How effective do you find leaflet dropping?

[blossom]

I did a leaflet drop years ago when I started and it was quite successful.

This year I had a very pro leaflet done and printed properly and everything offering £5 discount and with my price list and everything

I have walked round and delivered 1800 in the last 2/3 months.

So far I have had 1 appointment from that and it was from a girl who normally goes to a relative who is a rival tech in a local salon and just came to me once to get her £5 off.

And this week I got a phone call from a woman who had a leaflet and wanted an appointment that very morning. I was working nose to tail all morning so that was that.

So all in all, a rubbish response. OK, the exercise probably did me good. But with regards to business, it has been a pretty useless exercise.

How have you all found leaflet dropping?

 

[Belle Vie]

I haven't done one myself but from other threads her your experience sounds pretty typical. I think the average response rate according to other geeks was 1-3%

 

[rainbowtanning]

I'd be interested to hear. I've had 1000 3 for 2 Christmas offer flyers printed, have delivered a few but still have a lot left to get out there. Not sure it was worth doing!

 

[Dolly6410]

when i was doing weight watchers a couple of years ago my mum and i would leave 2 hours early and go for a big leaflet drop, i have to kind of admit the biggest bonus was that i usually lost an extra pound by the time i got weighed at the meeting... haha!!! the first few drops i did i got a good response but recently i just get abuse for 'ramming cr**' though peoples doors.. their words not mine! :lol:

 

[nixnewcastle]

I tend to find if you deliver them yourself on a Sunday you get a much better response. We once had a 6000 leaflet drop done with our local paper. We got 1 back!
I'm still to this day convinced that they weren't delivered

 

[Steph86]

I did a small leaflet drop 100 on the closest houses, and I got 1 call who called me months later as I was going to the airport for my holiday and she wanted an appointment that evening! Xx

 

[enlivenbylouise]

I normally get around 1 customer in every 50 leaflets but i do think its dependent on where you are. i'm in a village with only 3 other salons and none mobile as far as i know x:Love:

 

[BizGirl]

Hi, I did regular leaflet drops (about 3000 per drop, 3 times per year, and I printed them myself) in my salon and I found it to be the best strategy for getting new clients. I found that people wouldn't necessarily ring me straight away, but that they would hold onto the leaflet and call me later - sometimes months later. I think doing a leaflet drop combined with other promotional activities will increase your chances of success overall....one leaflet drop in isolation means it has to work a lot harder to be successful. The other thing - what did you offer in your leaflet? Maybe it's the offer that needs to be looked at??

 

[Hairtime]

I always find Facebook to be the best and cheapest! My rule was add 10 from my area once a day(lunch break) every client I do gets a before and after pic uploaded from my page with there's tagged... Creates a bit of buzz/nosey I then get people adding me again and seeing all my pics offers and updated it just snow balked from there on x

 

[Hairtime]

'snow balled

 

[Zooks]

The thing is with Facebook that if you are set up as a profile rather than a page its is against Facebook regs and they can shut your account down without warning, you lose the lot, pictures comments and contacts. Stick to a page.

 

[amyworley]

I did a leaflet drop in about january/feb this year - i got blisters and spent 3 hours of time away from my family to get just 2 new ladies!! I think i did about 600 leaflets!! the remaining flyers have been in my garage and i tend to take about 5 to each lady i go to so that they can hand them out to their friends!

I recently paid a local magazine to deliver 4500 leafets - small independant magazine so i am 100% confident they flyers went out - and the results were obvious - lots and lots of new ladies - lost count!! and the best bit - i live it a village and so my new ladies are all within 5 mins drive of my house!!

it does work at the right time of the year and with the right publication! i get fed up of receiving flyers thru my door - pizza delivery places are normally the ones that clutter up my recycling!!

So I think because my leaflets were in a local magazine - and a better time of the year, it all helped their success!! It cant hurt that they are also brightly coloured!!

 

[salj]

The only leafleting I did was paying to have them put into bridal bags at 2 bridal fayres. It cost me about £100 in total including the flyers and I didn't get one customer out of it.

I'm not planning to do leafleting for my new home salon when it opens.

 

[Verve Designs]

I think doing a leaflet drop combined with other promotional activities will increase your chances of success overall....one leaflet drop in isolation means it has to work a lot harder to be successful. QUOTE]

Exactly right!! any marketing activity in isolation (be that on the web or in print) is pretty much a waste of time.

If you're getting no response from your leafleting then it's either because you're in a bad area in terms of competition, or your business doesn't look attractive enough to people as a proposition.

Stack those odds in your favour by creating a "call to action"- give them a reason to ring you that's over and above a badly designed leaflet that's a list of your services and prices. Integrate it with any other marketing you're doing (such as Facebook or the web).

Even if you're not gettign it designed professionaly there's no excuse for a bad leaflet, as it'll actually do more harm than good- especially as we're all in an industry where aesthetics count. Write it cleverly, make it current, make it seasonal- whatever you can do to inject some personality.

I'm probably boring people senseless with this, but at our level of business (i.e. not national businesses) the only way you'll ever find out is by running two or three leafleting campaigns.

Also- 1,000 leaflets is a drop in the ocean- it needs to be a LOT more than this.

At my choice of printers you can get 1,000 single sided leaflets for £66

However....you can get 5,000 for THREE pounds more.

 

[elliebee]

every client I do gets a before and after pic uploaded from my page with there's tagged...

But you can't tag from a business page????

 

[Hairtime]

But you can't tag from a business page????

I don't have a business page I have a profile,I do run the risk that Facebook may delete it one day but my client base is large enough now that I am known in the area so will then give in and get a like page,but when I started out unknown it was harder to constantly try get likes when no one knew me x

 

[mrslargelashes]

Elliebee, any statuses I put on my business 'like' page, I 'share' on my own profile, then you can tag it from there, hth x

 

[Pinkbunny28]

But you can't tag from a business page????

I did??

 

[Carlalouise]

I did a leaflet drop in the summer and got an amazing response with a 20% discount, however I got the bargain chasers, they are not stayers!! So this month I did a leaflet drop with 10% off your first and second treatment - nothing!!

Leaflet drops seem to be very hit and miss.

 

[Pinkbunny28]

I did a leaflet drop in about january/feb this year - i got blisters and spent 3 hours of time away from my family to get just 2 new ladies!! I think i did about 600 leaflets!! the remaining flyers have been in my garage and i tend to take about 5 to each lady i go to so that they can hand them out to their friends!

I recently paid a local magazine to deliver 4500 leafets - small independant magazine so i am 100% confident they flyers went out - and the results were obvious - lots and lots of new ladies - lost count!! and the best bit - i live it a village and so my new ladies are all within 5 mins drive of my house!!

it does work at the right time of the year and with the right publication! i get fed up of receiving flyers thru my door - pizza delivery places are normally the ones that clutter up my recycling!!

So I think because my leaflets were in a local magazine - and a better time of the year, it all helped their success!! It cant hurt that they are also brightly coloured!!

What time of year did you do yours at? x