Flyers still work. Here is what goes on one.
For a gardener, a plumber or a new shop, a few hundred leaflets through the right doors still beats the same money spent online.
The short version
One offer, one action, big enough to read at arm's length while standing over a bin. Deliver a few hundred to streets you can actually reach, twice, a few weeks apart.
A leaflet gets about two seconds, standing in a hallway, over a recycling bin. Almost every flyer is designed as though it will be sat down with and read.
The ones that work are closer to a poster than a brochure: one thing, said large, with an obvious next move.
What goes on it
In order, largest first:
- What you do and where. “Gardening in Kirkstall” beats your business name at the top, every time. The reader's only question is whether this is relevant to them.
- One offer or one reason to act. A first-visit discount, a free quote, a seasonal job like hedge cutting. One. Two offers means a decision, and a decision over a bin means the bin.
- One phone number, large.
- Your name and website, smaller.
Things to leave off: a list of every service, your full history, testimonials nobody can verify, and small print. If you are tempted to add a second paragraph, that is a sign the offer is not clear enough yet.
The photograph
One picture, and let it be of the work rather than of a stock person smiling at a laptop. A before-and-after of an actual hedge, an actual bathroom, an actual shopfront is worth more than anything you can buy from a photo library - partly because it is proof, and partly because everyone has seen the stock one.
Where they go
The delivery matters more than the design, and most people get the geography backwards. A thousand leaflets across a whole city is worse than three hundred through the doors of the four streets around a job you have just finished.
Three reasons the tight radius wins: you can actually get there quickly when somebody rings, your van has already been seen on that street, and neighbours talk to each other about trades in a way they do not about most things.
- Deliver around a completed job, while the van is still outside.
- Go twice, three or four weeks apart. The second drop does more than the first, because the first one is the one that makes your name familiar.
- Avoid the free-paper bundle if you can. A leaflet inside a stack of five others is in the bin as a stack.
- Respect the no-junk-mail signs. The one household guaranteed not to call you is the one you annoyed.
Telling whether it worked
Most leaflet campaigns are judged on a feeling, which is why most people conclude leaflets do not work.
The cheap fix is one line on the flyer: a code, a phrase, or simply asking. “Mention this leaflet” costs you nothing and turns the whole thing into something you can count. If you have a landing page for it rather than sending people to your homepage, you can see the visits as well.
Try this now
Write down, before you print, the number of calls that would make it worth doing again. Then you have a result rather than an impression.
A few common questions.
How many flyers should I print?
Enough for two passes of the area you actually want work in, which for most local trades is a few hundred rather than a few thousand. Print runs get cheaper per unit as they get bigger, which is how people end up with two thousand leaflets and no plan for delivering them.
What size should a flyer be?
A5 is the usual choice and it is a good one - big enough to read at a glance, small enough to be cheap and to go through a letterbox without folding. A6 postcards work for a single strong offer; A4 is usually more paper than the message needs.
Is a leaflet better than online ads?
For a new local trade with no reviews and no search presence, often yes to begin with, because it does not compete with anyone and it reaches the exact streets you want. They do different jobs though - the leaflet creates demand in a small area, search catches demand that already exists.
Should I pay a distribution company?
It depends how much you value your evenings, but check what else goes out in the same bundle. A solus delivery, where yours is the only leaflet, costs more and is worth considerably more than being one of six.
