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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.

When planning the design of your flyer ready to be distributed to households, you must ensure that it is eye-catching and relevant. You need a resident to see the flyer on their door mat and want to pick it up to read it. Often if it looks immediately like an advert, it will be thrown straight in the bin and not even looked at.

Images on your design need to be colourful and attractive, to gain the attention of the resident. When you walk into a shop on a hot day, you are often met with a fan of cool air. This is to make you relaxed as you walk through the store, meaning you are more likely to pick stuff up and buy them, even sometimes when you do not need them. This psychology should be applied to the design of your leaflet in the same way. The image, branding and layout of the leaflet is the first thing a resident will see. This should be attractive and positive, to make them relaxed and happy as they engage with the information.

The title is included in the initial impression of the leaflet and should catch the attention of the reader, from the door mat. The title should be large and clear to read. You could start with a question which causes the reader to want to read further through the information provided.

The flyer should be representing your brand and should scream out your business name just by the colours, fonts, and layout. Your brand colours should be used throughout the leaflet and the same font for writing and information.

You should never use a lot of different size fonts and all writing should be structured in an easy-to-read way. The last thing you want is for the reader to be confused exactly where to look at any one time. Using one size font throughout, besides titles and call-to-action’s, will give the reader direction on where to read through and move to next. Using larger font in the right places will also emphasize the right information that you need to stand out. You can also use different colours and boldness on these phrases and titles.

While maintaining your brand colours, you should consider the psychology behind the colours used throughout your advertisement. Colours will often gain a prescribed response from your reader, and you can use this to give an impression which is needed to be engaged with better. Some colours and the impressions they will give are shown below:

• Red – Excitement, Strength, Love, Energy.
• Orange – Confidence, Success, Bravery, Sociability.
• Yellow – Creativity, Happiness, Warmth, Cheer.
• Green – Nature, Healing, Freshness, Quality.
• Blue – Trust, Peace, Loyalty, Competence.
• Pink – Compassion, Sincerity, Sophistication, Sweet.
• Purple – Royalty, Luxury, Spirituality, Ambition.
• Brown – Dependable, Rugged, Trustworthy, Simple.
• Black – Formality, Dramatic, Sophistication, Security.
• White – Clean, Simplicity, Innocence, Honest.

Using this colour psychology, you can really engage with a potential customers emotions.

There is not much cost involved when choosing between single or double-sided design and print of a flyer, so we would always suggest having a double-sided flyer to distribute. This way, no matter which way the leaflet lands on a doormat, something is visible and not just a white page facing a would-be customer. A blank page facing up will often result in your flyer going into the bin. 

Information on your leaflet should be clear and simple. You want to keep as little writing as possible on your flyer, to not overwhelm the reader. Less is more in these situations, but the information provided must be relevant and give enough of a description to sell a product or service.

You should always have a clear call to action, such as “visit our website” or “call now”. The entire leaflet design is left down if there is not an obvious way for the reader to find out more and get in touch. Your contact details should be easy to find on the leaflet and not in among a lot of writing. Icons of a phone or letter can be easy and clear to understand next to the contact information.

If you have a deal on the flyer, make sure to add an end date to encourage a rapid response from the resident. That way you can monitor more clearly the response you have gained from the leaflet drop.

Basic sales psychology should be used when trying to sell any product or service and this tactic should be included in the design of your leaflet. The colour psychology of the design and the attractiveness of your images are hugely important. The wording of all writing on the leaflet will also play a factor when trying to get a reader to engage.

The reader should start knowing little to nothing about the product you are offering, yet by the time they have finished reading, be convinced they need it. In fact, they should look back on their life and wonder how they ever made it this far without it. We want the flyer to elicit emotions that prompt readers to take the next step and convert into paying customers.

Using the correct wording in your information can provide this response from the resident.

The language you use has the potential to take product descriptions, landing pages and long form letters from interesting or useful, to unforgettable. It’s something all great salespeople know and exploit. They pepper their sentences with certain words that capture attention and elicit an emotional response.

If you do not think you are able to write a compelling paragraph that engages with a resident, then using a copywriter may be a useful option for you. Gaining an impactful piece of information will certainly give you a higher response rate than a quickly thought up sentence.

It is important to target the correct areas when planning your leaflet distribution. Using your audience research and knowing what type of customers are most likely to engage with your leaflet is used extensively here. 

Knowing the average income of a postal sector, for example, can determine where the wealthier areas to target may be.

There is a lot of demographic websites around where you can gather this information. These often come with a large price tag to use and can be very awkward to navigate and find the correct information you are looking for.

Using a company who already has this information is often recommended. A distribution company in your area, may have already got this information at the ready due to using it for a previous client. If not, they would usually have the software necessary to gain the information for your campaign.

At the leaflet network, we complete the maps in areas using the postal sectors. We have often got the information of each postal sector to hand. It is easily gathered if not, using the correct demographic software.

When targeting a postal sector, you can often know which postal sectors are comprised of larger populations of wealthier residents or not. You can know by percentage most aspects of a postal sector’s demographic including age, gender, occupation, religion etc.

When considering location, you may also want to know how many households are there, so that you can arrange the print of the leaflets. This information can be found on our website when clicking into a particular area. 

The types of houses in an area can be considered when planning your distribution also. Using the demographic software, you can often find if there are council houses in particular areas. This can be useful for tradesmen looking to advertise in the area, as people who may not own their house, would not be the ones deciding to use these services.

The type of houses in areas such as terraced houses, detached houses, flats etc. could also be considered when planning. The more terraced houses, the quicker the deliverers can get them out. This should bring down the price of the distribution and lead to more efficiency in your return, depending on what you are selling.

Audience research is essentially any research conducted on a customer base to find out about their attitudes, behaviours, and habits – to understand them. The sample can be made up of any group of interest – whether this is nationally representative, or focused on a particular age, gender, region, ethnicity etc.

The purpose of audience research is to answer a range of business questions, such as to find out what interests them, who influences them, what problems they have, what they think of existing products etc.

Conducting audience research will enable you to get a better understanding of your audience, which in turn will help you connect with your customer and help your company grow. Audience research can help you prioritise how best to meet their needs or decide who to focus on, how to reach them, or what to offer them.

When planning a leaflet distribution campaign, you should know as much as you can about the type of people that are most likely to buy your product or use your services. This way you can target them directly with your flyers to be put through their letterbox.

Demographics of your customers should be considered when conducting the research. If your regular customers are male, then maybe consider where you would find the most male customers. You could also make the design of the leaflet more appealing to male residents. 

Another demographic that is often considered is the wealth of an audience. If you are selling something expensive such as high-end watches, then you would need to target areas that are wealthier and are full of residents with more disposable income. Again, the design of the leaflet should be considered with this as, a more high-end product would need to look more formal and less playful to get the response you want from potential customers.

You can conduct this research using existing data of your previous customers. If it is a particular sale, you are advertising, then you can consider who is most likely to benefit from that deal and who is most likely to engage with the offer you are presenting. People with less disposable income for example may react better to 90% off sale.

There are companies that can conduct this research for you including our office staff. Having this information presented clearly and correctly can improve your marketing campaign dramatically. 

You would then use this, alongside the information you gather on the location you plan to deliver to. You will then get your flyers to the correct audience instead of wasting thousands, trying to find someone who MAY buy your product.

Having a plan behind your leaflet distribution campaign is extremely important. You should not just blanket drop a load of leaflets to a large area and hope for the best results. The design, print and where the leaflets are delivered should all be thought of thoroughly to increase response and get the return on investment you need.

The following list is a step-by-step guide of everything you should consider when planning your distribution campaign:

1. Research your audience – Knowing your audience is something you may already have information about. Knowing what type of people would usually use your services or buy your products is important as these are the people you would wish to target when delivering your leaflets. 
2. Gain information on the location – Finding information on the location you plan to deliver your leaflets is hard without the correct software. Most credible leaflet distribution companies would have software that can gain this information and you may need to liaise with your distribution company to get this information. You may want to know which areas will have the wealthier residents who may have the most disposable income if you are selling something relatively expensive. This information will help with where your leaflets should be delivered and by targeting the correct audience, you should see a higher return on your investment. 
3. Design your leaflet – The plan on designing your leaflet should be taken very seriously, down to the last word. The information you provide on your flyer should be short but to the point. Images used, should be eye catching and encourage engagement. If you are going to use a graphic designer for this, then you should use someone with experience in designing material for distribution as the way it is designed should get a prescribed response. 
4. Print your leaflet – The quality of the printing when regarding leaflets is hugely important. Having a plain paper leaflet will not gain the same response as a high gloss double sided thick flyer. You would want your leaflet to be kept by a resident and one of the best ways is to drive them to feel it is worth something more than to just end up in the bin. 
5. Quantity of leaflets – As your response rate is usually measured as a percentage, choosing the number of leaflets you print and distribute is important. Having a low quantity of leaflets may result in small number of customers using your services. Increasing the number of leaflets, you distribute will result in more customers. You should have a budget in mind when planning your campaign and stick to that. The more you can deliver will lead to better results and bring down the price per thousand with most companies. 
6. Choose your distribution method – Solus distribution or shared distribution is a hard choice when you are selling a product, but you must consider whether the price of the services or products you are offering will cover the cost of the solus campaign. There is not a huge difference in response rates compared to shared, however, catching the attention of your reader is far more likely when your leaflet is the only one on the door mat of the resident. 
7. Timing of your campaign – Choosing a correct timescale is important when planning your leaflet distribution. You can ask your distribution company when the most likely time is to gain a response for your type of business. This is something they may have recorded previously with companies in the past they have worked with, in your industry. You can also ask on online forums with other businesses that have tried it. If you have a date on your leaflet you must plan to get all the leaflets delivered by the date of the event. This should be mentioned to the distribution company so that they do not go past the date. 
8. Ensure other marketing is up to date – Having your social media posts to correspond to the offer on the leaflet at the time of distribution is something to consider. If your leaflet shows one offer but your Facebook page another, this could possibly lose you trust by the potential customer and lose sales. Having an up-to-date website is hugely important if that is where you are driving your potential customers. If your flyer gives your web address and then the resident goes online to read more, but you have underperforming website, this can be at a huge detriment to your response rates. 
9. Choose a reputable distribution company – If you do not choose to use the leaflet network to find a reputable company, then you must consider several things when choosing a company to deliver your flyers. If they are too cheap, then it is probably too good to be true. Check the reviews of the company you are using. Make sure you back check the distribution campaign following completion. 
10. Monitor your response – When designing your leaflet, we would encourage some sort of code that is specific to that campaign, or a phone number that is only used on that leaflet. This way you can see what customers came organically and which ones came from your leaflet drop. Keeping a record of this can give you insight into which areas worked for you and which ones did not. If you choose to retarget areas, you will have better information to work with than just the demographics provided and planned at the beginning. The more precise you can become over time and time and delivering leaflets, will result in better and better results.
11. Repeat areas – In marketing it is important to remember that most people will not buy from the first advert they see of a business, product, or service. You must build trust over multiple times of seeing your branding. To gain the best possible results you should repeat delivery to the exact same houses, maybe changing your design and print slightly each time. It can take up to 3 times in one house before you gain a response from some residents. In our experience you should see an increase in response rates each time. After the third time, give the area a break before you target it again. 

These steps may apply to your business, depending on the type of business you have. As with any marketing campaign, these should be tailored to your specific industry and potential customers. If you are unsure about the planning of the campaign, it will be well worth your time to use someone in the leaflet distribution industry to help. Although you may have to pay for a full planning of the campaign, the results you get back should more than cover the costs of this.