Leaflet Distribution

Hiring the Right Leaflet Distribution Company

GPS Tracking, Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, ,

When you have decided to use leaflet delivery and distribution as part of your marketing efforts there are many things that you should take into consideration before you hire a particular company.

Below are my top questions to ask your potential supplier before you hire them.

Do they cover the area you are targeting?

This sounds pretty obvious but it should be one of the first questions you ask as there is no point hiring a company if they don’t cover your area.

How many leaflets can they distribute and what is the cost?

You will want to know how much your marketing campaign is going to cost you. The company may even give extra discounts for bulk or repeat business from you. This is something that you should ask for as it benefits both parties. Business should always be a win-win situation for both parties involved.

Can they provide you with testimonials from satisfied customers?

This is something that will go a long way to building trust between you and the leaflet distribution company. If they have customers who are happy to recommend them, then you can be sure that they will do a great job in getting your leaflets to their intended destinations.

Do they carry insurance?

It is important that your distribution company has insurance. You can never be sure what may happen. If for example, due to an accident or fire, the company was to lose your flyers, then there would be a significant cost of replacing these with new ones. You want to be sure that you will not have to foot the bill for this

Can they prove delivery?

Several companies will provide you with emails and text messages to confirm that they have delivered to the buildings that you require. It is however harder to prove this. My advice on this if for you to check up on someone you may know in the buildings, or indeed ask for flyers to be delivered to your own building. Obviously do not tell the company where you live. This is an easy way of checking up and making sure you are getting what you paid for. Hallway Distribution use a highly sophisticated GPS tracking system.

Do they accept credit cards?

If a company accepts credit or debit cards then this allows you some piece of mind if things do go wrong and for whatever reason your leaflets do not get delivered. If you have paid by either credit debit card or even some of the online services you can claim for a chargeback which means the leaflet distribution company would have to provide proof of deliver and that they had undertaken the task at hand

Can they provide you with response rates?

Any good leaflet deliver firm will be able to provide you with response rates, which should give you an indication of how well your marketing campaign is likely to do. This will also enable you to calculate your return on investment which is also known as ROI

Do they offer a marketing consultation and mapping session to help you decide which are the best target areas for you to promote your business?

This is a great way to get a closer look at where your flyers are going to be delivered and should be part of the services of any reputable leaflet delivery company no matter how big or small.

Direct Mail How and When to Mail to Prospects

Advertising, Direct Mail, Leaflet Distribution, , , , ,

It is the prime aim of every business to sell their products and services to generate the absolute maximum revenue possible. Direct mail has stood the test of time and here is how.

Your marketing methods and strategies play a crucial role in the success of your online, as well as, your offline business.

If your offers are not marketed correctly, no one will ever be able to learn about your products and services no matter how effective and beneficial they are. You can use a number ways to market your business, however, advertising methods like flyers, direct mail, posters, banners, exhibitions and product shows are tried and true ways to attract new business.

Direct mail marketing is a promotional technique that helps you in advertising your business by mailing your specifications directly to the customer. With the help of direct mail marketing, you capture those potential customers that are actually interested to purchase your products and services.

You can access a consumer mailing list to mail directly to a targeted demographic that will likely have the highest response rate. You can also use a number of tools to find out the mailing prospects like you can use social media, business listings, yellow pages, telephone directories to find more even more addresses.

We’ve found that the best time to distribute flyers and send direct mail is when you have clear, definitive business goals in your mind. If you do not know what your actual goal is from the mailing or distribution, you can’t help but fail.

The biggest benefit of flyers and direct mail is its effectiveness in generating new customers. At the same time, it can also help you to expand your market to serve wider, more diverse demographic. It is also effective to drive repeat business from existing clients and customers.

However you use your flyers and direct mail, keep in mind the most important element is creating goals and tracking the results. Without measuring the success of your direct mailing or flyer distribution, you will never actually know what is working, and what is just costing your business money.

According to a 2018 survey direct mail drives higher return on investment (ROI) than any other marketing channel. Discover just how by clicking HERE.

The survey, which polled more than one hundred small business advertisers on a variety of sales and marketing-related topics, also found that most respondents spent an average of £5,000 to £22,000 on ads each year.

Additionally, 34.71% of respondents listed direct mail as their top marketing channel by spend, followed by social media (18.18%) and search engine marketing (14.88%).

So to book your next leafleting campaign in and around Cheltenham get in touch with Hallway Distribution today, before your competition beats you too it.

How Good Is Your Social Media Presence

Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, , , , , , ,

25 Ways to Grow Your Social Media Presence

When it comes to social media presence, everyone wants in on the action. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google Plus are all highly active social media networks. Not to mention the countless other little sites on the web today. Everyone wants to gain social media recognition for their business.

Having a good, or great, social media presence can help your business grow like wildflowers. But, this will only happen after you develop a large following and learn how to give them what they really want. Here are some great ways any business owner or marketer can increase their social media presence and help their business grow.

1. Identify Goals and Objectives
The first step in growing your social media presence is to identify your goals and objectives. This means make sure you know what you are going after – before you start posting. Ensure you know how each platform works, what audiences you can reach where, and what your objectives are and you will be off to a great start.

2. Let Them Know you are Human
Let your audiences see a softer side. This means interacting on your social media accounts often. This doesn’t mean just throwing up a link to your article and hoping someone will read it or click on it. This means really getting on there and interacting with everyone. Respond to posts from your audience and interact when they show interest. Show them who you are and your audience will feel more connected to you and they will want to read other articles or visit your website.

3. Understand Their Needs
Understanding what your audience needs will help you be able to interact with them on a more intimate level. Knowing what they want to read about and what they believe in will help you understand what you need to give to them. Once you understand this, you can give the everything they want which means bringing them to your website to see what your business is all about.

4. Include the Icons on Your Website
Make sure to include the icons of your social media networks on your personal website. This will make it easier for those coming to read your stuff to like and follow you. Make is simple for them to connect with you.

5. Link Your Profile to Your Website
Link your Facebook, Twitter, or any of your other social media profiles to your website. Just like you want to provide links on your website to your profiles, you also want to link to your website so people can easily learn more about your company.

6. Share with Everyone
Share your social media accounts with everyone you know. Don’t be spammy, but don’t be afraid to share. By doing this, they will know you have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and they can share them with everyone they know. This is a simple way to get the word out.

7. Create an Integrated Social Media Strategy
You want to make sure each social media network you are involved in serves a purpose. You can ensure this by starting a marketing calendar. Make sure to add all of your upcoming events, blog posts, and everything else you decide to do with your business into this calendar. This will help you stay organised and understand how each of your social media accounts will bring in more untapped sectors for your business.

8. Produce Valuable Content
You also want to ensure you are producing the most valuable content not only into your blog but also on your social networking accounts. Having the best content helps showcase your business and website, which brings in more customers and more money.

9. Engage with Everyone
You want to engage with those who post on your social media pages. This means when someone posts something, talk back to them. Let them know you are reading what they are posting and you are listening to what they want. Then, give them more of what they want to keep them posting on your pages.

10. Optimise your Social Media Accounts
Optimising your social media accounts means using keywords. Use the keywords that go with your business. Think of what your customers are looking up on Google or other search engines, and use those keywords in your posts.

11. Use Hashtags Often
Hashtags are in these days. Everyone is using them to bring more people to their blogs or websites. Using hashtags on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus will help bring more people onto your social media accounts and your website – but use them carefully. Don’t finish every post with 15 unrelated hashtags. #dontbethatguy

12. Add the Social Icons to Your Emails
Think about it: You send out emails all day long. If you have your social media icons in your email, people will likely get curious and start to check out your pages and eventually, your website. This is a great way to grow your social media presence.

13. Provide a Benefit to Your Audience
People who visit your social media page or website are asking ‘What’s in it for me?’ Show them by giving something away for free, something designed to draw them into your business by building trust or peaking interest. Consider giving away a short trial, a free book. a discount code, or even liking their page back. This will help you earn valuable followers who will stay engaged.

14. Branch Out
Don’t just use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, and Instagram. There are tons of other social media platforms. This could mean social bookmarking sites, social review sites, and more. You can also try Foursquare and let your customers know where you are by checking into the site. Being social is about more than just the big guys.

15. Use Games
People like to respond to questions, and they like to be right. Using trivia games to bring in more likes, follows, and traffic is a great way to build up engagement and bring in more customers. It can also be a lot of fun!

16. Consistently Post at a Comfortable Rate
It gets frustrating visiting one of your favorite blogs and seeing it hasn’t been updated in a while. This means you should post often at a comfortable rate. If you have to, you can always schedule your posts in advance so you don’t leave your audience hanging.

17. Try Not to Outsource
Try to post on your blog, website, and social media accounts yourself. This will give you an authentic look. If you do decide to outsource, make sure it is to someone who has a similar voice to yours.

18. Do your Research
Each type of business is going have different experiences on social media for example, a restaurant is going to have a much different plan than a used car lot. Take the time to research other ways to get more likes and follows to your social media accounts. Dig in there and learn everything you can about growing your social media presence for your specific market.

19. Give them a Reason
Give your customers a reason to like your page and follow you on Twitter. Show them you will be posting often and make sure to post interesting updates often. This will give them a reason to engage with you.

20. Tackle Customer Complaints Efficiently
If you do end up with a complaint from someone on your website, tackle it fast and efficiently. Respond and be professional even if they aren’t. Make sure to take good care of them by answering their questions quickly. Offering solid customer service.

21. Provide Q & A’s
Provide questions and answers on your social media accounts and your website. Use a frequently asked questions section to help answer their questions efficiently.

22. Ask Clients to Share and Connect
Sometimes just by asking your clients and maybe even potential clients to share and connect with your social media networks, you just might be able to bring in more fans.

23. Create a Plan and Stick to it
Create your plan to bring in more fans. Stick to it and do what you think is working more often. If you find something that works really well, stick to it.

24. Treat Each Social Network as an Individual One
Treat each social network account individually. Share them individually and share them often to bring in more fans.

25. Go Further in Customer Service
Make sure if someone has a problem, go above and beyond to help them reach a conclusion. If you do this, it will show you are doing your best to provide them with as much help as possible and they will realise you are a good person with a good business. This will make them want to come back.

Ever tought of using LinkedIn for your business?

Increase your social-media strategy

Leaflet or Magazine Advertising

Advertising, Direct Mail, Leaflet Distribution, , ,

You have come to a point where you want to promote your business and are wondering what form of advertising to go for. Nowadays, there are numerous options available, from the Internet to print, but when you are a small business the first two ways that come to mind are most likely leaflets or an ad in a local magazine. So the question beckons leaflet or magazine advertising?

Both means of promotion work well on a local scale; however, when you consider all the pros and cons in more detail, leaflets turn out to be the most efficient strategy. Here are five key reasons why leaflet distribution is more effective than a local magazine advert.

  1. COST-EFFECTIVENESS

No doubt about it, for the price of the same size (A5) advert, usually a full page in local magazines, you can have twice as many leaflets printed. Leaflet distribution is a very affordable way of getting your name out to the wider public, and let’s be honest, when you’re a small business you don’t have a £1million+ marketing budget, do you?

  1. PERFECTLY TARGETTED AUDIENCE

When it comes to leaflet drops, we’re able to hand pick the most responsive areas for your campaign. We look closely at demographic and geographic factors and plan your distribution to ensure your leaflets go to those most likely to be interested in your services. We are even able to skip particular streets, to give you a fully tailored service. By contrast, with a local magazine you are not able to target specific areas in such detail, rather you are locked into the major areas that their distribution covers – and locked out of others.

  1. FLEXIBILITY

When it comes to designing your leaflet, the sky is the limit. Make it round, square, postcard, folded, DL – you name it, we can produce it. An ad gives you a standardised size scale, without much room to make your business really stand out. The flexibility leaflets provide also means that you can have two different design leaflets going out to various areas as part of the same campaign, whereas with an advert you’d have to pay for two advertising spaces, which would both be distributed to the same areas.

  1. QUICK TO PRODUCE

Had a change of heart? Realised you’ve put a wrong telephone number? With leaflet distribution we’re able to stop your campaign and quickly print a new batch, so you can always be sure that the right materials are going out. Unfortunately, with an ad, once it’s signed off to print you can’t call it back to update your artwork or copy.

  1. CONVENIENT

What’s easier to quickly fold and put into your pocket or bag? The answer is simple. Leaflets have the advantage that they can be easily stored for future reference, something a magazine doesn’t have. They are also a fantastic way of presenting your offer to the potential customer in a concise and direct way, whereas in a mag your ad might go unnoticed amongst a sea of others, thus producing no results but significantly draining your budget.

Next time you face an advertising decision-making moment bear in mind the features described above. Leaflet or magazine advertising is a big decision, these are only five of them, but in our opinion they are the most important aspects, particularly for small businesses. Affordable, well-targeted, flexible, quick to produce and convenient means are the most efficient and fruitful media to help you grow your company. Having over 9 years’ extensive experience we’re always here to help you promote your brand, so get in touch today to see how we can work together to achieve your business objectives.

We hope you got some value from this article, five reasons why leaflet or magazine advertising. If so leave your comments below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvassing

 

Embrace Change

Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, , , , ,

But We Have Always Done It This Way!!

If your business has been going for some years and appears to be doing well, it is easy to settle back and believe everything in the garden is rosy. But when someone from outside of your company or business comes along and points out that perhaps you should be further ahead than you are, what are you to do?

They point out that you must embrace change and state that the business is not advancing as fast as you should be but are just ticking over, and you are in danger of slowing down and perhaps stopping altogether in the not too distant future.

They also may point out that your methods are out of date, and what once worked for you, is now holding you back.

When faced with this situation, you may answer with the classic reply “But we have always done it this way” And this is usually where the problem lies.

Are you stuck in a rut?

The “We’ve always done it this way” (some of the most expensive words in business) has been the mantra of many businesses that have fallen into a rut and is best illustrated in the following story.

A little girl was watching her mother prepare a fish for dinner. Her mother cut the head and tail off the fish and then placed it into a baking pan. The little girl asked her mother why she cut the head and tail off the fish.

Her mother thought for a while and then said, “I’ve always done it that way – that’s how Grandma did it.”

Not satisfied with the answer, the little girl went to visit her grandma to find out why she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it.

Grandma thought for a while and replied, “I don’t know. My mother always did it that way.”

So the little girl and the grandma went to visit Great Grandma to find out if she knew the answer.

Great-grandma thought for a while and said, “Because my baking pan was too small to fit in the whole fish”.

The point of the story is that the great-grandmother had limited resources and had to trim the fish, although she would have rather left the head and tail on.

The following generations of cooks just followed her, although over the years bigger and better baking pans must have become available.

When you began your business you may have started with a limited budget. But with your energy and determination, you made it work and enjoyed a lot of success regardless of the restrictions on your resources. Because of this success, you have kept on running your business the way you started; doing it the way you always have.

And this may have allowed you to fall into a rut, and be unaware of the opportunities you have missed that would have made your business grow quicker and be stronger than it is now.

Are you listening to the wrong advice?

If you have been using leaflet distribution to promote your business and you feel you may be in a rut, it may be because you have been using the same leaflet with the same layout and design with the same copy and offer.

You could also have been listening to the wrong people and taking the wrong advice and resisting changing your ways.

You must embrace change

The reason the Beatles career lasted as long as it did while Elvis Presley’s career stalled, is because the Beatles realised they could not stand still and churn out variations of their songs. So they experimented with new recording techniques.

They were also lucky in having an excellent mentor in George Martin who helped and advised them, and they took his advice.

Elvis did not embrace change and spent wasted years churning out formulaic films and below par records. His advisor was Colonel Tom Parker who was happy just to advise Elvis to keep doing what he had been doing for years.

Every Home Has A Letterbox

Leaflet distribution is one of the most cost-effective, targeted marketing solutions any business can use to promote their business.
But it isn’t just about putting leaflets through letterboxes, much more goes into a successful campaign than simply putting colourful pieces of paper onto doormats.

At Hallway Distribution we provide an honest, reliable, professional and unique service. With over 10 years in the industry, we have the knowledge, expertise and ideas to ensure that your leaflet distribution campaign achieves the best response and generates a maximum return on your investment.

We know each customer is different, so we’ll work together with you to develop a solid strategy and put a plan in place to create a campaign that has the best chance of success for you.

How To Have a Memorable Leafleting Campaign

Advertising, Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, , ,

Today I am going to share with you five secrets to make your direct marketing leafleting campaign memorable.

Breaking the mould and capturing people’s attention with your direct marketing campaign is not easily done. But with the right idea, design and strategy, your mailing can have a huge impact. All businesses crave a memorable leafleting campaign.

1. Think laterally to capture the imagination of your target audience

images

Successful direct marketing is about making your mailing stand out and the most effective way to do that is by capturing the imagination of your readers. People get used to seeing the same thing, it’s boring. If you give them something they are not familiar with they are more likely to want more.
However, don’t go overboard. It’s not about shocking people. But at the same time you need to think about an arresting way to engage them with the right image, the first thing they’ll notice about your mailing and strapline. And the best way to do this isn’t always by making your direct marketing directly relevant to your product or service.

Think laterally, ask your readers a question, and tell them something surprising. One of the most successful campaigns I’ve ever worked on for a carpet cleaning company asked readers: ‘What does your carpet tell you about you?’ The response, as people glanced guiltily down at their floors, was overwhelming.

2. Sell the feeling that the product or service will give

The most important thing to remember when working out your strategy is to focus on your target audience. How will they benefit from the product or service that you’re offering?
Drone on about the features of your product or service and they’ll soon lose interest. But tell them how good it will make them feel and they’ll want to know more.

An example I often refer to when explaining this concept is selling plane tickets. People don’t care about the features of the plane they’ll be travelling on. They’re sold by the lure of a holiday of a lifetime or of being reunited with friends and family.

So the best agencies will not only take the time to understand what your business does, but will think about your product or service from the point of view of your target audience. What’s the benefit for them? That’s what you should be selling if you want a memorable leafleting campaign.

3. Research your target audience thoroughly

You can blow the budget by having a beautifully glossy leaflet with a captivating image and strapline. But if you don’t know anything about the people you’re targeting you could be throwing your money away.

I once worked on a campaign for a landscape gardening company who wanted to launch their new tree felling service. Despite my reservations, they went ahead with an incredibly expensive campaign. Unsurprisingly, due to the large amount of flats and social housing in the area it failed miserably.

By contrast, I recently worked on a campaign delivering leaflets in envelopes, the aim was to prove that leaflets delivered this way would be more beneficial to the client, and it was a roaring success. It was a popular, effective and memorable campaign.

In the last four years the door drop market has changed. Advances in mapping technology (which we’ve helped develop) mean you’re able to target very specific sectors of the demographic. So the more you know about your target audience, the more you can focus on what will be memorable for them.

4. Don’t think just in terms of return on investment

Often people keep your leaflet for future reference or even if someone discards your leaflet immediately, they still have to pick it up to do so. They may not read it but you can guarantee that they will glance at it for five seconds, even if they’re not aware they’ve done it. It’s human nature.

images

And then, the next time they’re on the high street or searching the internet and see your product, they’ll notice it. Even if they can’t remember where they’ve seen it before.
In this sense, a door drop leafleting campaign is a unique and powerful medium with a huge scope to reach everyone it targets.

The sales benefits of a direct marketing leafleting campaign may not be tangible. I’ve managed campaigns that didn’t get the response rate the client had hoped for. But often shortly afterwards the client has seen a huge boost elsewhere – in internet sales, for example – despite not carrying out any other marketing. This is no coincidence.

The success of a door drop campaign can’t be measured in return on investment alone. The effects are subliminal. So, in a sense, every campaign is successful, whether or not it’s memorable. That’s not to say that the memorable ones don’t have the greatest impact, of course!

5. Have a strategy and think of your leafleting campaign as a taster

The main aim of a leaflet campaign is to give your potential customer a taste of what you’re offering. It’s like an invitation or a recommendation. So if your mailing is memorable, you’ll have tantalised your customer and left them wanting to know more.

Nowadays, people like to research things for themselves, especially online. Pique their interest and they’ll look up your product or service.

A direct marketing campaign should never be just a one off. Most campaigns will be successful if they’re ongoing. It takes two or three attempts for people to start to understand that your product or service is around.

My most successful clients are those who have a budget and a strategy for the year. They make a plan and stick to it. And they’re the ones that conduct the most memorable campaigns and see the best results.

Want to know more about how our technology has revolutionised the door drop market?

email: laurenwillis@hallwaydistribution.com

Make Your Leaflet Drop Campaign a Success

Direct Mail, Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, , , ,

It doesn’t matter whether you are an estate agent, a small business owner or own a restaurant, even a franchise or agency. One thing remains the same; you want to make your leaflet drop campaign a success.

Not just succeed in the sense that it gets produced and delivered through letterboxes, but work in the sense that it grabs people’s attention, i.e. compels them to take action and contact you.

Easier said than done, right?

Not when you have been creating truly memorable leaflet drop campaigns for the last decade. Here are our best practice tips for producing leaflet drops guaranteed to secure new business.

TIP 1: Research your market

The first, and perhaps, most important thing you can do (which people tend to spend the least amount of time on) is research your market.

imagesMost of us feel that we’re a professional in our field, and quite rightly so. However, just as consumers wouldn’t buy a car without reading up about it first, it’s wise to spend as much time as you can seeing if your product or service is right for the intended market before rushing into spending money advertising it.

TIP 2: Consider your price or offer

Your price or offer is an important factor in determining how much of a response you’ll generate. One of the best things you can do is get comparisons from your competitors. This will help you decide where you want to position yourself within the market – top, middle or bottom in price.

A question we often ask our clients is, ‘Are you trying to increase your market share on selling at almost no profit, or are you prepared to sacrifice a higher response to win business that makes more of a profit?’

TIP 3: Think about your start date

Think carefully about the best time for selling your service or product. For instance, it’s not a good idea to sell Christmas trees in the summer! Supply and demand principles also apply, so it’s worth planning ahead to get this one right as it’ll maximise your response rate no end.

TIP 4: Don’t be a one-hit wonder

We’ve seen this happen lots of times. A client carries out a leaflet drop campaign and gets either a great response or a poor response and on that basis chooses not to carry out any further activity.

In our experience, the most successful clients formulate a campaign that may run weekly, monthly or quarterly, the point is it’s a leaflet drop campaign. This gets the message across that they are in their chosen area to stay and it reminds the potential customer to use them. Sometimes it’s only after we’ve seen something three times, do we then have confidence in trying it.

TIP 5: Create the right image

Ensure your leaflet portrays your service or product correctly. Your leaflet essentially becomes your shop window so, not surprisingly, it needs to be designed and printed to match the quality of service or product you want to get across.

If you’re selling something at an economy level, you may want to print in only one or two colours on a thinner paper stock, whereas if you’re selling a high ticket item, you need to portray this by using a professional designer, full colour, and a more expensive paper or board.

TIP 6: Enlist the right expertise

If you’ve followed the tips above, it would be a complete waste of your time and money, and ultimately your response from your leaflets, if you opt to work with a door drop company that doesn’t sufficiently charge to deliver all of your leaflets.

As a very simple rule of thumb, it takes, on average, 7 hours to deliver 1,000 leaflets, which is around 2-3 per minute in your average street. Therefore you would expect the price to be over £55 per thousand to include transportation, office and warehouse costs.

Choose Wisely Grasshopper

Advertising, Business Branding, Leaflet Distribution, , , ,

downloadWhen I was younger I would watch a TV show called Kung-Fu, which was full of old Chinese proverbs, it was about a Shaolin monk who was always called Grasshopper by his teachers. I use the following quite regularly in my daily life today and that is; choose wisely.

The following post is exactly why you should choose wisely in your business especially when advertising it. There have always been frauds and scams carried out by unscrupulous people looking to relieve decent law-abiding citizens of their hard-earned cash. But with the introduction of technology, fraud has become easier as far more people can be approached by the fraudsters and scammers.

The telephone has become one of the instruments where the bad people contact their victims with promises of easy wealth.

Many people have been conned by the false promises of money to be made by investing in fine wines, and many people have lost thousands by scammers convincing them to invest their pensions in non-existent financial schemes.

All these corrupt telephone callers sound plausible and convincing, and now they have another weapon they can use to dupe people: The Internet!

The website

Now it is possible for them to design and put up a highly convincing website to draw people into their dodgy schemes.

The opening up of the internet and the comparative ease to design and put a professional looking website up on it has made it simple for people to start their own businesses.

A majority of new businesses launched online are not frauds and scammers and are in fact genuine offerings. However, some don’t have the expertise their websites’ suggest and ultimately don’t have the ability to provide the services they are offering.

The chancer

Among the genuine businesses operating online, there is a group of people who, although are not actually dishonest can cause unsuspecting people as much financial damage as the fraudsters.

These people are looking for a business that, on the surface, seems easy to set up and operate. They then create an attractive looking website selling these services and hope to develop clients and income streams without any real knowledge of the business they have decided to operate.

One of the businesses they try to operate in is leaflet distribution.

They think it is easy

It is easy to see why these chancers think leaflet distribution is an easy business to enter. To them it is just a matter of convincing some small business owners to hire them, then get some leaflets printed, hire a few students or unemployed people to distribute them and then send an invoice. It’s easy, even their grandmother could do it. Only she couldn’t.

Leaflet distribution & door drop marketing is a business that requires management skills and the availability and deployment of modern technology.images

Soon the poor business owner who hired them realises they have been seriously misled. They begin to realise this when no orders or enquiries are forthcoming from their campaign. They also realise their mistake when the so-called distribution company they hired cannot provide proof of any deliveries because they do not have GPS tracking, and have been using inexperienced and untrustworthy people to deliver the leaflets.

It is not long before they realise they have wasted their marketing budget; their money.

This is what a chancer, a person looking for a quick buck, can do to a business: it can do lasting damage. And it can do lasting damage to our industry too.

How many of the people who have fallen foul to the imposters, offering cheap prices, posing as door drop experts are left with the belief that leaflet distribution does not work?

So what should business owners beware of when they are faced with a glamorous website promising them the earth?

What to look for & choose wisely

You should ask the people behind the site what they are really offering.

Does their blog only have one or two posts from months, even years ago?
Is the content on their website well written and informative?
Do they have any reviews or case studies from previous clients?
Do they monitor the leaflet distribution using the latest GPS technology?
Do they supply a detailed report of the distribution including dates and GPS logs of the delivery?
Do they provide a complete leaflet design service and do they offer examples of work they have done?

Choose wisely with Hallway Distribution not only offer every capability listed above but we also offer expert advice to help you get the best results from your leafleting campaign. This includes the best time and the best place for launching a marketing campaign, how to present your business with the design of the leaflet, what material to print it on and much more.

Door To Door Marketing Techniques

Advertising, Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, , , ,

Door to door marketing can be intimidating, but it also offers a lot of benefits as a strategy for building your business. The chance to directly engage with potential customers and pitch your offerings in person brings a connection with your audience that commercial advertising can’t match. Understanding some basic marketing techniques can help beginners make the most of these interactions.

Location Is Key

images

A key part of any door to door marketing campaign is picking the right neighborhoods to canvas. If you already have a database of previous customers, the neighborhoods or post codes that show up most frequently are good places to start. If you’re the local ice cream parlor, for example, walking around the neighborhoods within walking distance or a short drive away and handing out coupons for a free small cone at the beginning of summer can be a great way of either introducing yourself or reminding folks that you’re there at the start of your biggest sales period.

Hone Your Pitch

A successful transaction rarely is as simple as knocking on the door of the fortunate customer who already needs what you’re selling. You’ll have a very short amount of time to convince the resident to patronize your business, and many times the best way to do so is to sell a larger idea rather than your specific product. Someone might not think they need a pest control service, but if you ask them if they want to protect their home from termites it might resonate. Use whatever strengths you have if you’re naturally funny, start with a joke, for example. But whatever you do, make sure you’re focused on the customer and their wants and needs.

Make Materials Count

If you’re going door to door marketing to promote your local business, the fact that nobody answers when you knock doesn’t mean your marketing work is over it just means your prospective customer will have to read about what you have to offer instead of listening to you say it via a leaflet. As you are working your script to present in person, don’t neglect the brochures or other marketing material that you’ll leave behind if nobody’s there. Make sure they catch the eye, that they include a call to action or incentive to become a customer and that they’re placed somewhere hard to miss, like hanging from a doorknob or placed in the mailbox.

Set Realistic Goals

images

Doing door to door marketing isn’t going to make you a millionaire over night. Be realistic about your expectations and also be realistic with any canvassers you hire to go door to door for you. It can be a frustrating job with a lot of rejection, and it’s only worse if someone goes in expecting nothing but credit card numbers and referrals. Whatever your business is, and wherever it is located, you should be able to find out an expected response rate to serve as a benchmark. Use that as an initial guide to determine whether your own efforts are effective, and adjust as necessary if you fall below that threshold.

Print vs Digital

Advertising, Direct Mail, Leaflet Distribution, ,

We now have the scientific proof. Print is better than digital for advertising.

Despite the enormous migration to electronic media, neuroscience research shows that paper-based content and ads offer special advantages in connecting with our brains.

HImage result for print vs digital imagesow many times over the years have we have been told print is dead?

Ceefax (remember that?) was going to kill newspapers and videos were going to replace colour brochures. Now both theories were confined to history while print carried on.

But then the digital world exploded onto the scene. It did at the time, look as though print had met its nemesis.

Marketing people began turning to electronic mail and the internet to sell their products and services. Some even openly disparaging print as old-fashioned and doomed. However, some of the savvy marketers continued to use print to sell products because they believed it still worked and worked better than digital.

Now science has proved us right.

What we found the print vs digital facts

So, what is the scientific community telling us about printed messages being more effective than digital ones?

A study by a Canadian neuromarketing firm, True Impact, compared the effects of digital media in the form of display ads and email against a direct mail piece.

To carry out this test, the firm used two technologies. These two technologies were a high-resolution EEG that measured brain waves and eye-tracking techniques.

The critical metrics evaluated in this study were attention, persuasiveness and ease of understanding. In all three cases, the direct mail piece was found to be easier to process and proved to be better for brand recall mentally.

Those participants exposed to the direct mail piece had recall 70% higher than those exposed to the digital advert.

Now we cannot expect a mass exodus from digital marketing to direct mail and door drop leaflets. However it does prove that print-based advertising still has a significant part to play in the marketing plans of advertising managers across the land. And we cannot expect digital marketing to disappear either. The print vs digital argument will roll though.

The future is going to be print and digital working together.

Image result for print vs digital images

Any good direct mail piece or door drop leaflet must also have an online presence.

Despite the popularity of print in getting a sales message across, many people feel comfortable ordering from a website, and print can drive this valuable traffic to an online order or enquiry form.

However, a printed leaflet can only work if it has been carefully constructed. It must be well written, designed and printed by people who know their craft.

Hallway Distribution can not only advise on where to distribute your printed marketing leaflets, we also provide copywriting, and a design service all of the highest quality.