software for leaflet and flyer delivery companies

Some flyering companies boast that they possess software enabling them to calculate the exact number of properties in each street, as if that actually guarantees that their staff are going to deliver your leaflets! Knowing the number of houses in each road is not what the business is. It is about ensuring reliable leaflet delivery and no software in the world is going to facilitate that. I worked as a computer programmer for 5 years, mainly in banking in the City and also for a Swiss bank in Basel (...casual name dropping!), but I cannot see the value of so called "bespoke" software for leafleting. It is unnecessary, as you are running a leaflet distribution company, not a Swiss bank, and you will never be dealing with millions of rows of data. Also, new software created on a small scale without extensive testing will have bugs in it which will be a real pain to sort out. A spreadsheet like Excel is fine for recording information and it has the advantage of having been used by vast numbers of people, so the problems have been ironed out. It is very simple and does not need specialised skills to operate. The numbers of properties in each postcode and town are available for free on the internet for anyone with the skill to move a mouse and click! Don't laugh, as I once hired a new office administrator who on her first day just sat in front of her computer which was off. I was bemused and eventually broke the awkward silence by asking her what the matter was. She did not know how to turn the computer on! It was not an auspicious omen and she didn't last long!

leafletsdistributionservices.co.uk

leaflets.tv

leaflet-distribution.co.uk

leafletsdelivered.com

leafletsdelivered.co.uk

Flyer response rates and the best flyer design

It is funny how the response rates from flyering vary from place to place and industry to industry. For example, fast food restaurants obtain most of their enquiries from lower end housing, whilst sectors like domestic cleaning and new kitchens concentrate on average and higher end properties. Some areas you imagine would be good turn out to be worse than you thought and vice versa. For example, Maidenbower in Crawley gets deluged with leaflets, so whilst at first glance it appears to have some of the best houses in Crawley, you may well be better hitting nearby areas that are not hit so hard with a mass of leaflets, such as Three Bridges, Ifield and West Green. Our franchisees can advise you on this, based on experience, thereby saving you a significant amount of money in wasted marketing. In Surrey, Sussex and Kent, there is a wide choice of towns with high incomes, such as Reigate, Redhill, Horsham, East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks, Oxted and Brighton, so there are plenty of potential clients with the funds to buy your product or service. The trick is to have one of the few decent, trustworthy door to door delivery companies making sure all your leaflets actually hit hallways, not skips or hedges!

Regarding the leaflet itself, please don’t use very thin paper, especially for larger leaflets, as they crumple in draught-excluders in letterboxes! They also look bad. Additionally, the paper absorbs water, so if there is even very light rain, it can turn them into mush! 250 gsm (grams per square meter), A6 (postcard sized), full colour gloss both sides is my favourite. It is rigid enough to go through a letterbox easily without being damaged, light to carry for leafleters, it fits into a hand well and the gloss finish is water-resistant. We can organise your printing for you.

My early days, starting out years ago

Running a company delivering leaflets actually requires a fair degree of skill. When I started out, years ago in 2004, I made all the classic mistakes that new businesses make in this field. It took me a long time to discover the fundamentals that provide a guaranteed, successful leaflet drop. It is rare that a leaflet distribution company lasts for very long. I watched a good, hard-working man approach this business wrongly and complain to me at the end that “I have wasted 2 years of my life.” It was in my early days and I couldn’t help him, but now I would offer him a management franchise and teach him how to do it properly. The cost of the franchise would be more than paid back via avoiding all the typical errors that lose an amateur leaflet business (and its clients!) so much money.

Most leaflet delivery firms are frankly pretty awful! It won’t take you long ringing them at random based on a google search and entrusting them with your money to find that out! I also run a cleaning company, the management franchise www.nationwidecleaners.co.uk , and one of my first experiences of hiring a leafleting firm to drop my cleaning leaflets was that they definitely did “drop” them, but nowhere near any letterboxes! I was shocked at just how bad they were. After trying several, I decided I could do better, as I already had experience of managing my own leafleters delivering cleaning leaflets. How people applying for a job as a leafleter can try to lie and steal if they sense weakness and a lack of experience in managing leafleting would shock you. For example, a lady wanting extra income for her holiday spending money worked for me when I had just started up and I was a novice at it. In the beginning, I was just too trusting, telling her how I needed my new business to be a financial success for my new baby and wife who didn’t work. She listened attentively. At the time, I was driving an old VW Polo and she turned up in her husband’s fairly new Mercedes. She dumped my leaflets and demanded the cash. Stealing money intended for baby food is one of the most despicable things I can think of and I will never forget this. What I should have done is to have screened her reasons for leafleting initially which would set alarm bells ringing that she is just doing it for money, rather than additionally for weight loss, fitness, exercise, fresh air, to get out of the house etc. Then, if I decided to hire her, I should have made it very clear that I need a full list of streets done and that she would only be paid once the checks have been successfully carried out. Also, I should have stressed that if it is not done properly, there are penalties. She would then have thought very carefully indeed about dumping the leaflets, balancing her greed with her fear! Still, this knowledge only comes with experience and practice.

Reliability, not price, is number one in leafleting!

23 February 2011

If you are new to leafleting, there is a very important point I would like to make. For businesses that have never utilised a flyer service for their marketing before, they often assume that price is the main deciding factor. This is very far from the truth! I have put a 3 minute audio presentation on the website explaining this, as I have repeated it about a million times to potential clients…! Reliability, in the sense that your leaflets will actually reach letterboxes, is number one. This is the main concern of experienced clients, such as estate agents, who have used leafleting for years and it is my foremost priority.

Our head office covers Surrey and Sussex:

Ashtead, Brighton, Bookham, Burgess Hill, Coulsdon, Crawley, Croydon, Cuckfield, Dorking, Epsom, Ewell, Fetcham, Hassocks, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Hove, Hurstpierpoint, Leatherhead, Lindfield, Portslade, Purley, Redhill, Reigate, Tadworth and surrounding areas.

Call Peter Munro on 01293 404422 (Weekdays 8:30 to 6:30)
Email: info@leaflets.tv
Please leave a message at other times, as calls are always returned.

Our southeast office covers Kent and parts of Sussex

Crowborough, East Grinstead, Edenbridge, Forest Row, Horley, Lingfield,
Oxted, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Uckfield and surrounding areas.
Call Dermot on 07779 262109 (Weekdays 8:30 to 6:30)
Email: southeast@leaflets.tv
Please leave a message at other times, as calls are always returned.

Our London office covers:

We cover Anerley, Battersea, Beckenham, Bromley, Camberwell,
Cheam, Clapham, Chislehurst, Crystal Palace, Hayes, Kingston,
Mitcham, Norwood, Putney, Richmond, Sheen, Sutton,
Teddington, Thornton Heath, Tooting, Twickenham,
Wandsworth, West Wickham, Wimbledon and surrounding areas.

Call Alex on 020 8778 1260 (Weekdays 9:30 to 5:30)
Email: richmond@leaflets.tv
Please leave a message at other times, as calls are always returned.

Welcome! Leaflet Distribution (tm)

Welcome to this blog about running a firm delivering leaflets door to door. My name is Peter Munro and I am the managing director of Leaflet Distribution ^TM  which operates in numerous locations across Britain. Our delivery staff are carefully screened, experienced and reliable compared to the vast majority of our competitors. I have tried to include some interesting stories and observations into the blog from time to time to make it a bit more entertaining, as when dealing with large numbers of people, you are guaranteed some incidents!