Tag Archives: door drop leaflets

Leaflet Advertising Vs Digital Advertising

Advertising, Leaflet Distribution, Marketing Strategy, , , ,

In a world where discussions about marketing are dominated by social media and email advertising, it can be easy to assume that leaflet distribution has lost some of its relevance. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, what we are seeing is a reaction against digital advertising. Consumers are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by the sheer volume of digital noise they are being inundated with, and are learning to ignore online advertising.

Instead, these consumers, exhausted by inbox overload and algorithmic bombardment, are becoming more and more receptive to offline forms of advertising that feel like an interesting novelty in our digital age.

Smart marketers are informed by what consumers are responding to; they don’t keep hammering away at channels that no longer engage customers. So we’re here today to break down this consumer’s turn away from digital advertising and to show you how leaflets can be your secret weapon!

Digital Fatigue Is Real
We all remember the golden age of social media, when those platforms were vibrant communities of real people. But those days are long gone, and now it feels like there are more advertisers on social media than real users.

Research conducted by Siteefy in 2024 revealed that the average consumer believes they are seeing over 10,000 social media adverts per day! Whether or not this is literally true, this perception demonstrates just how overwhelmed by online ads consumers feel. A recent survey by Hootsuite found that 59% of people think there’s too much advertising on social media and are “fed up” with digital advertising.

And it’s driving users away! According to Statista, consumers are spending 20% less time on social media than they did 5 years ago. This decline in time spent on social media is most pronounced among younger demographics, with the majority of Facebook users now over 55.

Why spend all that money on social media advertising when the people you want to reach just aren’t there anymore?

And the story’s no better for email. When was the last time you truly engaged with an email in your inbox? How often do you even open a promotional email?

So, if digital marketing is no longer an effective way to reach customers, what is?

Customers Engage With Leaflets
While people increasingly tend to scroll past digital ads or press ‘skip’ the moment they can, leaflets still command attention from consumers.

Unlike digital marketing channels, which measure their engagement in fractions of a second, leaflets measure their engagement in minutes. According to research done by JICMAIL, a staggering 95% of door drops are engaged with, and the average time that each leaflet dropped through a letterbox is engaged with is 56 seconds. That’s almost one minute of a potential customer’s attention! Compare that to 0.7 seconds for social media ads!

And it’s not just quantity, but the quality of engagement that improves when you choose leaflet distribution. Almost half (45%) of the UK keep leaflets in their homes for future reference, whether that’s on a kitchen table or pinned to a noticeboard.

That means that, even if your leaflet doesn’t immediately generate a sale, there’s a good chance your leaflet has stayed in the potential customer’s home and the next time they have need of a business like yours, the leaflet is right there.

Customers also remember leaflets! People recall information on leaflets 35% better than social media advertising and an incredible 49% better than emails.

Customers Act On Leaflets
Advertising isn’t just about generating impressions. Building brand awareness is great, but in the end, you want a customer to go out and actually try your business.

When asked, 71% of people reported that receiving a leaflet through the door had prompted them to actually go and try a new business.

That same customer whose eyes glazed over as they scrolled past your social media advertisement may have actually been inspired to go and try your business had they been engaged with a leaflet!
People are almost twice as likely to try a new business if they receive some sort of coupon or offer. And there’s no better way to deliver a tangible coupon that potential new customers can keep in their home than dropping a leaflet through the door. That offer they might have scrolled past online could stick around on a customer’s noticeboard or kitchen table for days or weeks for future use if delivered as part of a leaflet.

Here we see leaflets don’t just beat digital marketing when it comes to engaging customers, they also excel at getting customers to act. Especially over a longer period.

Customers Trust Leaflets
The problem facing digital marketing doesn’t stop at the issue of customers being fed up with the amount of it; increasingly, consumers are beginning to distrust it.

In an era of ‘fake news’, ludicrous stories and AI-generated fake ‘photos’ flooding Facebook feeds, the public is starting to think of anything they see online as suspicious, and this includes advertisements.

Your advertisement and, by extension, your business could be perceived as untrustworthy simply because of what it is placed next to on social media.

By contrast, customers trust leaflets. The tangibility of leaflets, that they are something physical the customer can hold, lends them credibility. Unlike social media ads that appear alongside fake news, leaflets come through the letterbox alongside important material like bills and government communications. An association that gives leaflets a sense of authority.

The data bear this perception out. According to Statistics, consumers are more than twice as likely to trust print advertising versus digital advertising.

Credibility matters. The likelihood that a customer will engage with and act on an advertisement directly corresponds with how trustworthy they find the medium through which that advertisement was delivered.

Stand Out From The Crowd With Leaflet Distribution
While your competitors are wasting money on digital channels that are becoming less effective by the year, your business can stand out from the crowd by taking advantage of a marketing channel that consumers still engage with, act on and trust, leaflet distribution.

Leaflets are a powerful tool in reaching a consumer base that is overwhelmed by and disengaged from digital noise, helping you to break through and share the great things your business has to offer. 88% of companies that dropped leaflets said they saw sales increase.

So take advantage of this opportunity before your competition figures out how powerful leaflet distribution can be. See what leaflet marketing can do for your business by getting a quote today.

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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.

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One Leaflet One Business One Promotion

Advertising, Leaflet Distribution, , , ,

We at Hallway Distribution believe that each leaflet promotion should have just the one business advertised on it, one leaflet, one business, one promotion works the best.

A few questions I was asked just the other day by a potential new client was, “is double sided leaflet distribution a good idea”?

Should you ever put one product one side and another product or business on the reverse side?

Should my friend advertise their business on the back of mine? They are completly different businesses.

I would like to put all my contact information on the reverse side of my leaflet? This is ok as it keeps it one leaflet, one business.

My usual response is no, as after years of testing things like this, what works best is simply having one leaflet for one business.

Of course this does depend on what you do, but in many cases it lessens response. We work on the principle that the recipient will initially read your leaflet for 3 seconds only. It is often hard to think of a header which will capture their attention in that time. Printing on the reverse means that you either have to think of two great headlines or you risk loosing their interest. Putting one product on one side and another on the reverse, e.g kitchens/bathrooms, hair/beauty might mean that they never read one side get to it because they didn’t turn it over. The same applies for two businesses on either side. You will definitely lessen response.

Another question I get asked is shall I repeat the same design on both sides. For me this is a definite no, no. You work really hard to engage the viewer, excite them to react and then if they turn over they are confused because you have repeated the same message they might even find it annoying. There is nothing to gain by doing this.

National businesses, where the brand is well known use double sided because people know what they do and most of their leaflets are offer based. A double sided leaflet can also work well if you are a company with a lot of interesting headlines and Unique Selling Points or if you are producing a menu. But as a rule of thumb, one leaflet, one business.

Getting leaflet distribution right can be an art and consultancy is always free with our service, even if we do not actually print your leaflet.

Here are 4 facts you should know about.

1. More than 8 out of 10 people in the UK are happy to receive a door drop leaflet if it is on a topic of interest to them.
2. Over half of UK adults say door drop leaflets are useful for finding out about local information and businesses.
3. With the footprints of local free newspapers in decline, door drop leaflets are sometimes the only way for people to hear about this kind of information.
4. 89% of UK adults report remembering receiving a door drop leaflet communication in the last two weeks.

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Leaflet Distribution Poor Relation

Leaflet Distribution, ,

leaflet distribution

imagesIt amazes me that when a discussion takes place around the merits of direct marketing, leaflet distribution is still seen as somehow the poor relation in the process, leaflet distribution is not and never should be regarded as a cheap alternative.

This unfortunate state of affairs was brought to my attention recently while I was reading a book on copy-writing and a chapter on direct mail. Part of this particular chapter gave the reader some twenty-eight creative tips for a mailing.

The creative tip that occupied the seventh position in this list was “The door drop mailer.”
Now some people will think the seventh place in a list of twenty-eight was not a bad position to be in, but it was not the position of seventh place that irked me, it was the way the idea that door drops were the poor relation to direct mail.

The benefits were described as having control of where the leaflet goes and the timing of its delivery. However, I believe these benefits should have been granted much more attention than the one sentence it was given. In fact, I did not think that door drop leaflets should have even been in the list of creative mailing tips.

The reason I think this is that I believe it reinforces the perception, in people who do not understand direct marketing, that leaflet distribution is a cheaper alternative to direct mail. When the truth is door drops can be an integral part of a larger advertising campaign, or they can be used as a separate campaign. Either way they have proved to be a highly effective way of reaching customers and creating sales.

Another area where I believe door drop leaflets do not receive the credit due to them is in the field of their creative work. Unlike the writers of direct sales letters, the copywriters of leaflets do not have the luxury of several pages to get their message across to the prospective customer.

They have to use a very limited space to get their sales message across. They employ their skills in copy-writing to produce short but informative text to emphasise the benefits of their offer as well as it features.

And you will not see “clever” tricks used in the creative work of leaflets. No sensible designer of a door drop leaflet will use the dubious techniques often seen in some magazines and on some so called “classy” website where an art director or designer places a large body of text on a solid black background with the type reversed out, making difficult if not impossible to read.

Door drop leaflets need to catch the attention of the prospect and make it easy for them to read the sales message. The writers and designers of these will use the correct typeface to utilise the limited space available.

Of course, the things I have described above are not widespread in the advertising and marketing business, but there are still a few unenlightened people who look upon leaflet distribution as the poor relation of direct mail. Let us all hope one day the penny will drop and they will see it for what it is, a valuable professional industry filled with highly talented and knowledgeable people who know how to use their talents and knowledge in creating sales for their customers.

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