Leafleting | Letterbox marketing | advertise your business

With best wishes to our clients and good luck to all

for the coming new year.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Daily we receive unsolicited email in our Inbox in form of Spam. Spam is sent in massive quantities to individual email by using email lists or web addresses. Leafleting is done through letterboxes but is different to Spam.

There are several differences despite quite few uninformed people trying to group both in same category.

Email Spam

1.       Sender’s identity and address are concealed.

2.       The message is done by buying email lists, beyond the original formulation it requires no more effort.

3.       Often is to sell dubious products from unverifiable sources, it can range from counterfeit goods, to drugs that can be dangerous to use or hard to check their effectiveness [without doctor’s prescription] to unfounded claims about results that are unverified.

4.       Spams are not easy to stop, that is a major problem of ISP companies and to individs at work or home.

5.       People are given no choice to opt out of it.

6.       Can be sent from anywhere, a flat in Chiswick can receive spam email from Arizona and there is little they can do about it, bar to delete the email. Spam has no national boundaries.

7.       Often there is no recourse if you buy faulty goods as reputable companies do not target people outside of their client’s lists, not to speak of many cons perpetrated by Spam email.

Leafleting

1.       The identity and address or the company-individual providing a product / service are clearly displayed.

2.       The message is spread into a local area and requires a lot of effort to formulate, design, print and distribute in the best  possible way.

3.        Leafleting has to present the best part of a company during local advertising campaigns. Products and services have to be Real, addresses verified and telephone numbers and websites displayed. Business or Service reputation is at stake during leafleting if the service is not up to standard or unavailable.

4.       Leafleting can be easily Stopped. Any serious leafleting company will not deliver through the doors that clearly display the No Flier-No Leaflets sign.

5.       People have a choice as explained above if they desire to opt out of leafleting.

6.       Leafleting is often local or National in few cases.

      7.      There is always a recourse for services or goods, as the source is always known and the usual national commercial laws  apply.

      There is no contest about leafleting and Spamming through email. Leafleting has some clear advantages for persons that use it and for the community that receives the message. If a local council, a police station or a water-gas-electricity company wants to transmit a message urgently to the people, there is no better, faster and surest form than to drop a message through each letter box. Not every single person does watch TV, listens to radio or read the newspapers, but anyone can see the flier in their doormat. Leafleting brings clear benefits to the receivers, it can be a Pizza voucher, a new hair-dresser in the area with lower prices, a guttering company offering competitive services, an international phone card, a taxi card, a restaurant offer, financial advice, how to find a dentist/doctor by the NHS, a dedicated gardener, plumber, builder, computer repairs or a web designer. A leaflet can offer choice, prove cost efficient, save money for the household, get new deals and make more savings.

Even those who have placed the sticker No Fliers in their letterbox ask our operatives sometimes to get that taxi card, to have that college brochure to get more info for their children’s schooling or to browse through a catalogue with health and beauty products. With every modern technology there is a new etiquette, how to behave, how to present it and how to communicate clearly and without causing offence to the older ways, of course not every goes about it the “proper way” and some or many people feel a sense of intrusion. Rules are made up as we go along.

Every technology prompts these questions. As it was the case with the Telegraph, in 19-th century. In May 1864, some British politicians got a knock early evening at their doors. As Telegrams were a big deal then, the anticipation was for something important in the text. In fact Mr Gabriel of 27 Harley Street, was informing them that their Dental practice would be open during summer up to 5 PM. Being very indignant about this, the recipients wrote to the press: “I never met Mr. Gabriel – one said- and beg to know where does he find the right to disturb me through this medium of advertisement?”

With these letters of complain printed on the newspapers, Mr. Gabriel got more publicity that he originally imaged and all for free. It goes to show that Advertising has different methods and not all are acceptable for some people. As communication and the means change in the modern word, the behaviour changes also: it may be better to dump your boyfriend face to face rather than Facebook, it is certainly better not to make workers redundant by text or to use gizmos to send an important message instead as appropriate communication requires in certain cases. Email, mobile phones, social network sites etc have changed a lot of the way in which the modern world communicates today.

Leafleting is a growing industry, has been going on at large scale for the last 70 Years and is here to stay. It works in the long term and done carefully and persistently, also as a one off, for quick notices or messages to the community. Leafleting is used by top advertisers, in election campaign and local government also.  The statistics say:

52-63% of people find leaflets useful, 79% read and 48% respond, compared to 60% for press or 47% for TV.

 Leafleting has been used for different means and purposes. In 1806 Royal Navy made kites sending leaflets from its ships to France, later on balloons were used during the siege of Milan 1848, or the siege of Paris in 1870, a massive increase was seen during WWI where around 6 Billions leaflets were dispersed via airborne means and later on in WWI.

Ex communist Countries, also the Allies have employed leafleting as propaganda and information tool. In Suez, Korean War, Vietnam, Cyprus, Falklands, Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosova and in many areas of conflict.

During Gulf War I the fliers dropped by Coalition Forces are though to have contributed in the surrender of around 80.000 Iraqi soldiers.In WWII leafleting reached new heights, each side trying to lower the military morale of the other one.

The Nazis did drop one leaflet depicting a man and a woman kissing, the leaflet said: FAREWELL, do you remember her last kiss? etc, in the B-side trying to remind American soldiers of the loved ones left behind and if they did continue fighting they may die to never see them again.

In 1942 the Allies dropped over Germany a brilliant, wordless leaflet. The leaflet had only one picture, depicting a large field with thousands of graves of German soldiers. The leafleting war continued parallel with the main one and took many forms.

Leafleting in the hands of vicious regimes has been used to alter the mind set of the population and to inflict great harm to different groups of people depicted as enemies. Nazi Germany is a notable example for using leafleting containing false propaganda against its Jewish population, pre / during the years when the Holocaust took place.

Dropped in massive numbers as part of airborne information & misinformation, it is an effective form of psychological warfare, mostly to try and alter the thinking and behaviour of people and military troops in enemy territory. Trying to persuade them to surrender, abandon their position, plant doubts in their leadership policies, futility of resistance or to stop fighting.

Humanitarian leaflet drops – warning of impending disaster, food supplies, emergency plans and evacuations, helping and preparing the population with the new message of hope are very effective. Before the massive communication offered by tv, radio, satellites and the internet, leafleting was the main form of spreading the message to a large number of people, however it still continues to have its place amongst the technology of today.

Leafleting has been used for commercial and marketing purposes, political and subversive messages, recruitments and simple informative messages.

Commercial Use

Airborne means were employed to drop leaflets in late XIX-th century to advertise Lipton Tea, other businesses and for electoral means. After WWII the government banned this method, by using anti-litter laws. There are different ways for leaflet delivery:

-          Door to door leaflet delivery

-          Handouts and street promotions, in high density areas

-          Business to business delivery.

Leaflet Distribution Methods are:

- Solus Distribution, one flier per one letterbox. It is the best and most effective form of leafleting

- Shared distribution, 2-5 or more fliers go through the letterbox, it is cheaper but less effective

- News-share, where the leaflet is delivered with other leaflets usually included with a free, local newspaper or magazine, the cheapest and least effective form. We work with leaflets but not only, often we advice and help different businesses and companies to integrate leafleting into a bigger part of their marketing approach.

 Business communication, business development, sales techniques, local and national advertising is an integral process where leafleting is only one part of the bigger picture and long term strategy. During our work we deliver for different categories and aims, trying to make our clients aware that leafleting is not a one time affair, it is not a magic bullet and one-offs usually don’t work. It has to be carried out long term in order to establish brand awareness, needs to be backed up by an excellent customer support and heightened awareness of the product / service in offer, competitors, places, prices, timing and so on.

Leafleting works, has been going on for long time and will be here for times to come, as  it is direct, attracts attention, is cost effective and can spread a message to a large number of people very fast, but works only Long Term and with right planning, design and organisation.

This is short travel through the history of leafleting and if you have anything new to ad, facts or ideas from past or present you will be welcomed to write to us and we will ad your article to our modest blog.

 Leafleting is the most simple and usual form of Local Advertising, you have rights to carry it out provided you bear in mind the rules and regulations.

a) Door to door. Are you trespassing if you place a leaflet into a letterbox? No. Other ways the couriers, postmen, salesmen etc would be committing trespass. You have “implied licence” to place a leaflet through the letterbox. But if you are asked to leave and you don’t then you will be committing trespass. Also going through security barriers, private places [shops, staff areas] or disrupting a lawful activity.

b) Content of the material. The right to leaflet falls under the freedom of expression, Human Rights Act of 1998 [article 10]Some materials can/ may include graphic images and can cause offence or be seen as unlawful. You can not use:             

* threatening or abusive language towards a group or an individual.             

* insults, defamation or denigration of an individual or a subject can be interpreted as unlawful also.              

* a material that can cause harassment or distress to others.              

* racist or discriminatory words towards a person, ethnic group or anyone.

c) Obstruction/s. The section 137 of the Highways Act 1980 is cited in order to explain how leafleting can cause obstruction of the highway. However it has been established that while leafleting one is expected to engage in a reasonable use of the highway and unless you are not physically stopping someone from passing you then you are not committing any offence. It matters if you are polite, non aggressive and to hand out fliers in a civil way.

 d) Damages and fines. If a letterbox has been damaged or if a leaflet has been stuck on property or beneath the car wipers and has caused some damage, it may amount to criminal damage if the owner has to make an effort to remove your flier or incurs costs while doing it. Some Councils may fine you under the Environment Act of 2005, especially during handouts and promotions where people can take your flier and throw it away few meters after passing you. It is important that you are aware of this and make sure to pick the fliers up and to have the means of disposing them.

Leafleting is a basic human right and anyone can and is allowed to do it, provided that rules are followed. In smaller quantities anyone can leaflet and with some practice is not that hard. In case you have considerable quantities is better to call the professionals, as it needs to be done at set times, supervised, organised, with the right amount of planning and organisation. See our blog for articles in door to door leaflet delivery and also for handouts and promotions.

Case Study Overview

This case study focuses on the Local Advertising in context of a time-sensitive schedule. The approach is to beat the deadline. Via a number of agile methods that are used for emergency cases only. Leafleting needs to planned and coordinated in plenty of time by fulfilling our client’s needs,to be organized in advance based on our long term commitments, regular clients and team placements. In some cases the Time is against us and the Client needs this by a certain date coming at the last minute.

In order  to raise an Emergency Job in leafleting terms, the client needs to come to us with a dated leaflet, an event that has been pre-arranged, a launch party or quick message for the community that unless is done at a particular time, the fliers would go to waste one day after that.

Background

At the end of last week Nina, an Accounting Executive from Stratton Craig came to us with a problem that had to be solved fast. The client they did represent was opening a fitness center and before Wednesday the 8-th Sept, it had t be completed. Was it possible?

The materials were not ready yet, to be printed on Sunday and delivered by Monday 1PM from printers based in Bath. This made it tighter still as the job had to be organized for late noon. The leaflets were dated, the printers could deliver too late [traffic etc] so it all hung in the balance, one glitch and all would fall. We agreed to do it.               

Nina, as a member of www.strattoncraig.co.uk  a creative thinking and persuasive copy for leading design agencies, was helping with PR and Advertising their client Mark Anthony one of London’s premier fitness gurus http://www.markanthonysuk.com and she kept in close contact until the materials did reach us.

As everything fell into place, 2 teams were sent for late noon delivery on Monday and then during Tuesday, we also sent two of our operatives to hand out fliers at Holland Park and Notting Hill tube stations.

Achievement 

For two days, also despite the Monday afternoon rain our guys covered all the sectors the client needed to saturate in the W2 and beyond. Based on this people did turn up to register for classes and our client was pleased with the results, our expertise in distribution and quality of work, furthermore with our ability to organize the job and beat the deadline at a short notice.

In order to get to a great start, all the specifics of Local Advertising have to be discussed and pre-arranged with our clients. The Distributor should know all the necessary information:

-      The business / service that our client promoting.

-      Format of material to be delivered out there.

-      Content of the material.

-      Target and demographics groups that any particular campaign is aiming for.

·         Appearance – it is very important that distribution operatives are in hi-visibility uniforms or at any promotional dress that we agree with the client. He/she must look smart, professional and have a clear idea of the task to be completed. It may look simple, but it is not. We all have seen distributors that hang around, looking bored, making no effort to connect with the public, smoking, chewing gum, no proper uniforms, 2-3 standing close together and aimless wandering, simply being at work but not doing it properly.

·         Position – it can make or break any campaign whatever expense and initial planning has gone into it. Standing behind a wall or in an area where there are other distributors or that is classed as low footwork will not create the desired contact with the public. Rarely people will go to ask for a leaflet, it is the distributor’ s job to reach politely in their direction and be able to explain the material’ s content.

Distributors should be active, use own initiative and by being able to move around in the best possible area. If near a tube station, they have to be positioned in way that both incoming and outgoing traffic can be seen. Handouts require some degree of experience, people who are generally outgoing, enjoy interaction with the public and with the ability to think in their feet.

·         Communication – it is not enough to handout a leaflet and consider the work done. For the massive volumes of work is practically impossible to explain to every person what the flier is about, however a good distributor can use some prepared and simple phrases that can be said at the same time a flier goes in the public’ s hands. Explaining an offer, a launch party, a promotional voucher an address venue etc. Everyone has to know the content of material, what our client is offering and how to reply to people’s questions, and yes many people ask us in the street, what is this about? We have to promote and communicate, while also handing out the flier. Thanking people who take fliers marks a professional distributor doing a proper job, from someone that is not focused and motivated.

Generally fliers need to be handed out with an extended arm in a way that the targeted person should not have to move around you, blocking the path of people moving about is not considered a successful form or leafleting. The distributor should look people in the eye, smile and if someone refuses to take the material not to take this personally.

In high density crowds often happens that if the 1-st person will not take the flier, those behind tend not to take it, so it is advisable to let few people pass and resume with others instead of trying to force it in anyone and losing momentum. Walking around with or opposite the crowd helps with the dynamics and the movement of the crowd, a better way than a fixed-point distributor. Having many people moving in one place can be good, but counter productive too, people walking at fast pace may not take the flier or drop it at the next bin, in this case the distributor is advised to move to a quieter place able to target people with more accuracy and increasing the chances of the material to be kept.

Another method that has proved very effective is to target small crowds. A group of people waiting at the theater, in front of a stadium, pubs, bars, in parks, students hanging around together, with a polite approach and simple explanation groups are usually receptive and one message can filter down to more than one person.

In same cases some people can be confrontational, the distributor must remain calm, rational and continue their work with people who are more receptive.

Lastly, it is the right or anyone to leaflet about most things and advertise about his ideas, business or service; however a professional distributor is responsible for his place of work. Some distribution spots require permission from the council, the institution or the landlord of that particular place, however in any case environmental issue must be considered. All distributing operatives should have the means to collect the materials that are thrown in the floor by the public and collect them so the place is kept clean.

It was a call like any other, asking for a quote, but the distribution was needed very fast. What is it regarding? We asked.

Well…we have lost our cat, from many days we have tried to deliver fliers ourselves but with no success, we think is the time to call the professionals to cover larger areas, can you help ASAP?!  Of course we will try, it’s a bit tight as a deadline, but we will do our best. 

They were two kind girls, Kamlyn & Kate, very upset that their cat was nowhere to be seen. During our course of work we receive some unusual requests, some are emergency ones to notify the community late at night about a burst water-pipe, some are weird ones a Uni’s PR lady wanting us to pull people from the street, “could we persuade members of the public to register and commit 4-5 years of their life just like that?” – of course not. 

Others, are stranger still, like the suburban GB who found her hubby with another woman in bed, printed 300 home-made fliers and wanted us to find a printer to print 5.000 more and stick them on trees, shops and drop them through letterboxes to tell “whole world” Tomorrow…what a cad he was. Of course we said no, we have rules and can’t deliver defamatory or insulting material despite “the pay being very good” in her own words. We have quite some stories to tell. The story of Pablo is a heartwarming one. Usually we just complete a good delivery and our operatives move onto the next job, not all clients tell us about returns or the flow of inquiries and anyhow most know that returns with the best possible delivery are outside of our control, but Finding Pablo is one of these tales that can make our job worthwhile and raise a smile. 

In their Thank You note they wrote: 

Hi to all members of your team! Just wanted to say thank you for such a speedy service last week.

It might have been a bit of a strange one but it worked!

Someone called last night who had been sheltering Pablo the cat for the last 3 weeks, and he’s now safely home.

We can’t thank you enough.Best wishes, Kate D.

It was one of those days, all the guys and girls working in that area couldn’t have been happier. These two girls, our clients, spent a lot to find their beloved cat, a 10 month old tabby called Pablo. He was well kept, micro-chipped and received the best care and attention.

To find him, it took his owners persistence and love, a printing company, a distributing company and two teams of our operatives covering a large area. All in all, in our estimation around 20 people were involved. Pablo was found. Operation “Finding Pablo” was a success. From now on he will be kept on a shorter leash.

The concept of teamwork is extremely important to the success of our teams. Teamwork is the capability to comprehend and recognize the diverse strengths and abilities in a group setting and then applying them to one final solution. We always try to help the team-members learn from each other by combining the efforts of more experienced operatives with the newer ones coming through. Any group of people trying to achieve a common goal, in our case a good distribution rate, should realize that this can only be completed by the co-operative efforts of every one. 

Team leaders monitor performance based on targets reached, also on speed and thoroughness of delivery in order to find solutions to maximize performance. By nature Leaflet Distribution is hard physical work, teams working outside in the field, need monitoring, the right amount of organization and constant logistical support. The key to a successful distribution is Adaptation. Leafleting takes us to different places. Area density can change, as can the speed of delivery and client’s specifications also vary, in turn it is up to our distributors to adapt very fast to any change that is needed. Working outside in different weather conditions and at different parts of the city makes every job a little different than the previous one. 

All of our teams understand that without Teamwork a successful delivery will not be possible, that is why all individual operatives are aware at all times that Leaflet Distribution is a collective effort. 

Up to December last year one of the best teams was Red Team directed by Anil, working with Sam, Raj and Deepak, the guys did area saturation in Kensington, Chelsea, Noting Hill, Holland park and Shepherds Bush.

This month’s example is the Green Team that covers Camden Town, St Johns Wood-Maida Vale and Hampstead areas. Rakesh, Paveen [T. Leader] Mo and Manu. 

Some of our clients prefer Handouts rather than door to door for several reasons:

• handouts allow you to target the campaign more efficiently
• a certain group can be targeted with accuracy
• useful feedback given to advertisers by the public
• our operatives can engage with the members of the public
• the response rate, sometimes, is better than d-2-d.

Handouts will bring success if the leaflet is cleverly designed to attract the client’s interest, if some special offers are included and adding a voucher or a discount for your perspective clients. An attractive Promotional Material combined with benefits and discounts for your client, has more chance to catch the attention of anyone reading your fliers.

Usually handouts are carried out in high density areas like shopping centers, tube stations, stadiums, etc. but also in supermarkets, main roads, busy junctions-traffic lights etc. Whatever your needs maybe, with any idea you want to discuss, write to us with your plans, we will prepare a course of action tailor made for your business on how to get the best from your Local Advertising Campaign.

As we leave a busy year behind, so many things to remember and talk about. Different situations, new clients, old ones we have become friends and many, many stories.

We’d like to remember our team members, their hard work, charities we support [all charities we deliver for get a 10% discount] and of course the main point has to be this Season of Festivities and Good Will.  To all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.