Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Rob clarke on June 02, 2016, 10:57:33 pm
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Had 5000 leaflets printed and I've put a few hundred out myself when finished weeks work but not had one call, I thought I'd at least get one call ??? Has anyone not in my area (north Yorkshire) got a leaflet design that works well please?
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Had 5000 leaflets printed and I've put a few hundred out myself when finished weeks work but not had one call, I thought I'd at least get one call ??? Has anyone not in my area (north Yorkshire) got a leaflet design that works well please?
leaflets is a numbers game. a few hundred is nothing to be honest. expect to get all 5000 out and then judge over the following 3 months if they're a success.
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Had 5000 leaflets printed and I've put a few hundred out myself when finished weeks work but not had one call, I thought I'd at least get one call ??? Has anyone not in my area (north Yorkshire) got a leaflet design that works well please?
Leaflets work, but the response rate is about 0.05% (2 per 1000). The way to make them work is to put out a couple of hundred then wait 2 -3 days and go round and knock on the doors. If the leaflet is any good it will already have 'softened up' your target customers and canvassing will be much easier.
I always use this method and can guarantee to build a round of 3-400 customers over a period of 6 -10 months, putting out leaflets every day and following up every evening on the ones put out 3 days previously.
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Goo d advice as always from Ian.
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loads of guys leaflet around SE London all the time and i love that they waste there money with there 1 in 1000 return where most folk cant be bothered to ring the number on the leaflet or have a quick browse then chuck in the bin leaving me to take advantage when door knocking to close loads of deals as it most certainly warms them up for the taking when recently leafleted first. Please can someone do a 10 000 drop in Greenwich and gain 10 customers from it so i can rinse the rest :-).
Rob just door knock if you want a quick return of customers, leaflet if you want a slow steady return but deffo follow e drop with a knock to maximise overall return.
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I find that plain single colour leaflets work better for my business than double sided full colour leaflets.
I have a much better success percentage than Ian Lancaster, but that could be down to myself promoting traditional window cleaning.
The reason I promote traditional and get the work is simply down to the biggest window cleaner in the area absolutely destroying the reputation of wfp through bad workmanship and not training staff properly. Due to this operator it has created a preference for trad in this town over wfp.
I will look out both leaflets and post them tomorrow.
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Thanks for your replies, I have been door knocking recently and gained loads of new customers even some who had a bad experience with cleaners not using wfp properly, I do use it properly, the reason I bought the leaflets is I have two young kids and didn't want my evenings and weekend's knocking and not seeing them :( I'll try and get my leaflets posted and and see what the response is when I've put them all out
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Thanks for your replies, I have been door knocking recently and gained loads of new customers even some who had a bad experience with cleaners not using wfp properly, I do use it properly, the reason I bought the leaflets is I have two young kids and didn't want my evenings and weekend's knocking and not seeing them :( I'll try and get my leaflets posted and and see what the response is when I've put them all out
We don't do any door knocking any longer and rely solely on leafleting to build the business. It is not the quickest way, but like you I am balancing home life and work life. As many have commented on here before, you get higher quality of customers leafleting, but you do need to get a lot of leaflets out, to get them. Good luck :)
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Thanks for your replies, I have been door knocking recently and gained loads of new customers even some who had a bad experience with cleaners not using wfp properly, I do use it properly, the reason I bought the leaflets is I have two young kids and didn't want my evenings and weekend's knocking and not seeing them :( I'll try and get my leaflets posted and and see what the response is when I've put them all out
We don't do any door knocking any longer and rely solely on leafleting to build the business. It is not the quickest way, but like you I am balancing home life and work life. As many have commented on here before, you get higher quality of customers leafleting, but you do need to get a lot of leaflets out, to get them. Good luck :)
Thanks Richard I'll get there even if it takes a bit longer ;)
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Thanks for your replies, I have been door knocking recently and gained loads of new customers even some who had a bad experience with cleaners not using wfp properly, I do use it properly, the reason I bought the leaflets is I have two young kids and didn't want my evenings and weekend's knocking and not seeing them :( I'll try and get my leaflets posted and and see what the response is when I've put them all out
We don't do any door knocking any longer and rely solely on leafleting to build the business. It is not the quickest way, but like you I am balancing home life and work life. As many have commented on here before, you get higher quality of customers leafleting, but you do need to get a lot of leaflets out, to get them. Good luck :)
I can see they work if you're delivering 100,000's.
I've always found I get a much better, higher prices, quality customer from canvassing.
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So 5k isn't worth bothering with really? And best to knock?
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So 5k isn't worth bothering with really? And best to knock?
5k is a good number.
it depends on your scale, you profit, and your ambition.
5 k will get you some custom. i recommend charging double for the first clean so you get money back faster.
we leaflet 7-13,000 a month, but when i started i did nothing like that.
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So 5k isn't worth bothering with really? And best to knock?
5k is a good number.
it depends on your scale, you profit, and your ambition.
5 k will get you some custom. i recommend charging double for the first clean so you get money back faster.
we leaflet 7-13,000 a month, but when i started i did nothing like that.
Cheers Richard, do you have someone putting your leaflets out for you and how much does it cost if you do?
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We stick with leaflets because while I'm working on other things, customers come in. Over the weekend I may be at the beach and our leaflets are going out and picking up customers. Ditto for evenings. I don't have to give up time with the family to grow the business.
Also all of our customers have read our leaflet, liked our prices and been bothered to pick up the phone and call.
Canvassing is fine but it needs more of your time spent on it.
And to answer your original question, create a leaflet that answers all the questions a likely customer would ask if they phoned. How often, how much, what guarantee, etc.
Vin
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We stick with leaflets because while I'm working on other things, customers come in. Over the weekend I may be at the beach and our leaflets are going out and picking up customers. Ditto for evenings. I don't have to give up time with the family to grow the business.
Also all of our customers have read our leaflet, liked our prices and been bothered to pick up the phone and call.
Canvassing is fine but it needs more of your time spent on it.
And to answer your original question, create a leaflet that answers all the questions a likely customer would ask if they phoned. How often, how much, what guarantee, etc.
Vin
Thanks vin, when you say tell them how much do you mean per window and you put that on your leaflet?
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2-3 per 1000 is my average return also.
Tbh leafletting yourself is not the best time for result return, canvassing is
best to pay someone else to do both if you want any sort of life outside work
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I'm going back out knocking Sunday afternoon will spend Saturday with kids :)
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I get about 2 or 3 out of hundred from leaflets. I deliver them all though.
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Thanks vin, when you say tell them how much do you mean per window and you put that on your leaflet?
As per website.
Vin
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I bank 5000 at a time out. No fancy leaflets, yet.
I usually get 5 good customers who stay. 4 who want a 1 off at £20 and 4 who want it cheaper that I want to do it, or are just rubbish.
I pay £25 per 1000. £125. Soon pays off.
I tried doing new estates on my own. Say 50 or so. Never got anything but bad feet. So Istick with this mad cow, who likes walking all day. Pays for me
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So 5k isn't worth bothering with really? And best to knock?
5k is a good number.
it depends on your scale, you profit, and your ambition.
5 k will get you some custom. i recommend charging double for the first clean so you get money back faster.
we leaflet 7-13,000 a month, but when i started i did nothing like that.
Cheers Richard, do you have someone putting your leaflets out for you and how much does it cost if you do?
yes Rob,
i use a local leafleting company who i trust. I've done them myself (hate), i've employed my own people (time consuming but ok), used the real mail (pain in the arse when they went on strike)... settled on this company 2 years ago and used them ever since.
like someone else has said here, most efficient use of your time is canvassing, unless you get someone else to leaflet for you
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For you guys that leaflet on a regular basis
What's your outlay/ budget each month ie how much do you spend On leaflets being Printed and what do you spend on distribution
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For those that have fixed pricing on their leaflets, how often do you charge even more than the price on the flyer?
I would like to go the fixed price route, think it's the way forward if you want to expand faster but it bugs me that I might be missing out on some extra value from some larger jobs.
Do you accept the overall average good and bad? or readjust your pricing is it's bigger than average?
Thanks
Robert
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For those that have fixed pricing on their leaflets, how often do you charge even more than the price on the flyer?
I would like to go the fixed price route, think it's the way forward if you want to expand faster but it bugs me that I might be missing out on some extra value from some larger jobs.
Do you accept the overall average good and bad? or readjust your pricing is it's bigger than average?
Thanks
Robert
you need to price so your average price is slightly higher than now (or more if you're putting your prices up)
we charge double for the first clean, so its never really so much of a pain to do. if on the first clean the house is badly underpriced we let them know how much it'll be going forward.
when a house is uncommonly large the owner will already be aware of that. most of them actually let you know on the phone that you might want to come out and view it.
the benefit of not having to go out and quote far outweighs the down side of some being underpriced, especially when others are better priced.
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Rob
When I returned to Fife in 2012, I purchased 10,000 window cleaning leaflets and 10,000 carpet cleaning leaflets from .. ready made flyers ..
http://www.readymadeflyers.co.uk/59-w.html
They were the biggest waste of money ever for me, I think they were to posh for the areas I was targeting.
I think I got 30/40 window customers and absolutely zero carpet cleaning customers.
I then designed my own leaflet which I get done in runs of 5000 at a time, black ink on different colours of paper each run. Because these are black on plain paper, I can't seem to get them done cheaper than full colour online, so use a local printer to me who charges £100 per 5000, which is expensive compared with full colour online print businesses. I meant pick one up from my sons to post on here tonight, but forgot so will definitely put it on tomorrow.
The total results so far of my last 5000 print run which were put out over 3 areas are
Distributed 1st to 5th April
Total leaflets ... 5000
Leaflets out ..... 2838
Leaflets left ..... 2162
New customers April ... 36 ... £186 per clean ... £2232 per year
New customers May .... 28 ... £149 per clean ... £1788 per year
New customers June ... 11 ... £ 63 per clean ... £. 756 per year (up to 6 June)
Total New Customers .. 75 ... £398 per clean ... £4776 per year (up to 6 June)
Leaflet return rate .... 2.64%
The 2838 leaflets distributed were put out by my son and myself, we paid ourselves 20 hours at £7.50 per hour each, we were slow at putting them out as we worked the same side of the street as we wanted to record each address that was leafletted, that's how we know how many houses we have in each area to cover.
So our costs were
Distribution ... £300
Printing ........... £100
Total cost ....... £400
So we are just £2 short of new work to having recovered our cost in the first clean, great result for us so far, next month the remaining leaflets will be distributed on 2 adjoining estates and results recorded as we have done with first drop.
We probably have a higher percentage return as we mainly target former council housing estates which we are pricing at £5/£6 per house, other window cleaners on here probably get a lower return as they are targeting a totally different market from me.
I also use Aworka, so I am able to keep track of dates when I got the new customers.
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Thanks for replies, got these leaflets now so will have to put them out and see what happens lol, got a website getting started today so hopefully bigger things to come ;D
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Rob
When I returned to Fife in 2012, I purchased 10,000 window cleaning leaflets and 10,000 carpet cleaning leaflets from .. ready made flyers ..
http://www.readymadeflyers.co.uk/59-w.html
They were the biggest waste of money ever for me, I think they were to posh for the areas I was targeting.
I think I got 30/40 window customers and absolutely zero carpet cleaning customers.
I then designed my own leaflet which I get done in runs of 5000 at a time, black ink on different colours of paper each run. Because these are black on plain paper, I can't seem to get them done cheaper than full colour online, so use a local printer to me who charges £100 per 5000, which is expensive compared with full colour online print businesses. I meant pick one up from my sons to post on here tonight, but forgot so will definitely put it on tomorrow.
The total results so far of my last 5000 print run which were put out over 3 areas are
Distributed 1st to 5th April
Total leaflets ... 5000
Leaflets out ..... 2838
Leaflets left ..... 2162
New customers April ... 36 ... £186 per clean ... £2232 per year
New customers May .... 28 ... £149 per clean ... £1788 per year
New customers June ... 11 ... £ 63 per clean ... £. 756 per year (up to 6 June)
Total New Customers .. 75 ... £398 per clean ... £4776 per year (up to 6 June)
Leaflet return rate .... 2.64%
The 2838 leaflets distributed were put out by my son and myself, we paid ourselves 20 hours at £7.50 per hour each, we were slow at putting them out as we worked the same side of the street as we wanted to record each address that was leafletted, that's how we know how many houses we have in each area to cover.
So our costs were
Distribution ... £300
Printing ........... £100
Total cost ....... £400
So we are just £2 short of new work to having recovered our cost in the first clean, great result for us so far, next month the remaining leaflets will be distributed on 2 adjoining estates and results recorded as we have done with first drop.
We probably have a higher percentage return as we mainly target former council housing estates which we are pricing at £5/£6 per house, other window cleaners on here probably get a lower return as they are targeting a totally different market from me.
I also use Aworka, so I am able to keep track of dates when I got the new customers.
10000 leaflets and 30/40 customers is good anyway. Soon pay off