In this business the question I get asked the most is, “what is your leaflet delivery cost?”
Allow me to explain how I get to a certain figure.
When I first started, I had a slight advantage in that I was already established as a door to door distributor, so I knew many of the pitfalls and problems people could face when undertaking this kind of work. This must be conveyed to the client when discussing the all-important matter of money and what they expect in return for it. Your prices must be competitive, but not too low as cheap will have an undermining impact on results. When setting a price you must be able to explain why you have set it so.
One vital thing to consider is that some business owners will want their leaflet delivered on its own and not with any other advertising material, this method is called a solus drop or solus delivery, this will in turn increase the amount you should be charging for the job.
Many distribution companies try to under-cut the competition, but ask yourself this question for a moment. If you are paying a person to deliver let’s say 1000 leaflets for you and you are paying just £30 you will be wasting your money, here is the simple maths. It takes on average 7.5 hours to deliver to one thousand households, that equates to only £4 an hour way less than the minimum wage. Ask yourself, would you work for that?
If you operate your door to door distribution business as a one man band then perhaps you can charge another small business £45 per thousand households, £6 per hour. But that has to be the lowest you can charge the customer if you intend to make real money and earn a proper living from this.The price you charge your clients is governed by several things, for example is the area going to be delivered to a rural one or full of easy to deliver terrace houses. Are there large housing estates where the dwellings flow or is it an exclusive residential part of town full of large houses with long driveways. Take into consideration also what the landscape is like for example, is it hilly or flat, are there lots of shops and businesses to deliver too? These are questions you need to ask yourself as time is of the essence with this type of work, the quicker it is completed the better. Of course we all walk at different speeds, I for one walk faster than the average person so some distributors you employ could be discouraged by being paid inadequately for the time it takes to complete the delivery process.
This should answer the question of, you charge how much to deliver and justify your leaflet delivery cost.
Now these above figures are mainly for the purpose of a solo drop, where the leaflets are not being delivered with anything else. If the customer is happy that their leaflet can be delivered with another then and only then can you give a lower quote per thousand. Obviously you never deliver two competing leaflets at the same time, for example two estate agents or two pizza companies, this does not make good business sense.
