Leafleting | Letterbox marketing | advertise your business

Leaflet distribution can be an effective marketing tool, and many who use them can tell you. It is so effective that it can be used as part of a marketing mix or on its own. If you are doing it on its own remember that two things make a good campaign. Because its a numbers game you must produce enough for you to make a big enough impact, aslo you must properly research you area to ensure that you are hitting the right target.  For a campaign to be successful these are some of the ingredience that are necessary along with hard work

Mistake #1: Assuming that leaflet distribution Marketing Results are Vague and unpredictable.

Here are the Facts: All marketing done correctly will provide consistent, predictable results. As a guideline, the national average for direct mail marketing is 0.5% to 1.0%, meaning that if you send out 1,000 letters, postcards, or flyers then you should have between 5 and 10 people contacting you, it is that simple. If you get no response, then you need to be asking your distribution company some questions. Although this is considered average, doing some simple things can take that number up to 10%-30%, or even higher
Mistake #2: Not knowing the response rate for yourIndustry

Always know your marketing response rate, if you don’t know it, find it. If you have no clue of what your response rate is, then how in the world do you know how much to distribute? Here is what you do. Send out enough to hit the 0.5% as a test market, and then measure the actual results. Use the results in your next distribution to achieve your desired outcome.

Mistake #3: Trying One Time and Giving up because “That Didn’t Work”

Marketing results, or leads, are dependent on two things, how many people see your marketing materials, and the percentage of those that see your materials are then COMPELLED to give you a call, turn up at your event, or come in to your store. So therefore if you need 100 new leads or sales and you know that for every person who sees your leaflets only 1% will call you, then you send out 10,000 leaflets. You first test then you will know how much to distribute.

Mistake #4: Marketing in the slow times.

Marketing during the slow times dooms you to living on an economic roller coaster. If your business is seasonal or follow certain tends through the year you need to know them.

Mistake #5: Failure to sell benefits in your leaflets.

Look at these words “Quality Work, Affordable Rates, and Prompt Service.” 80% of the companies in the phone book use these words in their copy. So why do you want to use them as the only reason to do business with you?. When you design your fliers, you MUST create both emotional and logical benefits that build and hold your customer interest. Always connect the features of your product to something beneficial.

It is important to subscribe to Google news alert. Use it to keep abreast with news in your industry as it breaks. If you are an expert in your field get intouch with the papers and offer you twist or expert advice on the story

I was reading another post on direct mail and getting them opened and I came across another rather intersting post.

Use Unusual colours

1. Unusual colours Keep your mailing envelopes the same size and weight, just change the colour from white to something different or more daring.

Odd Sizes Work

2. Odd size or shape Send your message in a jumbo-size envelope. Or in a square envelope. Or send your message in a tiny envelope. Just remember that your envelope has to conform to postal regulations for size and shape, and fit through a normal mailbox. This can work for leaflet distribution as well

Name on Letter
3. Personalization Put your prospect’s name right on the front of the envelope, perhaps in the form of a question: “Hey, Alan, know who offers the lowest interest rates?”
Funny Graphics
4. Cartoon Speaking of personalization, put a cartoon on the front of your envelope, and put your prospect’s name in the caption (so that one of the cartoon characters is using your prospect’s name in what they are saying).

Teaser Question
5. Teaser Ask a provocative question, give a compelling statistic, feature a gripping photo or use another device that intrigues your prospect and motivates them to open your envelope to satisfy their curiosity.

Getting to the top brass or the decision maker of a company can be a headache. Especially when the gatekeepers are not letting you through.

Trying the get the head of sales, or head of marketing is quite a task as they are never at their desk. When they are, hearing a cold call from you is sometimes the last thing they want.

Then there is the PA and the Secretaries, when they put you on hold……. (music)…… “Sorry he’s not available, do you want to leave a message”
you know ninety percent of time they are just not interested in your sales pitch.

There maybe other techniques but this is the one I use which works for me.

The Get around
All you need is a name. Call up company X and say you are calling from (your company) and ask for the name of the Marketing Manger, Director or whoever you which to speak to. Most of the time you will get it. If you are asked why you want the name, you need to think fast

After you have all the names you then prepare your mailshot using your favorite program, I use MS Word Mail merge, and import the contacts from MS Excel

Getting Pass the gatekeepers
It’s now time to print the labels. Here, you simple add the word ‘Private and Confidential’ above the contact name. This would ensure it’s not opened by the PA or office administrator and trashed before it reaches its intended target

Private and Confidential
John Blogs
14a Regents Street
London
W1

In this document is your killer sales letter or marketing material, do a follow up call in a few days.

Being an online and offline marketer there are certain parallels that work online and well as offline.

For example, the most important part of a link bait would be the headline or the hook.

Use a good headline or eye candy to draw readers or your marketing materials. I’m not going to bore you with how to write a good headline as its all over the web, rather show how you can use the link baiting techniques to get your clients interested in you marketing campaigns.

The headline or the hook

The Copyblogger’s cheat sheet works just as well offline in your advertising copy

Here is a Quick Way to save money on your heating

1. Who Else Wants [blank]?
2. The Secret of [blank]
3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
4. Little Known Ways to [blank]
5. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
6. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
7. Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
8. [Do something] like [world-class example]
9. Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
10. What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

The Eye candy
A picture is worth a 1000 words right, why not use this to your advantage. Never be afraid to use images or pictures on your materials, Use Humour or Puzzles, they can boost the response tremendously. When you are buying a car online or looking for a new flat, you would normally click the post with an image first don’t you?

The tool
Make your material useful. How does this work?
When you print your materials add a calendar, an astrological Chart, a game.

The resource
On the back of your material list all some local telephone numbers that are hard to fine.
Or this years must see event, maybe city tours of famous artist

Be creative with your print materials and don’t be afraid to experiment.

For years I always had a vision of my ad being across the platform at Victoria Station, Bank, or Kings Cross underground. In my vision hundreds of people would just stare at my advertising, mesmerized by the elegance of the artwork. They would then make a mental note of the website, or even better yet write it down.

On their journey home my business would be on their minds, once home they would rush upstairs log on to my website and make their first order. Boy was I naive!

This was a few years back, I splashed out around £3000 including design for a cross platform advert at Bank station and Leicester square. I was promoting two businesses I was running at the time. One was for a business sms application and the other an entertainment website.

I sat back and expected to phone to start ringing or massive subscribers and it didn’t happened.
Later I went to the underground station at bank and sat for 4 hours watching people go by. To my astonishment half of the people don’t even look at the adverts and those that do read only the advert that is on front of them.

Also the advertisement done on the underground are never response oriented, more like a branding excersice and part of a marketing mix.

Like they say you live and you learn, I should have spent the money elsewhere