flyer distribution experiences?

zoid

I want to get 600 flyers distributed in my local area - Dun Laoghaire.

google searching "flyer distribution dublin" brings up a lot of companies, wondering if anyone has had any experience using any of them?

cheapleafletdistribution.ie seems almost too good to be true, €40 per 1000.

robertdoyle

I know I had 5,000 flyers printed and delivered privately last year and it did not work as well as I had hoped. With the professional companies, you would like to think that they can be trusted but it is easy for one of their men to drop 50 into a bin on the way around. If they can guarantee that this will not happen, it could be a winner. You should also look at the type of person that is delivering. If they look unclean or unprofessional, they could get linked to your business. Despite the obvious problems that I am sure you have already thought about, it can certainly work well if you have the right business or product. I would recommend you put an excellent offer on the flyer, that way you will see if they circulate and generate sales etc.

zoid

robertdoyle wrote: »

I know I had 5,000 flyers printed and delivered privately last year and it did not work as well as I had hoped. With the professional companies, you would like to think that they can be trusted but it is easy for one of their men to drop 50 into a bin on the way around. If they can guarantee that this will not happen, it could be a winner. You should also look at the type of person that is delivering. If they look unclean or unprofessional, they could get linked to your business. Despite the obvious problems that I am sure you have already thought about, it can certainly work well if you have the right business or product. I would recommend you put an excellent offer on the flyer, that way you will see if they circulate and generate sales etc.

what company did you use, and around how much did it cost?

I just got a quote from All Homes - 7,800 fliers in my area, printed and distributed, for 729. It is more than I'm willing to spend at the moment though, and that is the smallest order they are willing to take. so i'm still looking around

robertdoyle

zoid wrote: »

what company did you use, and around how much did it cost?

I just got a quote from All Homes - 7,800 fliers in my area, printed and distributed, for 729. It is more than I'm willing to spend at the moment though, and that is the smallest order they are willing to take. so i'm still looking around

I paid someone privately. Pay a student to do it, the trust issue increases but the cost is excellent. I think it cost me €200 to get around 3,500 flyers handed out. Another way I found useful to get rid of a lot of flyers quickly and effectively was targeting weekly mass. If you go to the carparks of each church in your locality and leave a flyer under each cars window wiper, you can get through about 150 flyers in 30mins.

zoid

robertdoyle wrote: »

I paid someone privately. Pay a student to do it, the trust issue increases but the cost is excellent. I think it cost me €200 to get around 3,500 flyers handed out. Another way I found useful to get rid of a lot of flyers quickly and effectively was targeting weekly mass. If you go to the carparks of each church in your locality and leave a flyer under each cars window wiper, you can get through about 150 flyers in 30mins.

Thanks! great ideas. much prefer the idea of getting someone I know to do it, rather than a company.

Peterdalkey

Only slightly on topic but I have noticed a huge increase in the number of people who have "No junk Mail" stickers up. B&Q and Woodies must sell a lot of them!! Could meaningfully impact on hitting your target market, if the request is observed by leafleters.

Itsdacraic

zoid wrote: »

I want to get 600 flyers distributed in my local area - Dun Laoghaire.

google searching "flyer distribution dublin" brings up a lot of companies, wondering if anyone has had any experience using any of them?

cheapleafletdistribution.ie seems almost too good to be true, €40 per 1000.

If they are the same crowd that operate Limerick then they get the job done. I know a friend down here who used them and was happy with the service and response. But It was a menu drop for a takeaway so people are probably more open to getting those type of fliers in the door.

highlandseoghan

I found allhomes and leaflet company ireland very good. I have also hired people to do leaflets and it has worked out well. The problem hiring people, it can take longer to get your leaflets delivered. The bigger companies I dont think will deliver only 600 as it is a small amount for them.

Becareful sticking flyers under windscreen wipers as you could get people claiming you broke there wipers.

highlandseoghan

I meant to say there is a new company admailer.ie that might be perfect for the amount your looking to get delivered. I think its part of An post. Im planning on using them next month for a small catchement area to try out a new offer.


Big companies normaly charge anything from €60 - €80 per 1000 leaflets.

ted1

600 leaflets will take about 3 hours, do it yourself one afternoon.

unnameduser

Leaflets can be an effective low cost way of advertising. But a word of warning.Leaving leaflets under the wipers is risky. if they end up on the ground you may be liable for litter fines.

zoid

ted1 wrote: »

600 leaflets will take about 3 hours, do it yourself one afternoon.

oops, mistyped in the original post, should have been 6,000

also got a quote from admailer, seems way too expensive: over €500 for only 800 houses. would probably have better results than flyers though as each house receives a postcard.

cheapleafletdistributor quote is €200 for 5,000. thinking i'll go with that and deliver the last 1,000 myself...

Axwell

robertdoyle wrote: »

Another way I found useful to get rid of a lot of flyers quickly and effectively was targeting weekly mass. If you go to the carparks of each church in your locality and leave a flyer under each cars window wiper, you can get through about 150 flyers in 30mins.

Guaranteed way to piss people off and find your flyers just balled up and thrown on the ground. I would imagine most people hate people touching their car and its pretty much the equivalent of spamming them. Its unlikely the church or whoever owns the carpark will be too happy then with the amount of litter left behind. I would avoid this at all costs..

longhalloween

Axwell wrote: »

Guaranteed way to piss people off and find your flyers just balled up and thrown on the ground. I would imagine most people hate people touching their car and its pretty much the equivalent of spamming them. Its unlikely the church or whoever owns the carpark will be too happy then with the amount of litter left behind. I would avoid this at all costs..

Do flyers actually work?

I handed them out one Saturday morning once and I'd say a majority got thrown in the bin immediately.

Surely there has to be a more effective way of targeting your market without spamming everyone.

Decoda

Is the placing of flyers on windscreens not illegal?

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/environment/environmental_protection/litter_law.html

Advertising flyers
The placing of advertising leaflets on car windscreens is illegal. If you are proposing to distribute advertising leaflets in the street, you should first check with the local authority to see if they have introduced any local litter restrictions, which they are entitled to do.

?

D

Atomico

Aren't flyers just junk mail?

Start with your objectives, and then look to see which mediums(s) are best suited to allowing you to achieve them.

For example, could you do a limited run of flyers with a particular offer code on them? Then, as the offers are claimed you will be able to gauge your return on them (how much you spent printing them and having them distributed against how many sales were generated, etc).

dozy doctor

robertdoyle wrote: »

I paid someone privately. Pay a student to do it, the trust issue increases but the cost is excellent. I think it cost me €200 to get around 3,500 flyers handed out. Another way I found useful to get rid of a lot of flyers quickly and effectively was targeting weekly mass. If you go to the carparks of each church in your locality and leave a flyer under each cars window wiper, you can get through about 150 flyers in 30mins.

I wouldn't be so quick to put flyers under windscreen wipers, as it its illegal and you can be done for littering....

Try publicity mailing.... They should give you a good price....

zoid

longhalloween wrote: »

Do flyers actually work?

I handed them out one Saturday morning once and I'd say a majority got thrown in the bin immediately.

Surely there has to be a more effective way of targeting your market without spamming everyone.

I won't be putting flyers on windscreens. But still seems like door to door fliering is a good way to let people in my local area know about my business (guitar lessons).

Would be interested to hear any other ideas also?

Hanley

If you do it, make sure you've some way to judge it's effectiveness (your return on investment). Something simple like "bring this flyer to your first lesson for a 50% discount" or whatever. You can then see how much a given person pays you over time based off your flyer and decide if its worth the investment going forwards.

thecommander

Hanley wrote: »

If you do it, make sure you've some way to judge it's effectiveness (your return on investment). Something simple like "bring this flyer to your first lesson for a 50% discount" or whatever. You can then see how much a given person pays you over time based off your flyer and decide if its worth the investment going forwards.

To get better information on return, put a small mark on the flyer so you can tell what area it came from, the staff member or day it was handed out. A set of colored markers comes in handy. You can then work out if you're wasting your time in a particular estate, or handing out on the wrong day etc.

Bits_n_Bobs

Dumping them under windscreens is illegal and should be avoided.

I've used allhomes and they are fine, if a bit expensive. There are cheaper alternatives out there, however as has been posted before you're faced with an issue of trust.

Flyers can have a long lead time - I did one leaflet drop a year ago and got a customer last month from it. My own experience of leaflets is mixed, I definitely would not discount doing it again. I've also tried advertising in the free local papers and can categorically say I will not be doing that again - zero ROI.

micromary

I have found flyers to be a complete waste of money. The guy in the leaflet company said as much as well. I got no response for the 4,000 given. I did 200 myself and found myself walking around for ages to avoid "no junk mail" houses. It does not seem effective or cost efficient. One guy even came out and gave out for putting one through his door even though there was no junk mail notice on and I got attacked in another place. Waste of time and money is my experience.

highlandseoghan

I have a lot of positive experience with flyers and find them great at getting customers and sales but I suppose it depends on the business. Try it and see how you get on. Just on the free newspaper ads I also have ran a few ads in the free newspapers and find them the worst form of advertising going complete waste of money.

Spurtacus

I delivered free newspapers for a few years & used to do flyer drops to supplement my income.
You'll get about 500 homes done a night if you target newish type estates with short drives or even no walls in between.
Get buzzed in to apartment complexes & there will be loads of postboxes on one wall, very easy.

Our direct marketing agency used to reckon 2% pick up based on flyer delivery, not a great return but depends on the business.

zoid

to update this thread, this was my campaign:

5,000 flyers were printed (by The Leaflet Store, offering a good deal, €99)

3,000 were distributed around Monkstown and Blackrock by The Leaflet Company (€40 per 1,000). wasn't too happy with the paid distribution - they didn't get distributed in the areas they were supposed to be delivered. Got 2 calls from these 3,000 flyers.

My wife and I distributed the rest around Glasthule and Dun Laoghaire. Another 4 calls from these 2,000. Numbers too small to gather much useful info. As you'd expect, there was a better result from us delivering the flyers singly than from a company (who deliver 3 different flyers at each house). Its extremely time consuming though! probably around 100 per hour.

I got 6 calls from the flyers, which is a .01% conversion rate. Not great.

However, it was still worthwhile as it resulted in at least 3 new students (and possibly still more to come). I will try again with an improved flyer design and distribution system.

highlandseoghan

I am suprised at the leaflet company not doing a good job they normally do a very good job. If they didnt deliver your leaflets to house they were expected to get onto them and say it.

Although you didnt get a good result from your leaflets you still gained customers and I find the response from leaflets can take months unless your doing an offer for a period of time on the leaflet.

I also found in certain areas I cant get a good response and certain areas I get a great response but this takes time to gather this information. Another thing I noticed that it can take 2 - 3 leaflets over a few months to gain a customer and I feel this is due to the first leaflet they are unsure how reliable / trusting the company is but as time goes by and they get more flyers from the same company they get a bit more faith in the company and realise that its not a fly by night company.

Duckjob

micromary wrote: »

I have found flyers to be a complete waste of money. The guy in the leaflet company said as much as well. I got no response for the 4,000 given. I did 200 myself and found myself walking around for ages to avoid "no junk mail" houses. It does not seem effective or cost efficient. One guy even came out and gave out for putting one through his door even though there was no junk mail notice on and I got attacked in another place. Waste of time and money is my experience.

Slightly OT, but I really don't get people that get so worked up about flyers in the door. If you're not interested just pop in in your green bin. I take it that guy has never ordered a pizza or a chinese from a flyer popped in his door.

BusinessGuy

I own an IT business, and a few years ago my business provided IT support to homes. I invested a few thousand, maybe around 5,000 euro and got 50,000 flyers printed and distributed. I got all homes to do it for me. I think alot of my flyers never made it to any homes, i received complaints from home owners saying their dog had been left out the gate, some others saying the no junk mail sign was ignored, and i did some follow up checks to see if people actually got the flyers and i noticed that alot of estates just got skipped altogether.

That said, of my 50,000 flyers i would guess about 40,000 actually got delivered to a home. I made back my money from the flyers within 6 weeks, and all business that came through after that was profit. It worked for me because i designed a very affective flyer and deliverd on a large scale. You wouldn't believe how many flyers you have to deliver to just get one person to look at your flyer, never mind getting one person to look at your flyer who actually wants your service. Unfortunately, like everything in business you need to invest to get a return, so don't go handing out flyers yourself, pay to get them delivered on a large scale and let your business benefit from economies of scale.

Obviously the type of business that you are in and the number of customers that you need to start turning a profit, and the type of service and cost of the service that you are offering all plays an impact in this, but i just wanted to give my thoughts in case it helps.

bbam

highlandseoghan wrote: »

I meant to say there is a new company admailer.ie that might be perfect for the amount your looking to get delivered. I think its part of An post. Im planning on using them next month for a small catchement area to try out a new offer.


Big companies normaly charge anything from €60 - €80 per 1000 leaflets.

i just checked admailer for a 1km radius which covers 770 residential houses. they are looking for €440 ex vat for printing and delivery. Rural town

seems expensive

BusinessGuy

You will certainly pay more for rural towns but yes I think that is an outrageous price.

antoinolachtnai

An Post have a widget on their website to generate a quote for leaflet drops, delivered with the mail.

It is basically around 10c/house.

I would not expect to pay less than 8c for a leaflet delivery. A well run leaflet drop is just not a cheap thing to do. You can get delivery guys to quote you anything you want, but if you pay less than 8c/leaflet, you just will not get many delivered.

In my experience the quality of the leaflet helped a lot. It really has to stand out. I did a three-colour thing with a metallic ink, produced by a great design firm.

Paper weight helps too. I did 240gsm A4 folded into a leaflet.

As I recall the campaign I did last in Swords was around

1200+VAT for printing
1400+VAT or so to deliver to 16000 homes and some industrial commercial too

I had design coming forward from a previous campaign. You can argue forever about the cost and value of design. I have contacts in the area and am comfortable spending money in that business and getting value for it. The trick is to keep your design costs in proportion with your overall printing/promotion spend.

At the same time, I would think carefully about whether sending leaflets is right for your business. It is a bit of an instant reaction you see in local businesses like gyms and takeaway restaurants. Need more business => send out some fliers. It isn't necessarily going to be effective. Sometimes it seems to be done more out of desperation than anything else.

I wouldn't expect too much out of a leaflet campaign with a drop of less than 5000 or so. If there aren't enough houses to cover that, I would leaflet the same area again and again, month after month. The repetition does help.

If you can put meaningful vouchers in the leaflet, it will help a lot to gauge the effectiveness of the thing.

YossiA

What sales conversion rates did you achieve?

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

An Post have a widget on their website to generate a quote for leaflet drops, delivered with the mail.

It is basically around 10c/house.

I would not expect to pay less than 8c for a leaflet delivery. A well run leaflet drop is just not a cheap thing to do. You can get delivery guys to quote you anything you want, but if you pay less than 8c/leaflet, you just will not get many delivered.

In my experience the quality of the leaflet helped a lot. It really has to stand out. I did a three-colour thing with a metallic ink, produced by a great design firm.

Paper weight helps too. I did 240gsm A4 folded into a leaflet.

As I recall the campaign I did last in Swords was around

1200+VAT for printing
1400+VAT or so to deliver to 16000 homes and some industrial commercial too

I had design coming forward from a previous campaign. You can argue forever about the cost and value of design. I have contacts in the area and am comfortable spending money in that business and getting value for it. The trick is to keep your design costs in proportion with your overall printing/promotion spend.

At the same time, I would think carefully about whether sending leaflets is right for your business. It is a bit of an instant reaction you see in local businesses like gyms and takeaway restaurants. Need more business => send out some fliers. It isn't necessarily going to be effective. Sometimes it seems to be done more out of desperation than anything else.

I wouldn't expect too much out of a leaflet campaign with a drop of less than 5000 or so. If there aren't enough houses to cover that, I would leaflet the same area again and again, month after month. The repetition does help.

If you can put meaningful vouchers in the leaflet, it will help a lot to gauge the effectiveness of the thing.

bbam

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

An Post have a widget on their website to generate a quote for leaflet drops, delivered with the mail.

It is basically around 10c/house.

It's more like €0.57 a leaflet delivered when I checked...

EIREHotspur

I think people have to come up with more imaginative ways of advertising nowadays.

Flyers nearly always end up in a bin.

unnameduser

Flyers do serve a purpose.

I have seen where we've been called to houses and see flyers / businesses cards 2 years old pinned to a fridge or the inside of a cupboard door or wallet.

It's a bit like a local chinese menu. We'll all use and need one at some stage, and we'll know where in the house to find the it when we need it.

It all depends on the business, amongst many other factors. Although, from a B2C basis, flyers are hard to ignore.

Zascar

I think it very much depends on what product or service you are offering what conversion rate you are going to get. The more specialist or niche the product/service, the lower its going to be. But if it is something that most households may have a need for at some stage, I’d say the conversion rate could be good. . A friend of mine runs a car valeting business in south Dublin and he’s trying to build his client base, I think a leaflet drop could be very effective. I did a Google search and there are loads of companies offering this. I just need to pick the right one. Does anyone have any recommendations?

bbam

Just going to drag this one up as I got a call from Golden Pages offering leaflet distribution, was surprised they did this.

They were offering 5000 leaflets, designed and delivered for €550 (presume plus vat)
But a similar number on admailer.ie is north of €2k
I'm in a rural county so it would cover the top two urban areas..


Does anyone know who they get to do the drops and are they reliable ??
I'm not in a position at the moment but maybe down the line....

Gloomtastic!

bbam wrote: »

Just going to drag this one up as I got a call from Golden Pages offering leaflet distribution, was surprised they did this.

They were offering 5000 leaflets, designed and delivered for €550 (presume plus vat)
But a similar number on admailer.ie is north of €2k
I'm in a rural county so it would cover the top two urban areas..


Does anyone know who they get to do the drops and are they reliable ??
I'm not in a position at the moment but maybe down the line....

To be honest, I've never heard of Golden Pages doing this (although they do need to change their revenue streams). It seems a very good rate including printing. I'd want to see something in writing via the post on proper printed letterheads before signing anything.

Zascar

Can anyone get this, is there a link?

What I wonder is if they are going to deliver your leaflet through the letter box with 11 others, all of which go in the bin...

bbam

bbam wrote: »

Just going to drag this one up as I got a call from Golden Pages offering leaflet distribution, was surprised they did this.

They were offering 5000 leaflets, designed and delivered for €550 (presume plus vat)
But a similar number on admailer.ie is north of €2k
I'm in a rural county so it would cover the top two urban areas..


Does anyone know who they get to do the drops and are they reliable ??
I'm not in a position at the moment but maybe down the line....

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

To be honest, I've never heard of Golden Pages doing this (although they do need to change their revenue streams). It seems a very good rate including printing. I'd want to see something in writing via the post on proper printed letterheads before signing anything.

Zascar wrote: »

Can anyone get this, is there a link?

What I wonder is if they are going to deliver your leaflet through the letter box with 11 others, all of which go in the bin...

I'm curious myself now..
I was on the road when I took the call and coverage was sketchy..
He took my email address as I asked him to send on details of the drop..

Nothing when I got back !!

When I google the number it shows golden pages as a result but I dont see the number listed on their site.. Ringing it back there is a goldenpages.ie voicemail ??

Gloomtastic!

bbam wrote: »

I'm curious myself now..
I was on the road when I took the call and coverage was sketchy..
He took my email address as I asked him to send on details of the drop..

Nothing when I got back !!

When I google the number it shows golden pages as a result but I dont see the number listed on their site.. Ringing it back there is a goldenpages.ie voicemail ??

Earlier, I Googled Golden Pages and Leaflet Distribution and got a load of listings on Golden Pages but no link to a Golden Pages site. That's why I smelt a rat. The web page you were directed to, was it an actual Golden Pages page or a company listing in Golden Pages?

bbam

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Earlier, I Googled Golden Pages and Leaflet Distribution and got a load of listings on Golden Pages but no link to a Golden Pages site. That's why I smelt a rat. The web page you were directed to, was it an actual Golden Pages page or a company listing in Golden Pages?

I wasn't online I was on the phone, driving to an appointment so I couldn't pull over to talk either, they lifted my number of my website..
Thinking back, another odd thing - he asked about google adwords and said something like "we're working with google on that now"

Its definitely a bit odd..

But the number brings up Golden Pages website in google when you restrict the search to Ireland.. ?

bbam

Just had the email from them today..
All looks legit in fairness.. they are teamed up with City Post so that explains how...
They are also registered as a google adwords SME Premium Partner according to the email so that would explain his reference to it...

Anyway.. I thought the price was good and its something I'll be looking at int he future..

zoid

these are prices i paid, worth checking out before you go with the Golden Pages offer...

printing from leafletstore.ie: €99 for 5,000 A5 colour flyers with free delivery

print quality was fine, service was extremely fast.

distribution from Allhomes: €270.60 including VAT for 5,000 flyers

Allhomes say they have a 10,000 minimum run but I got around that by saying I would be getting several more runs of 5,000 and upwards... planning on getting another run out in next few weeks.

Gloomtastic!

zoid wrote: »

these are prices i paid, worth checking out before you go with the Golden Pages offer...

printing from leafletstore.ie: €99 for 5,000 A5 colour flyers with free delivery

print quality was fine, service was extremely fast.

distribution from Allhomes: €270.60 including VAT for 5,000 flyers

Allhomes say they have a 10,000 minimum run but I got around that by saying I would be getting several more runs of 5,000 and upwards... planning on getting another run out in next few weeks.

And what was the response like? Did you make a return on your investment?

zoid

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

And what was the response like? Did you make a return on your investment?

the conversion rate was not great, 0.1%, 5 leads from 5,000

even though only 2 of the 5 leads became students, over three months the income from these two students is enough of a return on the investment to keep trying with flyers.

next steps: improve flyer, increase distribution, keep growing...

:-)

Peterdalkey

The key question that needs to be asked with regard to flyers (or any form of advertising/promotion) a is, how can I be sure I am getting in front of my target market and not just using a hugely wasteful scattergun approach. You would want to be sure that the drop area contains a high proportion of your target market.

There is no point in leafleting the Grand Canal Dock area with a promo for gardening services or replacement windows/conservatories but a cleaning service or fast food delivery set-up might be perfect!!

The more niche the offering, the more difficult it is to target the correct demographic and I would imagine training/education services would require some innovative thinking/research to find out where the typical potential client works/lives/hangs out and hit them there!

Zascar

I heard an add on the radio this week for one of the flyer ditribution people - saying they have GPS tracking to guarnatee delivery, I think it was http://allhomes.ie/ but not sure - sounded like excellent value anyway

neris

Ive always found flyers give very poor returns on interest and sales. We used to do flyers up to 3 years ago, i think people are getting alot more flyers in their doors now. Ive found adwords to be good and has given far better returns at lower costs then flyers

Mickk

I just did a flyer drop in Greystones for a new gym I opened, we got 10,000 fliers dropped for about 800 euro, (i should also say we did some radio advertising for 400 euro so the response wasn't 100% from the fliers) we advertised a 2 day special price for a years membership and took in about 20k over the weekend. I'll find the name of the company and post it during the week but it worked well for us.

Mickk

The company we used was newsgroup.ie