Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Neil Grainger on September 15, 2005, 12:52:05 pm
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Hello
I am looking for leaflet distributers in the Berkshire/Hampshire/Surrey areas and have found nothing except Royal mail. Does anybody know of any companies that do this in these area's.
Thanks
Neil
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hi mate ,if u are a one man outfit find yourself a fit semi retired man and send him out few hours aday ,the other opitons like post office etc are to dear and untrustworhty, in the 10 years i hav done leaflets the semi retired man allways given me the best responce and i hav tried all the others, cheers gary
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Hi Niel
If you want the leaflets out, the only way if you have time is to do it yourself. Ive tried other people to do it with little responce. Targeting the right areas, you know they are delivered and you can put out less with a fair responce.
Cheers Dave
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Hi Neil,
As the previous guys recommend do it yourself or use the semi retired man option.When you use the leaflet distribution companies ( there are loads in yellow pages listed under circular and sample distributors) your leaflet is posted together with 5 or 6 others and this makes it junk mail to most people.
You can choose your areas with these companies,but they are not cheap,approx £200 for 1-2 thousand .
Paul
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Hi Neal
I use a local company that I found in the yellow pages. Costs me £35 per thousand for a solus delivery (on there own) and I have control of where they go.
Semi-retired will suit someone, but I have tried doing it myself and achieved 1000 leaflets in 6hrs!! so you may find it difficult to find someone, but this depends on how many leaflets you want to put out.
Chris
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I've got a bloke who delivers the "Age Concern" and Cancer Research charity collection bags, he drops my leaflets off with those every 6 months, costs me £30 / 1000 leaflets. The beauty is he knows which houses are occupied, which are holiday homes etc, so they only go through the right letterboxes.
Works well and get quite a bit of work from it.
If anyone is interested I'm just getting some new business cards and flyers done by printing.com they have an offer on this month:
1000 full colour double sided business cards £64
2000 for £86
30000 full colour double sided 1/3rd A4 flyers £422 inc
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Hi, i am just about to use DBS for a delivery of 10k. I will let you know if they're any good. I have also just advertised for my own people, just in case.
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You can generally get your local newspaper to include them as inserts for £20-£30 +vat per thousand
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newspapers tend to bundle 5 or 6 together though, so responses are much lower. i would go solus every time.
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Ben,
Spot on .
I did the figures in N/E London many moons ago and response withsolus was 3 times as good as in paper.
Two weeks ago one of our freebies had 12 inserts which went straight in the bin.
Cheers,
Doug
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DBS are no good avoid like the plague, they lied to me and were going to deliver mine with 2 other leaflets.
ben
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so what happened Ben?
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Dbs were subbing to a local company, so i bypassed them and went direct. the result....... 2 calls for 10k leaflets.
i bet most of them have been recyled and made into bog roll
ben
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Just posted 5000 leaflets with local rag distrabuter
If youve read my previous posts about an over 1% return, well thats just been blown out the window, not one phone call grrrr >:( :P :P
get out and do some leg work thats the key, or semi retired that sounds good apart from the semi retired down my way are semi dead and could manage 1-2 a day
yours not impresed
James :'( :'( :'( :'(
P.S. thats with free room and free spotter christmas deal, got to check my free phone is still working ??? ??? ??? ???
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I've been delivering my own leaflets and one thing that I have observed is that many houses are empty in the day time. The result of this is that your leaflets are not picked up off the floor until early evening with any others that have been delivered that day (usually pizza take aways). Therefore if you are paying a premium to have your leaflets delivered solus they may well go through the letter box as solus but land on top off another two or three leaflets :(
Conrad
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I now employ 2 people. between them they deliver around 3,000 per week with an average response rate of .0031 but has been up to .05. I am quite happy with this response rate, but would like to take on a couple more to get up to 6,000 per week.
I have cosidered royal mail to do a large drop every 2 months or so, but people seem to be a bit negative on this subject.
has anyone used the royal mail recently?
Thanks, ben
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If I personally get any leaflets with mail I bin them without even looking at them!!
What do you do???
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it depends what it is, if its something i need or want, i read it.
ben
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Hi
How much do you guys pay your semi retired blokes
ive just got a company to do mine 4 leaflets through the door at same time and no more but response has dropped of since doing it my self
cheers nick p
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Nick, i pay £5 per hour (on a self employed basis ;)) plus 5% commission.
ben
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Hi Ben
How many can they post in a day and how do you not know half are in the bin :o
Do you think it's worth educating these people in the trade so they can aswer some questions if asked or leave them to speak to us guys as a phone call is a potental job
Thanks James
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James,
I get them to fill in daily report sheets which details number of properties, which i check randomly but mostly it goes on character judgement. i have done spot checks at the beginning of the employment as well.
If you have delivered yourself, you will have a good idea of response rates, so you should know what to expect.
Numbers per Hour range from 100-150 depending on area, i pay for 30 hours a week and usually get 3,000-3,500 delivered. i would prefer more but at least they are reliable!!
Personally i would prefer any enquiries were referred to me as i prefer to keep control of quotes etc. (If they knew what i charged they'd be doing it themselves ;D)
Hope this helps
ben
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Yep ive had a think about it and recon it's best to let the quoting and details to myself, as other wise you have to start thinking if there representing my business id want them in unform and it's started to get complicated,
but yeah £150 for 3500 leaflets aint bad, I spent £150 for 5000 but without 1 phone call
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Hi Neil,
Hope this will help.
Phase 1
I started in July. Tried a distribution company, but the results were abysmall. (I asked them for a back-check but they didnt get back to me after that - they didnt get paid)
Put an advert in the local shops in my area for a someone to deliver leaflets fMon to Fri 7.30am - 10.30am. I paid them £15 a shift.
The reason for putting the ad in the local shops was in the hope that a local would see it.
I then picked him up every morning at 7.15 and drove to an area to deliver leaflets with him.
This did 2 things:
1 Make sure he was putting the leaflets in the door.
2 Got me off my a**e and into action.
I did this for 8 weeks. Each morning we delivered between 400 and 600 leaflets.
"The steady drip fills the bucket!!"
It wasnt long before the calls were coming in. It was about the eighth week that i found i didnt have the time to deliver leaflets as the jobs were flowing in.
Phase 2
At around the 4th week of the above, put a small lineage ad in the local "paid for paper" - not the freebie, for leaflet distributors.
Have now got a team of 3 that do me proud every week.
By doing phase 1, I know what response i should be getting. With my team they are alloted areas - I know if the jobs come in the leaflets are getting done. If they dont, get the list of streets that they have to fill in, and go and knock on 15 - 20 doors to see if they have received the leaflet. If they have, well that's just one of those things, the distributor gets paid - if they havent....adios!!! & no pay.
This is my only way of getting appointments at the moment but it's doing ok.
Hope this helps in some small way.
Regards
Tony
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Leaflets are a great way of generating new business, but many people fall into the trap of distributing into new areas every time instead of concentrating in one area.
One little experiment for you to have a go at that wont take much of your time...
Hand deliver about 50 quality leaflets to a largish housing estate. Week 2 same, Week 3 same, week 4 same, week 5 same, week 6 same etc., etc... just keep it going. The aim of the game is to create a nuisance of yourself, just keep pounding them out with the intention of really irritating people, you may be amazed at the result.
Your leaflet design should remain the same through out the drops as should be the persistency of the drops.
Remember that consumers are literally bombarded with sales literature 24-7, non of which is consistently the same week after week. They are persistently seeing leaflets for Windows, Conservatories, Gardening, Valeting, Clothing collection, Charity causes, Roofing, Loans, Computer repairs, Dog washing...... the list goes on and on.
What was the last leaflet you received through your post box, can you remember what it was for? or what the business name was? failing that surly you can remember the colour!!? There is one way of combating the above and it requires you to be as adverse and as outrageously different to others.
When in business the key to real success is being different from the rest, it works. Go in to a night club or pub with BIG hair will people look? course they will!! many people fall into the trap of 'Well it works for them so I'll do it the same'. Crap.
The best system I found of creating public awareness is what I refer to as 'the Vic and Bob method of marketing'
1/ Normal people use boring A3 Rectangular leaflets.... Be outrageous, see if you can get the leaflets cut into the shape of a man or a woman with a carpet wand.
2/ Normal people use boring whites with dark lettering... Be different, have a black back ground with Orange lettering!!!
3/ Normal people put 1000 leaflets out then abandon mission... Be different, use the 1000 leaflets but drop only 50 at a time using only one housing estate week after week, imagine what the neighbours will say, word passes round quick, trust me.
If you were to mention the name 'Pete The Sweep' to any man, woman, boy, girl, dog, living within a 20 mile radius of Harrogate - North Yorkshire, they would not only tell you what his company does they could also give you the colour of his vans!!
In a word, lets try and be different from the rest of em.
DON ATKINSON
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I Like the idea Mark
not sure if I have the balls for it though, but think that if you offered a deal (1 room free etc) on the fifth or sixth week this might work more affectively
James
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Anyone know of a company that would cut leaflets to shape as suggested?
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Have used the same self employed guy for 3 years, and he lives about ¼ mile from me.
Started off him and his mate, about 5, 000 a week.
His mate left so now he does it on his own, about 2,000 a week.
With work from other areas, mags etc last year it was 30 % of my business.
This year slightly less.
He delivers upto 4 other leaflets at the same time, but all folded seperately.
Works well, I trust him to deliver them, and normally leave areas upto him, although I sometimes ask him to do a specific area. Also use him on large jobs where I need a hand, so works well.
Areas get repeated regularly about 6 weeks or so.