Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Paul Phillips on May 17, 2005, 03:17:27 pm
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All,
After getting to the end of my first 10,000 leaflets and finding my response is around 0.02%, I think I need some help!
Based between two Large towns in Gloucestershire I have hit an area of approx 3000 houses, around 3-4-5 bedrooms. The leafelts just aren't working!
In total I have done 4 jobs, two of which came from the local paper I advertise in.......
Help! My leaflet can be sent to show what I am using.
Would you say MORE info or Less info is best??
Or should it really just catch the eye and say Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning, along with contact details???
Any and all help is much appreciated.
Cheers
Paul
P.S. Someone out there must have the 'gold-dust' leaflet, how about sharing it with all of us??
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Come on Guys.........
27 views and no-one has an opinion????
Only Glynn has replied (via email)
Paul
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Contact Tradeprint in Hull will send you a pack of leaflets from cc all over the country where you can get ideas from.
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Nice one Steve
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that is a poor return indeed . your response rate should be around 1% i assume your leaflets are going out all in one day. if not that will be a problem, you really need a blanket hit regardless what else you are told. your leaflet might well be worded in a unnatractive way, e mail me with it i will tell you what to change . and i guarentee you will get response, you are no were near me so i dont mind giving you sherlocks secret. do you do 3 piece suites as well/
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I find that most leaflets go in the bin. waste of time and effort.
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I put leaflets out for years, especially in my CC early days. I dont think response values have changed. I always found and Ive seen others say the same that initial response for most leafets is 0.01% or 1 in a 1000. So 2 in a 1000 is not bad. 0.02% for 10,000 should produce an initial response of 20 calls. If the response was only 2 calls then the percentage isnt 0.02 but 0.002 which IS a poor result. I put out some leaflets a few weeks ago, whilst a bit quiet, Id had them for years just gathering dust. After these were printed all that time ago, I put out about 3,000 and got very few calls, so I abandond putting anymore out. I analysed the leaflet more and saw that whilst it was generally a good design there were parts to it that were letting it down and spoiling the overall impression. But a few weeks ago I put a further two hundred out, on the basis that a bad leaflet is better than none at all. To date I have done two jobs from the small drop, and even though one of those clients told me (Because I asked) that he thought it was a bad unprofessional leaflet - to which I fully agreed.
Dave.
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im getting baffled by all this, are you really saying you get 1 in a 1000 response, that is not the national average at all. response is and should be 1% 10.000 leaflets should give you around 100 jobs, and that response .makes no difference to what product you offer. it is soley a numbers game, you can however shift the umbers by using your flyer with what the customers see tantalizing on. maybe some of you dont make an offer the cussrd cant refuse, plenty of good working flyers out there
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Sherlock, Its time to put up or shut up! scan your leaflet and post it here, you keep saying you get 1% a 100 calls for 10,000 leaflets.
I speak daily with lots of carpet cleaners through my involvment with tradeprint werehouse. no one get 1% anywhere in the country. so your leaflet must be something totally amazing.
I personally do 20,000 a month and have done for the last 8 years, trying every design ever seen ( and I've seen most of them ;) )
I think you will just ignore this post because you can't back up you figures.
Mike
Ps: How about a swop I'll send you mine & you send me yours, send me a P/M if you want and we'll swop address
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mike i would suggest that you change your printer, because if you are involved as you say you are,you and the printer should be out of business,a load of old tripe. its 2005, time you buck up your ideas print and think smart. youre right i dont want to share with some of you how its done. im smart
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thanks for the advise ;)
now please enlighten us all be showing us the leaflet that get 1%. you are talking nonsense and you know it, you are digging a hole for yourself.
Trade print are one of the most successfull printer in the country, and I' doing very well thank you.
OK don't share your wisdom with everyone, but send me your leaflet and I look at it and then eat it, so no one else sees it ::)
but you won't do this because I'm calling your bluff, people are reading this and seeing you as a Billy Liar, why dont you prove us all wrong.
more chance of pig flying ;)
Mike
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i wont lower the tone of this topic to your level,lets hope however people starting out in this business, are not put off by the amount of negativity shown,in my area however pigs do fly.
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How about instead of all the cat scratching and sarcastic remarks, if individuals go onto the chat area on this site and have it out between yourselves instead of letting the general public witness it.
Personally me being a newbie still with just over a year in CC i come onto this site because there is lot of helpfull and knowledgable bods on here (including Sherlock, Mike H, and many more) and im sick of seeing all the crappy comments.
Each to there own if people want to brag about something its a free world and people can make there own minds up
Regards
Martin
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Sherlock,how am i lowering the level ??? ??? I'm just asking you to prove what you are saying, you put yourself across as a experienced businessman & try to give out advise.
to be truthfull i'm continuing this line of questioning to stop any new starter being given bad advise. lots of people have inflated opinions of there own worth ( I don't think you are one of them that why I'm asking you to back up your statements)
I like to treat everyone as I would like to be treated myself, if at any time you want me to back up any statement I post please feel free to ask and i will happily oblige, won't you please permit me the same courtesy.
Mike
Ps; martin sorry if you feel my remarks are sarcastic, all I'm after is honesty
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I agree with Mike.
Martin - lesson one for a starter. dont believe half of what you read on these boards.
Mark
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Mark
I dont believe everything thats put on here, far from it! ;), i make my own mind up on what i find usefull and whats not.
regards
Martin
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Mike,
I was not aware that you offerd leaflet consultation through Trade Print ;D ;D ;D
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Hi Paul,
I started putting leaflets out last feb around 70k have gone and have had about the same responce as you. I'm still being persistant and hopefully it will pick up.
Talking to other cc in this area everyone is complaning that it is very quiet for this time of year.
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Whilst a newbie, I am trying to target my leaflet and am hand delivering/ knocking and am now getting some work /referrals. From a sales background I am uncomfortable about sending 10,000 or even 20.000 to unnamed people as I can not grow my database of contacts other than existing customers. Readers digest are often quoted as getting a 2% response from specifically addressed media, usually with a special offer. Knocking I am getting well better than this.
I will try some mass leafleting once I have confidence that I have a full order book for next month because I want to emulate you guys that are doing the big numbers
regards
Eddie
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Eddie
If I read you correctly we may be on the same wavelength, this is what I just sent to a member via pm
QUOTE “A couple of years ago did try leaflets response not that good I more or less cloned others and gave up.
Am now in the process of re-designing a leaflet that sets me apart from the 50% off people, one thing wont be on it is prices, I intend to do a trial run of selected roads delivered by me and see what type of response I get.” UNQUOTE
Are you going to the Alltec road show in Gatwick?
Len
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Len,
Thanks.
I will be ringing alltec tomorrow to see if there are places and look forward to putting some names to faces
May see you there
regards
Eddie
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i have never had much success with leaflets particularly random deliveries. i i always use business cards as i feel they offer better value. i only distribute by knocking on doors i do not beleive in wasting money on leaflets that go straight in the bin. i can get about 5 jobs (including referals) per 100(hundred) business cards. as i say people will give the card i have given them to friend/relatives etc. 4 jobs per 10000 leaflets is quite poor. try knocking but do not sell too hard, get people to trust, you put your address on the card esp with local drops. the local paper is good but a definite second place runner to knocking. i do use an offer, a free stain removal demo. if you are confident in your stain removal ability this can boost their confidence in you. if you come across an obvious difficult stain explain to them why and promote the benefits of stain protection(with a demo of course) . knocking is difficult, but 30 houses can be done in less than an hour(no cups of tea!!!)
my humble two pennies worth
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I would regard Mike as the king of leaflets, when i asked him about them a couple of years ago he sent me a whole batch of his ones, they were excellent and gave me great ideas for my own.
sherlock you may have bitten off more than you can chew ::)
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its a common belief that leaflet just go straight in the bin, but where is the bin in your house? usually in the kitchen. So the leaflet might end up in the bin but while they are carrying it to the bin they will glance at it, if it is some thing they are interested in they will not bin it.
It cost me the equivilent of 2.5 hrs work to have my leaflets printed & delivered this keeps me working 6 days a week, I challenge anyone to say any other marketing that will give me the same return.
I could go door knocking for a morning but to be honest would this bring in a full weeks work .... no
Mike
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I think leaflets and Yellow Pages are a no brainer, once you have got the copy right you then go away organise printing and delivery all you then have to do is wait for the phone to ring.
A lesson for the newbies
Shaun
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Hi guys,
I am currently in the process of trying to design my first leaflet. I've seen quite few, but the one thing that strikes me about all that i've seen so far, is that although most of them look ok, I really don't think they are ''selling'', IMO.
I started to look at all these leaflets thinking, right, I'll use this for this, and that for that, but when I stopped to think about it, I thought to myself, hang on!! This would only really mean something to me if I was already thinking about having my carpets cleaned and a leaflet came through the door. None of them would make me think about whether I wanted my carpets cleaned!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that none of them work, as clearly they do. But if I had a leaflet giving a return of 0.1% and produced another that gave a return of 0.2 or 0.3% that is a two or three fold increase.
I read a statistic somewhere about only 14% or so of people get their carpets cleaned. If that's true, that leaves 86% untapped!! Obviously some of that 86% will probably never pay to have CC, but most are probably ignorant of the fact, benefits etc. I don't know!! maybe!!
All that i've seen, bar none, say, ''XYZ cleaning services, carpet & upholstery cleaners etc etc'' and go on to say ''blah blah, dry fusion this, PH neutral that, truckmount the other''. What does it all mean though? It means something to me as a CC, as I understand the phraseology, but I'm unable to look at it objectively.
Some say leaflets don't work, others that they do, they can't both be right! So a leaflets success has to be down to layout, message content (A.I.D.A), timing and frequency, and who it's targeted at!
How many of you have experimented with different leaflet designs? I don't just mean putting different pictures on, or moving logos around etc, but completely different designs, messages?
Do you measure the responses carefully and what sort of response rate do you get?
Lastly, if any of you have got a leaflet that in your opinion works, could you e-mail or post me a copy? Address details via a personal message. I'm in Bucks, so I don't expect any from my local area obviously. I have no intention whatsoever of just blatantly copying someone elses leaflet, but am after some ideas that I can adapt.
Of course, I may have this totally wrong and my first leaflet design could completely bomb!! I'll have to wait and see.
Regards.
Martin
Ps. Paul Phillips. Sorry to hijack your post.
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I think the impression being given here , mostly, is that printers will design a successfull leaflet for you and if you expect that to happen, think again.
If you use leaflets they must reflect your organisation and be personalised to show this.
If you don't have a clue then look at how the experts work, estate agents - money lenders-anyone who uses emotive language to catch your attention then makes you a time limited offer.
We only use leaflets in a minimal way, by leaving a couple with every client we've cleaned for.
What this does, is simply act as a prompt to remind the client that somebody had asked to be informed regards the quality of work .
This probably gets a much higher return than any other method of using leaflets
r m
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No offers of a good leaflet then!! :'( :'( :'( :'(
Martin
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10,000 leaflets hundred hours delivery work if i got 100 jobs i would be amazed if i got 10 jobs i would be very happy Paul.
PS 10,000 a week is required (i personally cant do that and cant afford to get them delivered i am most likely like a lot of carpet cleaners its a numbers game its also a catch 22)
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Think
Ron may have a point look inside a Yellow pages book what do you see apart from dots or zeros or both then you see name, rank and serial number, yes I’m there with a lot of dots and zeros. :( :(
Done an audit yesterday asking potential customer who else did you phone bit surprised she didn’t phone a friend of mine her reply he only stated carpet cleaning, where she wanted upholstery, one thing I hate still got the job.
Len
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Had a lady ring yesterday (YPages) asking if i cleaned stairs carpet meaning she wasent sure, if we only cleaned flat carpet ::)
Personally I think were in a recession and customer spending is way down so thats why flyer responce is down too.
I'm about 20% down on last years figures.
Mark
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Paul,
I think you could get away with 3000 a week and wait for the results to burn in. 5hrs a day.
I notice from your Web Site that you are now involved with a major PLC.
It can work, but watch it does not burn your time. It can very easily do so.
You may find you can pick up Carpet Cleaning Customers people buy from people they know.
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I've got 25,000 leaflets going out today, this is being done in a way that has never been done before in the UK
this has been arranged after months of careful negotiation with a national PLC company. the only way it was possible was for them to do 25,000 in one go.
I can't give any more details, because its all top secret ;)
but you can have great success with lealfets if you can sort out reliable delivery, sometimes you have to think out of the box :)
Mike
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Come on then Mike, share your secret! Just send me a pm, I'm miles away from Hull. ;) Don't be getting like Sherlock! :)
It does seem to be a catch 22. Although I have time to deliver at the moment, if going to the numbers that Mike recommends it is simply not practical, unless you change profession to 'Leaflet distributor'
The firm below want £95.00 for 'Solus'!!!
http://www.dor-2-dor.com/html/residential.html
Martin
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Mike H,
What is your target market?
Are you selective with leaflets (private only, or detached only etc) or do you just cover the whole area?
Martin
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Royal Mail
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I launched my business in April have posted 5,000 leaflets & had 9 enquiries so far. I got the A4 format from Fastrack Business Building Programme as one of several marketing stratergies.
I worked for Chem-Dry for 2 years and their leaflets got about 1% on average responce.
Do you have a clear plan to deal with enquiries?
I never price over the phone!
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NEVER ever price over the phone - if customer is adamant they want a price over phone I 'estimate' a square/foot metre charge, but then qualify that with the problems of not knowing the fibre make up etc etc. Things are slowly picking up and have not yet had a call that I have not gone to quote at their house as yet. Getting better at turning the quotes into jobs. Just done two this morning for Suites. One booked, the second will book next week when she arranges a day off work.
Out to quote a LARGE health club this afternoon..........
Paul
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Not the royal mail, trhis is cheaper and guarentees the homeowner will see it ;)
I could'nt specify a type, only an area.
Mike
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anyone know a good company to put out my leaflets :) :) :) :) :)
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Hi Guys,
My business took a big step forward when I stopped trying to do everything myself and employed people to deliver leaflets.
Now I never deliver leaflets as I'm always busy.
As someone said earlier it's catch 22 if you deliver yourself,quiet so you deliver , busy for a few days then quiet again because youv'e been busy working.
I know it's daunting but it worked for me.
Cheers,
Doug
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Mike,
You're never normally backwards in coming forwards. ::) ::)
Martin
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i now understand why most of you think leaflets are rubbish. a few of you have sent me what you put out.no wonder you dont get a return of 1%. they all seem to be printed by one company and all look the same. take a good look at what you have got and ask yourself.would you reply to this flyer and if so why.
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so why not show us your lealfet that gets 1% ::) ::) so we know what a good leaflet looks like
Mike
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those that need help have contacted me and i have done. however carte blanche copying the way i work . i dont think so mike, perhaps looking at your previous post you dont need help.i certainly dont want to see whats working for me popping through my letterbox by someone else.
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but you are right about most leaflets looking the same, thats because the printer is designing the leaflet.
if you provide good copy and high dpi pictures you'll get a better lealfet, don't blame the leaflet for a poor response if you just accepted what the printer designed.
make the leaflet personable and fit your company and local area
Mike
Ps Sherlock, you answered as i was typing, but you have a point, that why I won't give the details of my current lealfedt drop
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Personally, I could never have coped with the response of 25k leaflets, from which,I.ve always understood, would return around 2%, but even at 1%, that's a hell of a lot of work.
At our peak, in terms of volume, we were doing, on average, about 8 jobs per day, 5 days per week...........
However, this was low value work, but would give cash flow to someone new to the business and you would learn a great deal, very quickly, f you had the energy.
This volume of work came from advertising, in local - paid and free papers - and I've never known anything to come close, in terms of return for money, or marketing effort.
Our poorest response leaflet was a " healthy homes / asthma / allergy control leaflet...........
Our best, had a photograph of my lovely young wife.............
we came accross the latter, 5 years later
Strange old world ! but, is it ?
One of the therapies I practice, completely avoids the use of any negative words, when talking to the client .
Only tell them what they want to hear !!!!!!!!!!!!
cheers
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correct therapist you ave got it bang on , tell them what they want to hear , and yes price is very competive,
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Problem is, Sherlock, I'm past my "sell by date" in c/cleaning and very close to giving it all up. Not for business reasons, but I've suffered arthritis and severe lower back pains since my teens and that was a long time ago, I think Cliff Richard is only a year older than me, but a little wealthier.
As a therapist I'll earn more per hour, but won't be working nearly as many hours and I'll be in my own air conditioned territory fixing peoples bodies, instead of knackering my back while wsweating buckets.
There is still the possibility of some commercial work, if a certain individual supplies the work he promised, if not you will read about it in here
cheers.....must go.
r m
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therapist, your dead right to pick up on the fact that the response from 25,000 leaflets in a single day would be impossible to handle for 1 company, but the leaflet I put out was a leaflet recommending a specific method of cleaning and listed at the bottom were the companies who used the system.
so 3 company names & telephone Numbers were on leaflet. Each company listed the area they covered ( no one worked in the others area) so the cost was split 3 ways.
Mike
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Mike now you've been doing leaflets on a regular basis for years what is your call rate for leaflets?
is it about 0.2% ish
what are you hoping for with the new delivery?
Shaun
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Hi Guys,
One of the major reasons I do not use Trade print and their ilk is that I know my copyright will not be respected.
Own design , own deliverers , keep control.
Cheers,
Doug
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OK, Mike I can see where you're coming from and have to congratulate you and your associates for working together.
I was part of a pretty big group a few years ago who were all using the same product and machines, but it fell apart due to distributor problems.
There must be some of them who look in here.
I'm referring to Franklins and One Step / CFR......A MISSED OPPORTUNITY
CHEERS
R M
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Mike,
I take it you mean 3 areas of specialism, and not 3 geographical areas! Yes?
Martin
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could any of you guys recommend a company that delievers leaflets at a reasonable price cheers del :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
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martin, no, 3 geographical areas. I listed my home town & all the local villages. the other 2 did the same.
Mike
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i only use flyers rarely.BUT EXPECT 10 JOBS FROM 1000 FLYERS. ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Paul,
Wondered if you're still on this forum at all. I read an old post regarding door-to-door canvassing for carpet cleaning and a script of what to say to potential customers. Do you still have this script available?
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Pauls
Last visit to this Forum was Oct 2005.
It would be interested to know what happened next.
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Pauls
Last visit to this Forum was Oct 2005.
It would be interested to know what happened next.
and me....
Did it work Mike?
Regards
Mike
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Mike was that question aimed towards me?
if you are referring to my collaboration with 2 other cleaners, it would have worked if the newspaper machine had worked properly, it couldn't separate the leaflets so was inserting 3 or 4 leaflet in each paper.
we refused to pay so they got a dept collection company onto us, but we stuck to our guns and they let us of payment
Mike
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I was about to extol the virtue of delivering leaflets by hand rather than bulk maildrops but I was leafleting today with my helper and as I shoved a leaflet through the letterbox something clamped my finger...No barking just something that felt like an animal snare clamped on my finger. It then dragged my hand into the letterbox, pulling the skin off the back of my hand. Eventually hand released and blood running down the door, a bit bewildered and hacked off that my expensive leaflets were now 'full colour' (namely red). I stood to wrap a handkerchief round my hand when I saw the local postie. She said 'Yeah and its only a little Yorkie'. My helper was helpless with laughter and my wife wants me to get a tetanus up the b*m, but I'd rather have the lockjaw.
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Mike was that question aimed towards me?
Yes, it was. We're starting some significant leaflet drops shortly ourselves (for the new directory - are you listed yet?) and I was just curious about how you get most out for least cost. With you being the resident expert I thought I'd pick your brains on it. Have you used Newsquest publications before and what do you pay per 1000 for distribution?
Thanks
Mike
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I put leaflets out for years, especially in my CC early days. I dont think response values have changed. I always found and Ive seen others say the same that initial response for most leafets is 0.01% or 1 in a 1000. So 2 in a 1000 is not bad. 0.02% for 10,000 should produce an initial response of 20 calls. If the response was only 2 calls then the percentage isnt 0.02 but 0.002 which IS a poor result. I put out some leaflets a few weeks ago, whilst a bit quiet, Id had them for years just gathering dust. After these were printed all that time ago, I put out about 3,000 and got very few calls, so I abandond putting anymore out. I analysed the leaflet more and saw that whilst it was generally a good design there were parts to it that were letting it down and spoiling the overall impression. But a few weeks ago I put a further two hundred out, on the basis that a bad leaflet is better than none at all. To date I have done two jobs from the small drop, and even though one of those clients told me (Because I asked) that he thought it was a bad unprofessional leaflet - to which I fully agreed.
Dave.
Dave was that a Fast Track leaflet?