Apologies for the maths, but if you can keep your attention all the way through, I think it adds to the debate.
So, looking at it mathematically (my preferred option as my accountant uses it for my accounts).
200 customers with jobs at £100 each (nominal value £20,000) that I'm doing for £20 nets me £4,000, so I have effectively spent about £16,000 to get them.
I prefer to turn it on its head.
If I spend £16,000 on leafletting, how many customers at £100 could I get (assuming £100 is competitive in the area I'm attacking)?
Well in my world, including solus delivery, a very high quality leaflet costs just under 8p. Let's round it up to the full 8p. So, I could send out 200,000 leaflets. A 0.4% return (again, I am assuming that the £100 is reasonable) would give me 800 customers, so £80,000 of business. Put it this way, instead of spending 80% of the return on getting the customer, I'd be spending 20%.
And those would all be customers who were happy to pay £100 the first time, so I wouldn't be be expecting only 20% of them to become regulars; if they are happy the first time, they should be the second.
Just running through my logic. I also accept there are some fairly heroic assumptions about market size, etc, in there, but the whole thing could be scaled down to be more reasonable. Do point out any mathematical errors (I make plenty).
I genuinely hope it works out but it does look extremely expensive from where I'm sitting.
And apologies if this makes me two-faced, but I prefer to say the numbers are talking, not me.
Vin
