Leafleting companies

[keirms]

Morning everyone, lovely sunny day in Herts...

So, has anybody had experience of the various leafleting companies around? I've spoken with Linkdirect, Newsquest direct, Letterbox marketing and Dor-2-Dor but they all seem pretty similar.

You can't really check what kind of a job they're doing until after they've finished, and even then only by the response rates you expect.

We've already been ripped off by a cunning con artist who ran off with our money and our leaflets! Fortunately not too many.

Once bitten twice shy... anyone with experiences of their own?

Keir

[AHAEvents]

Try The National Leaflet Company - www.tnlc.co.uk

We use them to deliver 500,000 leaflets throughout Somerset. We've used them for 2 years now and have never had any problems.

[epiphany]

royal mail :)

[Ravenfire]

How many leaflets do you want?

I have used http://www.creativeprinting.co.uk/ and found them to be excellent value for money

[10 Yetis]

Hi, Tim at Sensecreative is really good for printing leaflets and I would suggest speaking to him to get good costs. www.sensecreative.co.uk

Also, a few things for leaflets and maildrops to remember and that the response rates vary depending on a few things...
1. the services and products you are pushing and if they fit with the social demographic of the area you are targetting (i.e. does your target audience live in the place you are sending them) and;

2. Is the design layout and copy (words) good?

Personally, i am not a big advocate of Maildrops. In my experience (10 Years waffling about marketing & PR!) I have found them to be expensive and to have one of the worst ROI's out of all the various marketing areas.

[Stationery-Direct]

If you can provide the artwork then we can do 5,000 A5 leaflets on 300 gsm silk art card, full colour front and back for £200 or 10,000 at £350 including delivery (mainland UK), interested? let me know.

[peterrand]

In response to your question - I would suggest using a DMA (Direct Marketing Association) member - www.dma.org.uk is the website. Every company has their own strengths and specialities (I work for one).

Cheers

Peter Rand

[MadMike]

If you need flyers maybe my company can help out. What we do is combine printjobs and have them printed and shipped in within an amazing 4 days! order on Monday and have your leaflets etc on Friday! The same for all flyers, posters, brochures, business cards etc. The site is finished, the webshop will open soon. Have a look --> www.inkpressive.co.uk

[Real World Hypnotherapy]

We offer quality printing.

Our prices include design, printing and delivery (UK), and VAT where applicable

We own the printing press so we can pass on the massive saving to you.

For example;

5000 full colour double sided business cards just £125

5000 full colour double A6 flyers just £150

Mk Business Services 0161 248 5474 or PM me

[PeteH]

I agree with Andy (10 Yeti's),

Leaflet drops are not particularly productive. With my business I don't even bother with leaftlet to advertise the services we offer. The only thing I do leaflet drops for are to attract new distributors - which is okay - but I find the best results are when I deliver them myself and get the chance to talk to people about it whilst I'm delivering.

I have delivered a few leaflets before, and then knocked the doors a week later to see if people have received them (I know they had, but wanted to know if they remembered the leaflet, or even meant to act but never got round to it). Many actually said they hadn't. Interestingly, I then decided to knock the next street who hadn't been delivered the leaftlet and found that as many of them thought they had it. The conclusion being that delivery of the leaflet meant nothing - I did get some interest however from the door knocking exercise!

[STRAYGOAT]

Hello

I offer a complete leaflet service - professional copywriting, graphic design, and printing. I am a qualified copywriter and have teamed up with several designers. I have a few printing links that provide low rate printing services.

So you get:

Creative copy that sells your products and services
High quality graphic design
Low rate printing costs

All produced by an Insitute of Copywriters' approved copywriter, experienced graphic designers, and a reputable printing business.

If anyone is interested, email me at craigwright@straygoat.com or visit www.straygoat.com.

[CaroCaro]

From the stuff I get through my door, I called up those companies and asked if their door drop had been any good for business? Who did they use and would they reccomend them? I did and leaflet drop and it worked wonders!

[keirms]

So would you believe it... after careful deliberation and lots of thought we eventually chose one of the big leafleting companies. We decided to start small with just 10,000. We had previously dropped 5,000 in a similar area and received around 25 phonecalls and signed up 20 clients... doesn't sound like a great ROI on the face of it but do the numbers and it's actually very profitable.

Anyway, we handed over our 10,000 leaflets and waited for the phonecalls to come flooding in. After a week and not one enquiry we began to get a little worried... we then got a phonecall from a school telling us that WE had broken their fence trying to put OUR leaflets in their recycling bin!!

To add insult to injury, the leafleter tried to make out that kids had broken into his car, stolen the leaflets and then had the good grace to recycle them!

So we had it out with the leafleting company and told them we would not be paying them. We also asked for a full refund of the cost of the leaflets... after finally getting the MD on the phone he agreed to a full refund.

I'm not into naming and shaming as the MD was very apologetic and understood our plight but.... LESSON LEARNT!

[Stationery-Direct]

What a nightmare, if it was me I would name and shame to save one of us going through the same thing. You are very lucky that you have got a full refund as this sounds like the type of company that could have just said no, in which case you would have had the extra hassle of court proceedings.

In future try the Royal Mail, I know it can be quite expensive but you have more chance of getting the job done properly with them, although, they do struggle to put my post through my door and tend to give it to other people on my estate!

By the way, it wasnt the Royal Mail was it?

[injan]

Once bitten twice shy... anyone with experiences of their own?

Keir

In my early days
i was involved in a directory publishing business
we took 6 months going out selling adverts to fill up the directory in one of our areas
then spent massive amounts of money printing them..

it turned out the distributor was friends with one of the competing taxi firms in our directory, and none of our directories were distributed!!

we did not check that they had been distributed and it was only the following year when we went to reniew all the adverts all the advertisers moaned...

we tried to contact the distributor and it was so long after that we couldnt prove it

but it ruined our business in that area, and when i think of all the work that went into selling the adverts and money spent printing them it makes me sick.....

luckily we had other areas running OK so we were able to ride it out but only just!!

[JoyDivision]

My dads had similar poblems, now if leaflets need tobe delivered its done by family. Usualy me or my dad.

We just had trust problems when using external people. Most would deliver them but when doing the maths we wrecked that per 1000 they would stick 100 in the bin.

[keirms]

No it wasn't the Royal Mail. In fact, it was a company recommended in this post.. I'll give you a clue... Somerset.

There you go I've named and shamed but for every nightmare I'm sure there are 99 satisfied customers. I felt a bit sorry for the MD as running a leafleting company must be very tough, the margins must be so tight and consequently it must be hard to find honest and trustworthy staff.

[Asteeleleith]

I guess there are few ways that one can check to see if leaflets have been distributed.

Obviously by asking customers where they heard of you from.

and, be careful, selecting a few random streets and knocking on the odd door to find out. i must admit in my teenage years i was found out this way. Esp as the taxi firm i was working for sent us down the street where he lived. After assertaining that neither his nor his neighbours house recieved a card. he drew the correct conclusion.

another perhpas cheaper way to get the leaflets deliver might be to contact the local rag and see if you can get their paper boys to drop them off with the papers?

A few thoughts there

Al

[clairemackaness]

We just held an exhibition at witham public hall and leaflets went out in all the local papers. When we asked the people who came, how they heard about the event, not one of them said a leaflet in the paper!

Waste of time and money? You tell me

[Asteeleleith]

Yes i do agree with you on that score claire

I still use them myself but i also post them myself as well. i wouls be lying if i said that when i get a busines card through the post that i do not at least glance at it. Esp since going into business for myself i guess i have leanred the value of contacts
you know the old saying, if you want something done and all that? ( do it urself!)

:) Al

[clairemackaness]

Quite right, hence why I did my own website and printed the majority of my sales bumph myself. You cant beat a good old traipse round the streets leafleting on a winters day not can you?

[peterrand]

Hello again (I posted in this thread way back and have just returned).

The reasons why leaflet drops work or not are many and varied - the quality of delivery is an issue but not one which should be used to explain away lack of response to (sometimes!) poorly targeted, designed, and timed promotions.

I have been involved in the industry now for over 20 years and while I have seen some localised deliveries go pear-shaped due to distributor error/incompetence/stupidity or even downright malpractice on the part of subcontractors I can confirm that the vast majority of our (and our competitors, to be fair) customers (who use the medium and return to it) see door to door delivery as an invaluable part of their marketing toolbox.

BTW I work for a company mentioned earlier in this thread but not one that did a job in Somerset.....

Cheers

Peter Rand