Leaflets v Facebook Advertsing - The Results !

[Andre1981]

(Background - Opened a Thai catering / Takeaway business last week)
Ok so I have spent £21 on Facebook local advertising and I have spent £20 on a print firm to print off 1000 leaflets (A6)

So far over the space of 10 days or so I have picked up 91 likes on Facebook and around three actual orders versus delivering 700 leaflets into letter boxes and picking up around 10 orders.

The likes are nice are Facebook but based on my results the leaflets are more effective and people seem to act on them rather than just click like, stats off Facebook - Reached 5579 people 129 people acted, as in clicked like, I know there could be business down the road from Facebook as an instant source of income I think I will side with the leaflets for now, maybe increase the size to a A5.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

 

[boring-friday]

So keep doing both? You got a website? You should start re targeting the guys who have already been on your website

 

[Andre1981]

No website as yet, looking to add one in the near future, but I would want a fully flexible website that allows me to upload pics and offers on a weekly basis, any recommendations ?

 

[boring-friday]

No website as yet, looking to add one in the near future, but I would want a fully flexible website that allows me to upload pics and offers on a weekly basis, any recommendations ?

You just need hosting and a domain, you can search for offers I think godaddy has a years hosting with free domain for £10.
Then you can just install wordpress, chose a theme you like and add your own content. Loads of youtube videos on how to do it.
Saw your other thread aswell, was going to comment you need some better pictures, can take much better pictures yourself than the ones I saw on your facebook and I guess thats important for food.

Good luck though I love Thai food, mainly when its only 50 baht though lol

 

[Andre1981]

Yes I have to agree, I have since started taking pictures of our food in natural light with no flash, world of difference, new leaflet arrives next week,i will check out GoDaddy, thanks

 

[OldWelshGuy]

if you are trying to get likes on FB you are doing it all wrong. You need to be getting better calls to actions, signups etc.

have a good read about facebook, use video (it is cheaper) and get some facebook offer apps set up. collect leads directly from FB.

 

[billmccallum1957]

I don't get bogged down in "Likes", I'm more concerned with reach and shares.

If we can reach 200 people and 20 share a post (assuming an average of 250 friends for each) that means we can reach the desktop of 5000 people, most will read the post because their friend has shared it.

We have three pages and a group, it's linking into the group that we concentrate on, rather than likes on the pages, each of the pages and the group will post offers and news and share them with dozens of local groups, potentially reaching 100,000 people a week (some of the groups have 20,000 members).

Facebook is product specific, we post photos of products we are selling.

Leafleting is more about awareness of who and where we are, but we would rather do 5,000 in a drop rather than just 1,000 (we can buy 20,000 A5 leaflets for less than £300, where 1000 costs £64).

We do get less than 5% response from leaflets, but its valuable marketing for us.

 

[Andre1981]

Likes are nice but I am not saying I am happy with them, more frustrated,we have shares also and a reach of 5000 is not bad in the small town I live in, but we have a call action of 15 over the week but have only got 2/3 calls from the Facebook advert/ Page, I am guessing people are clicking the call button then saving our number into their mobiles.

I am against buying 20,000 leaflets because after buying the first 1000 I am already wishing I had added other details,meals & pics to the original leaflet, and I am guessing it will be the same by the time I get through a few thousand of the 20,000.

As mentioned our hit rate on Facebook is 2% where as the leaflets are closer to 10%
I will continue to use both but I am just interested to know what others have found, thanks for your response people.

 

[threenine]

What was your offering on Facebook?

Was your instruction on FaceBook to "Like Us on Facebook" ?
Or was it to "Try us out and Like us on Facebook ?"

Relying on people to Like you and Order as opposed to to Order then Like Us are 2 entirely different concepts!

I would analyse my facebook offer, as you may not have been specific enough. Maybe try Get 10% off on your first order and mystery facebook only gift offer.
which requires an order!

Leaflets do have the benefit of possibly hanging around the house a little longer. In my house especially if they are interesting, like Thai. but pizza delivery goes straight to bin, as we have a defacto option which we like and generally order online anyway.

Before throwing babies out with the bath water, I would continue testing on facebook with a variety of different offers. As with Leaflets. I would say, the more you test the more you will discover there are no clear winners.

Like they say, Usain Bolt doesn't win every race he runs, and he doesn't run every race!

 

[Matthew Owl]

Do not abandon Facebook! In my opinion, FB gives you an advantage, which does not give you a leaflet. The idea is that people who once clicked "like" on your fanpage, they will probably, at some percentage, see your offer more often - for a few months and maybe even years! That is they not bought from you something now, does not mean they will not do so in the future. Let's not think only for today! When you have a website, in my opinion, the situation will improve significantly, although it will be harder to measure - the number of orders should increase.

 

[SamWhittle]

I think leaflets work really well for certain businesses. Takeaway food being one of them. I'm likely to save the leaflet and use it when I want to order. Facebook I might like but would I be able to remember your business at the point when I'm ready to order? I'm not so sure. Can be great for remarketing and offers though.

 

[AG Consult]

Personally I wouldn't care or even be bothered about the likes or shares etc on FB. When I was on there I remember liking loads of pages etc but never bothered with them after that or placed orders or anything.

However, you need to look at return on investment. £21 on local FB advertising and that brought in 3 orders. What total value were the 3 orders minus your £21 investment = Was it profitable ? No matter how much by.

Although it was a small return, it was also a small investment - But the bottom line is it worked. Keep doing it. Do it on a bigger scale. Try £50-£100 local advertising and again do the simple math of whether the return is profitable. If it is, you need to keep doing it.

Flyers will always work for takeaways, so keep doing that also.

I also wouldn't bother with your own website. The likes of Just-Eat and Hungry House already have your target audience going to their sites so you would be better off investing in that.

 

[GeoMal]

I also wouldn't bother with your own website.

Really? The very first thing both my immediate and extended family do, when deciding where to go out to eat, or where to order take out from, is to hit our phones and look up the menus of the various choices on their websites. No website, then no menu, and they don't get included.

 

[Andre1981]

Thanks to everyone who responded over the past 24 hours.
Our average order is around the £18 mark, so you are right,even though I only got 3 orders from Facebook, the resulting orders paid for themself.

I will continue to use both Facebook and leaflets, I also agree on the website point about people now checking their phones and flipping through the menu,I have got a menu on the Facebook page and on Google + I can see the positives of having a website and editing it using Wordpress.

On to week number 2, hopefully more orders, wish me luck!

 

[AG Consult]

Really? The very first thing both my immediate and extended family do, when deciding where to go out to eat, or where to order take out from, is to hit our phones and look up the menus of the various choices on their websites. No website, then no menu, and they don't get included.

I might of missed something in the first post of this thread or the OP's last post which I read the other day, but I was under the impression he was running solely a takeaway not a place to dine in. If he is a restaurant as well as a takeaway then yes, of course, a website would be essential - If my family and I are eating out, we do the same as yourself.

A takeaway only though (in my opinion) does not need a website or the associated costs of getting it ranking and performing when the majority of his target audiences will already be using Just Eat or HungryHouse, or performing a google search which will 9 times out of 10 consist of e.g. 'Thai takeaway in Huddersfield' and will bring up either of those in the top searches. He would be far better absorbing the costs of using those services than spending a small fortune (and stress) trying to get an independent site working.

 

[AG Consult]

Thanks to everyone who responded over the past 24 hours.
Our average order is around the £18 mark, so you are right,even though I only got 3 orders from Facebook, the resulting orders paid for themself.

I will continue to use both Facebook and leaflets, I also agree on the website point about people now checking their phones and flipping through the menu,I have got a menu on the Facebook page and on Google + I can see the positives of having a website and editing it using Wordpress.

On to week number 2, hopefully more orders, wish me luck!

I read a piece a few years ago by a guy called 'Chris Cardell' who is some self proclaimed business guru - Basically he spouts either a load of nonsense or sheer common sense and charges a small fortune for people to hear it.

Anyway, he said one thing though that is so obvious but people don't do, in that people will invest once in some advertising and even when they get a positive return, they don't do it again. If it is a positive return, scale it up slightly and do it again. Then keep doing it until it stops producing a profit.

So simple when you think about it, but it's just having that mentality to keep doing.

 

[Andre1981]

My wife and My young family helped me deliver 300 leaflets today, turned out to be our best day of trading so far, we picked up a party of 8 and a couple of differerent orders.
£45 for the party of 8, funny how one order like that can make a difference to your night.
on the other side of the coin on our last order we ran out of foil containers for the Massaman Curry, I picked out a batch I purchased from the local shop in town, big mistake,I arrived at the customers house tonight and the curry had dripped out of the foil container, it was obviously a lot weaker than the other foil containers and gave way losing 5% of its contents, as I sat there in the car I had a mini breakdown,what do I do, the bag had curry in it, the container was a mess...

I took all 7 containers out the bag,cleaned them up with several wipes and got out the car, I told the customer that this was not normal but that the takeaway bag had split because of the amount of containers in it and would it be possible to borrow a bag to put the containers in to bring it to the door, suprisingly they thought it was funny and accepted my plan,she even tipped me a few pound, been checking for a complaint all night but as yet nothing, if they do complain I will offer them 25% off their next order,not quite sure what else I could have done,apart from stocking up more with quality containers or leep spare containers or bags in the boot!

 

[Shonda Myers]

For me both are better in advertising. However, Facebook is a more faster and an easy platform to promote any products or services.

 

[Business Startup]

The thing about Marketing is researching on what strategies work best for your business type and investing more on it. In your case, leaflets obviously seem to bring a bigger ROI compared to Facebook so I will invest more in that method of advertising. Facebook advertising is quick and cheaper, but what I've noticed is, 1000 likes doesn't necessarily equal 1000 customers (as others have mentioned above). Not every business type needs to be on every social media platform and you just have to stick to what works best for your business type. A website is a MUST and investing in it is vital for your online marketing strategy. So my advise will be to invest in the leaflet distribution (since that works best for you), then stay on Facebook and use it as an avenue to communicate and engage with your existing clients. Maybe only spend on Facebook ads when you have special offers, discounts, and other attractive promotions that require people to act fast. Hope this helps.

 

[Andre1981]

Thanks again for all your replies people,I am sticking to both. as a plus side to Facebook we do get the customer 20% of customers leave a review which I think brings confidence in our product to the like brigade!

 

[Matthew Owl]

One more thing @Andre1981 - Facebook and your website works in the "zero moment of truth" when customer knows what he/she wants but still hesitate and consider the best option. Then - he or she - starts search in the Internet and voila - there you are, with nice website and interesting FB profile with lots of positive opinions...and delicious dishes