day, then when the resident goes to pick up their mail from their door mat, yours will be the only advert waiting for them. This can result in a better response rate.

Benefits of a solus plan can include the flexibility that comes with this campaign. You can choose roughly when the distribution starts and when it ends. You can also be more specific with what areas and households you aim to target.

In a shared distribution run, your flyer will be delivered along with up to 3 other leaflets at the same time. There will be no conflicting businesses among these 4, but there will be other advertisements that the resident will have to look through to find yours. Experienced leaflet distribution teams will plan their runs to those areas carefully and try and use businesses that will complement each other.

Shared distribution campaigns are far more popular as the price per thousand leaflets delivered decreases dramatically. This is because up to 4 companies are sharing the cost of the delivery. For the cost reduction you can usually get over double the amount of leaflets delivered for the same cost as a solus campaign.

When a solus campaign is conducted, your leaflet still lands on the doormat along with other letters that have built up there from the day. This can also include other adverts depending on the postal sector and whether other teams have been delivering marketing materials there that day as well. So, in effect, you have paid for a solus campaign but still get the outcome of a shared campaign.

Therefore, we would often recommend a shared campaign to busier areas to reduce cost. As we previously mentioned, you can have a shared campaign for less than half the cost of a solus distribution run and will result in you getting more leaflets out for your budget. The quantity increase alone should result in a higher response rate.

The quantity of leaflets you get delivered depends on your marketing budget. Obviously, the more leaflets you get delivered, the more of a response you should receive. The usual way of distribution companies monitoring response is as a percentage. This percentage varies depending on the company you ask and the data they have tracked during distribution runs for their clients.

The response rate you should expect to receive is between 0.1% and 10%. Meaning at worse you should receive 1 call back from 1,000 leaflets. So, for 10,000 leaflets delivered you would receive 10 call backs at worse. And so on.

If you plan the campaign correctly and take into consideration everything mentioned in our articles you should receive a higher response rate. Aiming for around 2% is more realistic and would work out as around 20 call backs per every 1,000 leaflets you get delivered.

If all of these are then converted into paying customers, you should see a large return on your investment.

The distribution team you choose to use should have a list of quantities of households within each postal sector. If you plan to deliver 1,000 leaflets to each sector as you are aiming for council houses only, then you should consider which sectors you wish to aim for. If you were choosing 20 postal sectors then this will give you a quantity of 20,000 leaflets, to print and get distributed. 

Using an experienced distribution team to help plan your leaflet drop campaign, will use your quantity far more effectively. This is recommended as you do not want to be wasting money on leaflets that are left over or delivered to a house that does not apply. 

A lot of distribution companies will have a minimum quantity per postal sector, such as 1,000 leaflets at minimum. Otherwise they would waste money and time sending a team to that area to deliver.

Thinking of how your leaflet should be printed is an important aspect of planning a distribution campaign. What size the flyer will be and what weight are all points to consider.

A5 and A6 flyers tend to be the most common for leaflet distribution as they do not need to be folded to be pushed through a common letterbox. A4 flyers are used regular too as they can give a lot of information and have large impactful images. They may however lose some quality during the process of folding them to push them though a letterbox.

The weight of the flyer should be considered also. This is usually measured in grams per square meter (gsm). A common A4 piece of paper is usually between 90gsm and 110gsm. The usual A5 flyer is around 135gsm, which makes it thicker than a normal piece or paper, giving it a more luxurious feel to what people are used to. If you wanted to increase this to 170gsm then it would be thicker again and feel even better quality. You should increase the gsm depending on the size of the flyer.

If you are using an A6 or A5 flyer, we would recommend between 130gsm and 170gsm. This will give your flyer a good quality feel as well as make it sturdy enough for the deliverers. If increasing your flyer to A4, then you should increase the weight to between 170gsm and 250gsm, anything less would make the flyer curl over as the resident is reading it.

You should have a full colour print if you want to have an impactful campaign and encourage response from residents. Black and white flyers are proven to have less of an impact than full colour leaflets.

The finish you use on your flyer should be considered, when processing the print. You have multiple options such as matt finish, gloss finish, high gloss finish, uncoated etc. The choice you make regarding the finish should work along with the design of your flyer. 

A matt finish suits a design with a lot of writing as there is no shine to the flyer when under a light, making it much easier to read.

A gloss finish would be better for flyers with intricate designs and more visuals. This flyer finish is guaranteed to make your products look their best.

A high gloss finish is perfect for flyers that place high emphasis on the visuals. Due to its high shine, however, it can be quite difficult to read text under bright lights. Choose this finish, if you’re going for an out-of-the-box flyer design that doesn’t include long text explanations.

An uncoated finish is perfect for flyers that often get written on. For example, as a salesperson sometimes you might want to write down your contact details so that customers can reach you. It is also good for flyers, which include a printed contest or raffle form.

Taking this into consideration, you should have the perfect material for what you wish to gain from your campaign.