Leafletting: the problem and the solution

[Arsenal_Addict]

Some great tips on leaflets in here, would love to hear how the A/B leaflet split went.

 

[Perfect Windows]

understandably most business owners dont trust leafleters, so do it yourself to know how long it honestly takes and how much walking is involved then youll know whats fair to pay for someone else to do it for your business, some of you say paying minimum wage for this is fine, ask yourself how much effort would you put in for mimimum wage to walk for hours a day doing a boring repetitive task ! you dont have a successful business if your success doesnt pass down to your employees and suppliers also, greed isnt good.

Interesting point. However, the flip side of £6 per hour sounding low is that what I offer in return is complete flexibility of working hours. I make no comment whatsoever if someone does an hour (or none!) in a week or if they do forty. One of my leafletters is a single mum who loves being able to pop out ofr an hour or two two or three days a week whenever her kid is in nursery or with her dad. Another is a musician and film extra who just delivers whenever he isn't doing something else.

They are both very enthusiastic about the work, largely for that reason, I suspect.

Also, bear in mind that I had so many replies after a couple of days that I had to pull the advert. It would be strange to sfind that so many people are keen if it was in any way exploitative.

Vin

 

[Perfect Windows]

Some great tips on leaflets in here, would love to hear how the A/B leaflet split went.

Somewhat embarrassingly, I haven't managed the A/B split yet. As ever with so many of us, I've been too busy servicing the customers we've won to do the good work of testing how well we could have done!

Vin

 

[dagaul101]

Nice you did the investigation and found a cheaper response, nothing better than sub contracting to people you trust

 

[LetterBox Angels]

hi I own a very honest owner of a succesful leaflet destribution service and I would like to take the time to explain that the leaflet destribtuion service I think your talking about that covers southampton has recieved majooor compliants and has dropped out of the race for the most dominant service.
It is currentley now between door 2 door destribution company and my company Letterbox Angels.inc.

Lastly this article is fantastic and has really helped me to make my company more user friendly and I as a result of reading such a "report" I have also stepped up our customer service because WE NEVER WANT TO BE IN THE SAME POSTION AS THE COMPANY YOUR TALKING ABOUT............................
(cAN YOU ALSO EXPLAIN FURTHER ABOUT TRACKERS WE ARE MOST INTRIGUED WITH THIS CONCEPT AND HAVE CONSIDERED IT BEFORE UT HOW MUCH WILL IT COST....

 

[surgery_cards]

What a great post & love the tracker idea!

 

[Perfect Windows]

(cAN YOU ALSO EXPLAIN FURTHER ABOUT TRACKERS WE ARE MOST INTRIGUED WITH THIS CONCEPT AND HAVE CONSIDERED IT BEFORE UT HOW MUCH WILL IT COST....

My choice was mentioned on page 2 of the thread; there are dozens of alternatives, though, so my choice may not be best.

Vin

 

[LetterBox Angels]

we could use a person like you Hmmmm

 

[Sage1974]

Really enjoyed reading that.

 

[The IT Guy]

Some great advice in here, i was just wondering though reading through the thread, is this not effectively employing somebody though, what are the Tax implications (if any).

Would you need to insure them to carry this out etc?

 

[Scottish_Trader]

Thanks for this, extremely good OP. I'll be honest, I done approx 150 houses and it took a good 2-3 hours... took a lot out me and I would personally not do it for £25 or even £35!

I guess a follow up to this would be if anyone has had any luck with mobile apps. For example, if you get someone off gumtree and they own an iPhone... is there an app they could download which you could monitor from your end (like a Google maps thing) which would allow you to monitor him/her instead of buying the £50 tracker separate. Just a thought and interested to hear if anyone has come across something.

Much appreciated.

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

I have contacted several companies regarding leaflet distribution and have had solus prices of between 70 and 90 pound per thousand , which seems about right.
One of those companies does in fact use an android app to moniter their deliveries , when they employ somebody they stipulate you must own an android phone , so the answer to your question is yes .

How accurate they are compared to a standalone tracker im not sure but they give you a login to track their movements in real time , so if they are slacking you know straight away.

To be honest though i think vins way is better on balance.

Im about to advertise on the front of a local adsheet , will be interesting to compare the response to that as opposed to leaflets.

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

my ad goes out in about two weeks so will let you know how much response i get and how it compares to leaflets.

 

[S-Marketing]

my ad goes out in about two weeks so will let you know how much response i get and how it compares to leaflets.

What publication are you advertising in?

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

just a local non glossy adsheet going out in fair oak and horton heath.

one month to see the response to begin with.

 

[S-Marketing]

just a local non glossy adsheet going out in fair oak and horton heath.

one month to see the response to begin with.

I was going to keep an eye out for your advert but I wont be getting it if it's just those areas.

Personally, i would recommend that advertising in this way would be the least likely form of marketing to get a decent return, so will be interested in your experience.

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

seems to work quite well for one of my competitiors(different area publication) so thought i would give it a go .

 

[S-Marketing]

Best of luck with it. As with any advertising, its a lot more about how you do it, rather than where you do it. Any advertising needs to be based on sound marketing principles.

 

[Multi-store]

Thanks for this, extremely good OP. I'll be honest, I done approx 150 houses and it took a good 2-3 hours... took a lot out me and I would personally not do it for £25 or even £35!

I guess a follow up to this would be if anyone has had any luck with mobile apps. For example, if you get someone off gumtree and they own an iPhone... is there an app they could download which you could monitor from your end (like a Google maps thing) which would allow you to monitor him/her instead of buying the £50 tracker separate. Just a thought and interested to hear if anyone has come across something.

Much appreciated.

You can get these trackers much cheaper than that. Have a look on ebay, bet you'll get one for £10-£15

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

Best of luck with it. As with any advertising, its a lot more about how you do it, rather than where you do it. Any advertising needs to be based on sound marketing principles.

Any advice would be welcome

 

[S-Marketing]

Any advice would be welcome

You can email me a copy of the advert if you like. I'd be happy to give my opinion.

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

Ok , my ad is halfway through it's distribution week and had one call so far .

I read somewhere that you need to keep advertising /leafletting the same area over over get a good response .

Anybody have any experience of this ?

What's your email address and I will copy of ad .

 

[crystalballltd]

Great post! For anyone looking to replicate Vin's setup, but are not sure what tracking options are available to you, I thought I'd highlight our solutions.

We provide mobile tracking apps which in addition to the basic live location and historical reporting, also offers functionality that can help save you time on the administrative tasks that go with running an efficient leaflet dropping team.

Some of of features include: Automatic timesheet generation. Geotagging for proof of delivery (via gps check-in, geotagged photos etc) as well as our lone worker protection app. Should you're employees find themselves in need of urgent assistance, they can raise an alarm through the app or request to go into a welfare session which monitors them across the time they are delivering leaflets and requires them to check-in at regular intervals to let the management team know they are safe.


Happy to demo our solution to anyone that's interested.

 

[swankypants69]

ok so I came across the original post just today, read it, liked it

got me thinking

i am self employed on a seasonal basis, will be out of work, november, december, january, i live in a small town approx 15,000 people

have no experience of leaflet distribution whatsoever, but I imagine it is fairly straight forward if i was aiming to do it on a small scale ie. just myself, in a relatively small town

anyone out there done this on a self employed basis? any tips or advice on getting customers or is it not as easy as i am making it out?

initial thought would be to see what companies leaflets i get through my door, and then contact them to see if they would be interested in my services, that would be one line of customers

could also gather email addresses of local businesses and email to generate interest?

 

[Donstu71]

Hi Vin,

Thanks for sharing that very informative and interesting post. The tracker system you implemented was a very good idea but one point I would make being a private investigator and someone who uses tracking devices day in day out is, draw up a simple agreement on paper for your distributors to sign, (they've already agreed to carry the tracker so signing the document shouldn't be an issue) all you need is for someone to get hacked off with the job and the fact they they are being monitored or for someone to say to them "check your rights with regards to tracking laws", although the individual has agreed to the tracker this is only a verbal agreement and should the poo hit the fan you can land yourself in all kinds of investigations, mainly by the top dogs at ICO, for the sake of a few minutes creating a document and getting your distributors to sign it you are protecting yourself and your company.

Kind Regards

GreevePi

Hi,

I'm pretty new here and I've started by reading through pages (and pages and pages...) of back posts. I've had some very useful information so I thought I'd try to give something back. It’s a long post but hopefully worthwhile.

One thing that seems to come up time and again is trying to find a leaflet delivery company that can be trusted and that is cost effective. Well, I've been through this particular mill. My requirements were simple. I need to have 5,000 leaflets delivered every week, year round, to houses (not flats) in and around Southampton.

I called company after company. Predictably, only around half responded: Why pay for website, SEO and such like then fail to phone back the owner of a company with clear needs, timescale and budget? But that's another thread.

Of the ones who did respond, half of them looked and sounded like rip-off merchants. The other half seemed unable to cover all the areas I wanted covered or had a minimum of 10,000 a week ..or..or..or…

The rip offs offered me exactly what I wanted when I wanted it in the volumes I wanted. The following amalgamates the responses from three companies:

I was offered solus delivery (delivery with no other leaflets), any postcode area, for £25+VAT per thousand, £27 per thousand and £30 per thousand. Now, I've delivered leaflets,and I know that 120 an hour is a good average. So that has them paying someone for eight hours of work and still making a profit out of £25. Forgive me, but that's impossible without someone conning someone along the way. Either I’m being conned or the local distribution manager is conning the distribution company or the delivery person is conning the local manager. It’s not possible to pay minimum wage and get eight hours of work for £25. Some of the leaflets you have paid for simply have to end up in a bush or in a pile with a dozen other leaflets.

Con number 1: I asked for details about how they can make a profit at such a low charge and was told, “It’s economies of scale”. Well, forgive me, but there are NO economies of scale in solus distribution. When you boil it down, one person has to walk up one driveway and deliver one leaflet. That takes a certain amount of time that has to be paid for. Joke.

Con number 2: I asked how many houses (not flats) they would be delivering to by postcode sector (An example would be SO15 9 or B23 7). They sent me a nice spreadsheet with the numbers. Well, suspicious character that I am, I took a look at the 2001 census information for my home postcode sector, which breaks down into semis, detached, terraced, flats, etc. I already have this info at my fingertips as I use it for business planning. If you don’t already use it and you reach domestic customers, get it – it’s vital info. Anyway, their numbers were clearly including all properties in the postcode sector. I contacted them and asked them if they might have made a mistake and received an indignant response that their data was the most up to date possible, so I was wrong. Well, I happen to live in the sector I queried, and I know they haven’t nearly doubled the number of houses here in the ten years since the last census (they have been knocking down houses and replacing them with flats every year). The effect? Well, they were going to charge me for delivering 5,400 leaflets when they were actually going to deliver to 3,000. Suddenly my £25 per thousand is costing me £45 per thousand.

Con number 3: “How do you track that they have all been delivered?” I get a long spiel about managers visiting delivery people on their routes (all funded out of £25-£30 every 8 hours, remember) and interviewing random householders (same funding). I pointed out I have customers in the areas I was targeting so I could crosscheck and suddenly had a defensive “well, remember that sometimes people don’t remember what’s been delivered, so you might not be able to rely on them”. These words from the same person who just told me they interview people on their doorstep at random.

Give that a moment’s thought. My customers, who I would warn to look out for a delivery in a given week, would do worse than a stranger-on-the-doorstep response? Hmmm..


So, there are some of the problems. My solution? I placed an ad on Gumtree and had 40 responses in three days. The ad looked for self-employed leafletters at £6 per hour actually delivering. And here’s the thing. I stated that they must be prepared to carry a tracker. That way, I can quickly check that they are doing what they bill me for. All of those respondents were fine with it and the two I’ve taken on have the attitude that I need to protect my business, so it’s OK with them.

So, a slightly more messy solution: I have to think about the areas the guys cover and I have to spot check their invoices. I had to buy a tracker for £50 for each of them. However, I now have self-motivated people who know they are being adequately monitored. What they don’t know is that if they do a full month they will get a bonus for each call I have from their leaflets (I suspect a month will be the time they want to jack it in).

So, there IS a solution if you are prepared for a little hassle. However, I’ll pay quite a lot to get the things actually through people’s doors.

And, as of today after a couple of mornings from each subcontractor, I have five new customers for a total delivered cost of around £72. Very nice indeed.

As ever, all comments and questions welcome…

Vin Kennedy

 

[LeafletsInLincs]

I run a leaflet distribution business in Lincolnshire.

The reason why you may of had trouble getting companies to pick up the phone is because they're probably out delivering or not taking on new customers (there are only so many regular customers you can take on)

Personally i always try to give a call back even if we're too busy to take on work at the time as people remember things like that.

As for knowing whether the work has been done or not. There really is only one way to know this, by choosing a company that offers GPS tracking.

GPS trackers allow you to see where a distributor has been, how long they were there for and at what time so you know the work has been done. It doesn't cost much at all for a distribution business to set up so there are really no excuses for not having this as standard.

As for price, i've been delivering for over 2 years and know all my areas like the back of my hand and it takes me 6 hours to deliver 1000 leaflets in an average environment so you should factor that into your pricing. Nobody comes into this business to make less than £6 an hour and if you want your leaflets to reach people then you shouldn't go with the cheapest price you can find as they simply will not be being delivered.

You really do get what you pay for. If you want only half of them delivering, left hanging out of letterboxes or no proof at all that they have been delivered then go with a cheap quote....but would you walk for 6 hours solid to deliver 1000 leaflets for £25 - 30 ?

Every one of my clients gets a full GPS report showing all of the areas that have been delivered to, which also shows how long the job took our team and when the work was carried out.

 

[teutonic]

not only that, you've helped two people out with honest paid work. brilliant, thanks for sharing this

 

[Ishine window cleaning]

ok a quick update.

My original ad did very well with one off jobs covering double the cost of the ad and picked up 4 regular customers.

second time round did not even break even !

Dont know if its time of year but just been emailed for the next lot , should i run the ad or knock it on the head until next year risking that the space might be gone?