Oh yeah nearly everyone will agree canvassing, in terms of customer gain, is fair better than leaflets.
Customer retention, thou, thats the key surely?!
IMO leafleting works better.
However, if you gained 100 custies from canvassing and after say 6 months you had 50% left -
compared to
100 custies gained from 20-30k leaflets? then only lost 10% after 6 months
Canvassing is 50
Leafleting is 90
And the canvassing took you 2-3 months compared to the leafleting which would trickle in over a year. Probably 30-40 initial calls, then which is better?

Digging deeper the cost of canvssing those custies -£10 per house - paying x2 cleans is £20 so times the intial 100 customers £2000
Leaflets being delivered by Royal Mail, cost of £3,000.
Lets say your canvasser will refund you half the cost of the lost custies thou.
So thats 25 customers @10 per clean times 2 refunded = £500 TOTAL COST £1500 for 50 Customers
TOTAL COST FOR LEAFLETS INC PRINT £4500 - 90 customers a month at a tenner is £900 COST PER CUSTOMER = 4500/900=
£50TOTAL COST PER CUSTOMER CANVASSING £500pm £1500/50
£30Make your own conclusions, if my maths is right.
I mean ideally you want to leaflet and then canvass the area yourself. And so this shall be my findings sherlock
I will call this the "Gardner Two Pronged Approach" (us gardiners/gardners have got the game wrapped up

)