Leaflet drop not working or am I just panicking?

[Tombo46]

Ello everyone. As some of you know I launched www.vegandmore.co.uk a couple of weeks back. I've had a decent response, some existing customers who previously just used us as a top up shop are now spending over £100 whereas some other customers are brand new and those who have had a first order later had a repeat order. Needless to say I'm pretty pleased. It's only about 9 orders over the 2 weeks but that's with hardly any form of advertising and equates to about £400 extra turnover.

Now I'm not expecting miracles but I have 5000 leaflets going out this weekend. 1300 have gone out today but I haven't had a single hit on my website. not one! Now I see there are a few possibilities...

1. My leaflets are crap.
2. Not a single person is interested in my business (we put a 20% off first order incentive on there).
3. The leaflets haven't actually gone out yet (do they sometimes delivery in the evening/night instead?

Long story short, I'm panicking. Because of the service being pretty localised (80,000 properties in the delivery radius) I am counting on leaflet distribution to pull in my initial customer base. Without this I'm pretty much lost as for how I'm going to promote my business.

Any words of encouragement or advice would be much appreciated. Has anyone ever done a leaflet drop for this type of service (does appeal to a fair few people) and actually received no interest at all?

All the best,

Tom

 

[ryedale]

Did you put a qr code on the leaflet.. some people are too lazy to type an address in but we've found they will scan a code

 

[Christine Hough]

I like your site.
All I can say is people often have to come across something a number of times before they initiate action.

Did you put a coupon/ offer on the leaflet and if so was it time sensitive?

Hope it goes well.

 

[Faevilangel]

You might find if the leaflets were delivered in the day then the occupants are either not at home and will see it later in the evening, or they aren't interested at the moment but will look at it in the future.

Is this a solo drop or a multi-drop? Solo drops tend to have better ROI as it's not thrown in with other businesses leaflets.

 

[Faevilangel]

One thing which may affect sales is that your website isn't responsive (basically means it works on any mobile device), websites should be responsive otherwise you could be putting customers off who use tablets / mobiles (not everyone has a pc).

 

[AllUpHere]

I agree with Faevilangels second post, that website is no good for a business like yours. You need to get it sorted fast if your leaflets are going out now, as if people who think they may be interested end up on that site they won't be back.

Second, you shouldn't be relying purely on leafleting to generate business.

Have you taken any professional advice before setting up this business? If you are not careful you will burn bridges with potential clients before you are even up and running properly.

 

[Christine Hough]

Just had another look and watched the video (which I didn't before)

Comments I would make

The video is about you not them. and too long
eg they want to know its fresh, not what time you get up.

You would be better with strong action lines,
give us your email address for FREE recipes
FREE 20 tips to help you get children to enjoy vegetables
Give us a try and enter a draw for a juicer
'create an account' is a bit uninteresting and of no attraction if I am not going to buy now.

Build up a following where you can develop a relationship, tell them about the local farms, health news items, recipes, personal stories, eating lifestyle etc

Could you approach school canteens? Hospitals? Try to sell benefits of local and fresh.

Submit a press release on something that general readers might be interested in as an 'expert'
such as the 20 tips.

These are just some of my thoughts as I wanted to give you some positive ideas. They may not be the best, but make it personal.

I personally do like the look and colours

 

[Simon.P]

Hi Tom,
Can you upload/post a link to the leaflets that went out?

 

[HFE Signs]

These things take time.. with leaflets people are likely to save the info and strike several weeks later, also its good to do the same area several times so people become aware of your company and brand.. best of luck..

 

[roydmoorian]

Give it 14 days before you decide that there has been no response ...............

 

[fairdealworld]

It has been a nice day and people have been thinking of things other than veg deliveries.

It is Saturday, a day within which those who work Mon to Fri and those who have children fit in all sorts of things from cleaning the house to taking the kids to football and ballet class and swimming or a party or whatever.

It is a Saturday which is a day on which many people can go out to shop - the advantages of delivery are more apparent when you are rushing home after a long day at work and facing a choice between doing some shopping and getting to your child's Open Evening or New Parents Evening while also providing a meal for the family.

Most people don't respond to a first leaflet/advert/request. I seem to remember that on average it takes at least six times for a person to see an advert/leaflet whatever before they respond? Some people do respond to the first exposure to the new idea but they will tend to be those who were already looking for a solution to a problem and then your leaflet came along and gave it to them.

I really like your website. I'm a bit surprised by the suggestion that it isn't 'responsive'. I continue to prefer to use a desktop or laptop when I can when it comes to ordering goods but your site performs great on my iPad. I took a look at it on my iPhone and though it isn't my personal preference to order things from my mobile I couldn't see any difficulty in doing so if I happened to want to work on such a small screen when I've got larger ones at my disposal.

I also like the video. People buy from people and this is the strength of small business. If I lived in your area 'meeting' the real you in your video would encourage me to want to order from you and the video does also, in my opinion, explain the advantage to the customer of buying their veg from you.

I think you may be over-estimating how many people are truly comfortable with online ordering (or online most things in fact). I know from my own business that many people, even those who do sometimes order things online, regard it as a bit of a challenge, something you have to think about and make an effort about rather than something you do smoothly and naturally. These people will need to see your leaflet more than once before they make what to them is an effort. I hope you are also trying to encourage telephone as well as online ordering. Your offering must be very appealing to older people who don't want to carry heavy bags, who may sometimes find it difficult to get out and about especially as you give the option of, say, having one pepper rather than a bagged up set amount. Some older people are, of course, totally at home on the web and love the freedom it gives them but many are not and even some of those who use a computer or tablet will still actually prefer to place an order by voice if they can.

 

[Talay]

Did you put a qr code on the leaflet.. some people are too lazy to type an address in but we've found they will scan a code

Nope, QR is largely dead on arrival for in house read leaflets IMHO. We tried it on a variety of businesses with comments mostly being "why would I get out my phone, find the scanner app or download one, then look at the website on a small screen, when I could just type the address into the browser on my PC / tablet ?".

We did have some response from a static QR code at a bus stop, where I guess the "reader" had to either take a photo, remember the address or use the QR code, all of which require similar effort.

So for our feedback to date, the effort required is a key driver for the take up of QR codes and on a leaflet read indoors, there was no need.

 

[Talay]

I like the website and the video, good luck !

 

[ryedale]

Nope, QR is largely dead on arrival for in house read leaflets IMHO. We tried it on a variety of businesses with comments mostly being "why would I get out my phone, find the scanner app or download one, then look at the website on a small screen, when I could just type the address into the browser on my PC / tablet ?".

We did have some response from a static QR code at a bus stop, where I guess the "reader" had to either take a photo, remember the address or use the QR code, all of which require similar effort.

So for our feedback to date, the effort required is a key driver for the take up of QR codes and on a leaflet read indoors, there was no need.

Fair enough, we did a mag ad in the summer with a QR code as an experiment to a specific landing page only linkable through the qr code and not the site or anywhere else and it got a substantial number of hits (primarily from smartphones) and a good few leads (the text in the ad had a slightly different link)

It's bound to be different for everyone but at the end of the day, it's one of those things that doesn't do any extra harm to be there alongside a standard link - doesn't cost anything and if one person uses it rather than not bothering at all then it was worthwhile

 

[MBE1]

FWIW I would recommend knocking doors, nothing like it for instant and honest feedback, however it is time consuming, but can be very effective if done well.

 

[ronnie7272]

Any words of encouragement or advice would be much appreciated. Has anyone ever done a leaflet drop for this type of service (does appeal to a fair few people) and actually received no interest at all?

Be patient and do split testing on your leaflets over time to maximise your conversion rates. However, HFE Signs is correct, expect 3 or 4 leaflet drops to the same people before brand recognition and trust kicks in. I also agree with Faevilangel. Solo drops are better at reaching visibility with your target audience.

 

[fallschirmjaeger]

Love the site and idea! I would be looking to expand through the counties once you are comfortable! I would have a large telephone number at the top of site with something like "Telephone your Order". You are missing Pinterest social media - this business is perfect for Pinterest get it added!

You may be able to do something more with the bags - not sure what though!

Add a telephone number to your returns page! The newsletter asks me to register - why? You are missing potential new customers who maybe don't want to register yet! In summary make it easier for your customers to contact you.

 

[Tombo46]

Thanks for the replies people. I noticed a lot of people have complimented/slated the website but this was never the question at hand. A lot of suggestions about the website too, most of which we have reasons for (which are specific to our type of business) that many other business owners wouldn't understand without having done out job for a long time. We've also based what was said in the video etc around what customers have told us they like about our service etc.

Anyway that's all off topic as the problem was only ever getting people to the website, not what they thought when they got there.

We had 5000 leaflets go out to various different types of housing to try and get an idea of what type to target in the next drop. We have absolutely 0 response from it. Google analytics shows plenty of hits (from you lot) but absolutely none inside of our area aside from repeat customers who placed orders over the weekend.

I know people tend to say 1% - 5% is a good figure to run off but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed with not even getting 0.02%

A couple of people have suggested going door to door but I'm not sure of what sort of response I would get from people or even how legal it is? I would have thought people would be pretty annoyed if I turned up at their door selling my service and more inclined not to buy. I did a thread about ways to advertise and have spoke to a couple of marketing professionals who all agree'd that leaflet dropping was the best way to get the word out. So now I'm stuck!

I am confident our customer base will grow but I feel it's going to be a very very steady crack. It's just strange that I got a few customers without even trying but as soon as I make a big effort to get people in I get nothing!

 

[Simon.P]

We had 5000 leaflets go out to various different types of housing to try and get an idea of what type to target in the next drop. We have absolutely 0 response from it.

Hi,

If you upload the leaflet, perhaps people can advise/post comments?

 

[CompuGlobal-Hyper-MegaNet]

good idea, nice video - but not suitable as your main page intro
i watched it all as i was curious, but most people want to know within the first few seconds. all we know up to the point where many visitors will turn off is that you're tom and you wake up early. there are some great bits you can edit into an 'about me' video - but you need to approach the main page vid from a marketing angle (my opinion - others may disagree).
also - and to me, this is key - edit the video embed code so it autoplays. you may have chosen specifically to disable this, but i would've liked to have seen it auto play as a visitor. i've come to the site, i've strapped myself in for a quick video intro to the business, and i'm now expected to click a button???!

things that i would be interested to know if i was curious about buying from you
- quality of the fruit (you touched on this)
- source (local? people would love this)
- price in comparison to supermarkets
- specialities (harder to find/exotic fruits)
you covered the personal touch quite well. i think with a few tweaks, people will definitely like to support you over supermarkets, as long as they don't pay extra for bad produce at great inconvenience

in the future, i would definitely look at recipes and ideas (fruit salads, soups etc) to post on your social media.

i like your brand and think the idea has huge potential if it wasn't for the limited distance you cover - but you can ship non-perishables around the country. look at how big a certain (faker)baker TV reality personality (scoff) has got with her bak'ers business

i suggest also getting on google+ and getting listed on their maps (PM me for this info if you need to)


edit: watched the intro again. the shots of the fruit are lovely, the quality looks unrivalled, and you did say you personally source the best stuff. however this is 25+ seconds into the video. to convert one leaflet reader into one website visitor into one clicker of the video is hard enough, and if you haven't yet shown that the killer points of your delivery service over your main competition (supermarkets) by 30 seconds, that's a huge bunch of leaflets wasted.

 

[Hedgie]

www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/my-1st-week-of-trading-is-over.141623/
This thread may help.

 

[Christine Hough]

Thanks for the replies people. I noticed a lot of people have complimented/slated the website but this was never the question at hand.

People have commented on your leaflet, but you have not uploaded it for us to see.

Points already made
1) People take action usually after hearing about something several times
2) Weekends people are busy
3) Coupon / offer on leaflet
4) QR code on leaflet
5 ) people may stick on the fridge and come back later.

Website and leaflet have to work together for best results. So the points people have raised about the website are not irrelevant and we all buy vegetables. You cannot look at marketing initiatives (such as leaflets) on their own.

 

[fallschirmjaeger]

Well if you are looking to grow your customer base, regardless of the maildrop outcome:
a. Contact newspapers in the areas and ask if they want to write an article on your business
b. Contact free magazines and ask if they want to write an article on your business (we have 2 free each month).
c. Speak to your local chamber of commerce
d. Get your local Radio station to cover it - have a 'lunch' day or similar.
e. get on local forums and start promoting
g. Swap links with relevant other local businesses!

 

[Duke Fame]

Was there any incentive to respond to your leaflets?

If i were you, I'd do a few leaflets at a time in specific areas and offer a *free* box for anyone who signs up to your website. OK it will cost more but you have an immediate follow up call to make, "did you get your box?" "did you like the quality?" "I'll take your next order now, can I have your credit card details that will be £12 please"

OK, you may be throwing free stuff away but if you target the area, you can deliver cheaply and your conversion rate should be far higher - obviously you need to cost out a box etc but given your geography, you can be quite specific.

The only issue with your product is that you are already rural, your public could be quite loyal to their local shop in a way that more urban customers are not.

 

[fisicx]

We use a lot of these home delivery service. We also get a load of leaflets offering local this and that. It may be that the people who want this type of service already have home delivery.

Do you have a van that is constantly out and about? Does it have your detaiuls painted on the side? Have you set up a stall in the local town centre showing people what is on offer? Have you advertsied in the local papers? Have you been on local radio promoting local delivery (green credentials).

The leaflet should be part of a co-ordinated marketing campaign, people often need many iterations before their interest is triggered.

 

[locomotion]

"Is this a solo drop or a multi-drop? Solo drops tend to have better ROI as it's not thrown in with other businesses leaflets."
Unless the delivery is on a Sunday or evenings, then i must say that your leaflet will not be the only thing on the doormat come evening time. Drop me a pm and i will give the url of the site i cobbled together just to answer the questions from start up leaflet distributors and clients such as yourself looking to put leaflet out.

 

[Medical Connections]

Great looking website! We all know that leaflets can work but you really have to know your demographics and stand out from the crowd or you will go straight in the bin!

Make it different, try something that will people remember you or get people talking about your services.

Dress yourself up as a carrot and get down your high street handing out free samples! Get some labels on your samples, or even print your details on the side of a banana!!!

Get a free write up in your local paper , it all helps

 

[Christine Hough]

Tombo, Have you had any response now after a week or two?

 

[kevinof]

Website looks good - like the colours and layout. As mentioned before it would have been better to have a responsive design but it's not a deal breaker. You can check your analytics reports and see if you're getting many hits from mobile devices. We get around 50% so responsive is important. Your market me be very different but analytics will tell you.

Best of luck with it and let us know how the leaflet drop went.

 

[schwarzberg]

things that i would be interested to know if i was curious about buying from you
...
- source (local? people would love this)
....

Do people really care if something is grown locally? You could sell me crisps from New Mexico, apples from Sydney, coffee from Machu Picchu...Don't care. As long as they're cheap and taste good.

 

[locomotion]

Restaurants do like to say things like "local produce" and such like. Op, have you tried your local restaurants, gastro pubs etc? You may get an almost daily contract from a few

 

[CompuGlobal-Hyper-MegaNet]

People are concerned about the food miles of their fruit, and they also like supporting local growers.
They were just a few suggestions as an outsider that I thought may prompt the OP (with knowledge of his industry) to see it from a customer's POV, but yes, I do think enough people care about this for it to be highlighted if it is true.
If only 20% of people cared, and they all switched to him because of this, and he eventually supplied 40% of his catchment area, half of his sales would be to people who cared about this issue.

 

[MASSEY]

I think the most important thing firstly would be that the leaflet is as good as it possibly could be.

The second would be to ensure that they are delivered to the right sort of areas. I saw a leaflet for organic veg delivery very recently that had been delivered to an area where the majority of people looked like they go to Iceland and i felt sorry for them because the leaflet looked like one of the pricier sorts.

 

[locomotion]

Thats a dangerous path Massey. How is that people that "look that they go to iceland" mean that they do not want fresh local produce?
Quick story: I used to work for a large electrical chain, guy walks in looking like a tramp so no other sales people would go near him. Turned out he was a farmer, just bought another house for his daughter and spent thousands with me. Dont judge a book by it's cover is the motto here

 

[Christine Hough]

Just wonder if Tombo46 is still visiting the thread
There has been some helpful and interesting suggestions.

If the leafleting didn't work I hope he considers other strategies.

Locomotion I quite agree especially if your response is to one person, but there are trends within areas and its sensible to choose an area where most people buy fresh food and are prepared to seek out local produce.There will always be people who behave differently to their neighbours but best to go where the majority buy fresh.

 

[rupertsilva10]

I visited your website and there's nothing wrong with it, in fact, I really like it. For me, promoting a website through a leaflet drop is a bit risky. It takes time for it to work. Based on my experience, people want to be more familiar with what you're promoting first before they decide to make a visit. Or you may want to make the leaflet more appealing to the masses.

 

[locomotion]

Agreed Chris, but do you not think that trends, even from a few years ago have changed? I buy fresh fish delivered to my door by a local fishmonger. Do i buy because it is fresher than the supermarket? No, i buy it because he comes to my door lol. Its the service that needs to be marketed as much as the produce. If the OP has a delivery in an area, he should be posting cards around that area saying he is delivering on such and such a day, even knocking on the doors of neighbours and posting an order form. Looks like the OP has lost interest in the thread anyway but best of luck to him

 

[Amy@ Filplastic- Racking]

I'd second Christine's suggestion that a single leaflet drop is rarely enough. We sent out thousands of our catalogues years ago and had next to no response on the first send, it needed to land on peoples desks a second time before they took any notice.

 

[BustersDogs]

If the leaflets were written in the same way as the website it's all about the business owner, not the customer. If I were looking for this sort of product I'd choose someone that was more interested in solving a problem for me, not telling me all about him and his problems.

 

[HazelC]

You got to remember brand awareness too. I could send one tweet to my 1,200 followers on Twitter. I may get no response from this, it's about doing things again and again as part of a campaign. I have a leaflet distribution client and he always recommends 3-5 leaflet drops as a minimum - that's how people get to know you and you stick in their mind.