[MJH]

Just a thought- i have never used leaflets before to drum up buisness but am considering this now, most of my domestics are compact at least 30 plus (in one street) in most areas i clean, so what happens if you drop a load of leaflets and only get 3 or 4 jobs scattered about?
what do you guys do? any opinions please!

Regards

[michael papworth]

Leafleting by itself is of limited value. It may get you a few customers. It may get you none. Leafleting followed up by canvassing is effective.

Before leafleting, check the area out and see that there is a need for a window cleaner.

(My method is to walk past wearing my hi-viz jacket and look at my reflection in their windows. If my reflection is really bright, they have clean windows. If the reflection is dull, their windows are dirty. The other way is to look at the upstairs windows and look for the brightness of the reflection of the sky. I don't waste leaflets on people who already have sparkling windows.)

Make sure that your leaflets talk to the customer about what THEY want:

* clean windows
* regular and reliable service
* reasonable cost
* guaranteed quality

As long as their windows are clean, they're probably not very interested in how you do it.

And get it spell checked and grammar checked. Spelling and grammar mistakes are the kiss of death to any leaflet and business that uses them.

[MJH]

Leafleting by itself is of limited value. It may get you a few customers. It may get you none. Leafleting followed up by canvassing is effective.

Before leafleting, check the area out and see that there is a need for a window cleaner.

(My method is to walk past wearing my hi-viz jacket and look at my reflection in their windows. If my reflection is really bright, they have clean windows. If the reflection is dull, their windows are dirty. The other way is to look at the upstairs windows and look for the brightness of the reflection of the sky. I don't waste leaflets on people who already have sparkling windows.)

Make sure that your leaflets talk to the customer about what THEY want:

* clean windows
* regular and reliable service
* reasonable cost
* guaranteed quality

As long as their windows are clean, they're probably not very interested in how you do it.

And get it spell checked and grammar checked. Spelling and grammar mistakes are the kiss of death to any leaflet and business that uses them.

Thanks Michael, that is the line i was thinking along, not sure about the high vis jacket though, people might think you are bonkers looking in windows with that on

[paulscotney]

I don't wish to sound argumentative but I have often found that the houses with the clean windows are the better prospect. Often the householder cleans them (and very often only the fronts)  because they haven't got a window cleaner but still want one. Whereas the the dirty ones have an owner who doesn't care. I once lealeted a street of about 200 houses, wrote down the numbers of all the dirty ones and canvassed them the next day or so. There were about 30. Only one was interested. In the end I picked up four clean ones who rang me up.

[windowwashers]

I don't wish to sound argumentative but I have often found that the houses with the clean windows are the better prospect. Often the householder cleans them (and very often only the fronts)  because they haven't got a window cleaner but still want one. Whereas the the dirty ones have an owner who doesn't care. I once lealeted a street of about 200 houses, wrote down the numbers of all the dirty ones and canvassed them the next day or so. There were about 30. Only one was interested. In the end I picked up four clean ones who rang me up.

I agree with you on that one, the dirty windows seem to stay that way and are not looking for a window cleaner

[MJH]

I don't wish to sound argumentative but I have often found that the houses with the clean windows are the better prospect. Often the householder cleans them (and very often only the fronts)  because they haven't got a window cleaner but still want one. Whereas the the dirty ones have an owner who doesn't care. I once lealeted a street of about 200 houses, wrote down the numbers of all the dirty ones and canvassed them the next day or so. There were about 30. Only one was interested. In the end I picked up four clean ones who rang me up.

Thats a good point, i guess its best to leaflet them all as you can't tell until you ask!!

[mick hay]

Ive built my whole business on leaflets, and have over 350 very well priced custies.

I have 10,000 at a time dropped, and yes some custies are scattered about, but because i price them higher than normal, its worth me doing them, ive got 20,000 going out at the mo.

Results vary, but i find its the best way to build a well priced round, as the customer is calling you, rather than you asking them.

Many will argue other ways are best, but its worked very well for me.

[colley614]

what sort of return do you get on your leaflet drops? Obviously there isn't an exact science behind it but what would you educated guess be or say the mean average response per drop?

[RO-Sheen]

Leaflet drops bring in on average 2-3% return. That is the official statistic throughout all business's and I find that it is spot on. It goes up a hell of a lot if you follow it up with canvassing though!

[jampot]

Ive built my whole business on leaflets, and have over 350 very well priced custies.

I have 10,000 at a time dropped, and yes some custies are scattered about, but because i price them higher than normal, its worth me doing them, ive got 20,000 going out at the mo.

Results vary, but i find its the best way to build a well priced round, as the customer is calling you, rather than you asking them.

Many will argue other ways are best, but its worked very well for me.

hi mick
 ive got 10,000 on the way. do you post them yourself?
and what sort of return do you get form  that figure??

i was hoping around 2% thats just leafleting with no follow ups

[windowwashers]

Ive built my whole business on leaflets, and have over 350 very well priced custies.

I have 10,000 at a time dropped, and yes some custies are scattered about, but because i price them higher than normal, its worth me doing them, ive got 20,000 going out at the mo.

Results vary, but i find its the best way to build a well priced round, as the customer is calling you, rather than you asking them.

Many will argue other ways are best, but its worked very well for me.

hi mick
 ive got 10,000 on the way. do you post them yourself?
and what sort of return do you get form  that figure??

i was hoping around 2% thats just leafleting with no follow ups

Anything over 1% is good, leaflets can get you calls straight away or months some times years later

[mick hay]

I have a company put them out for me.

You should look at a response of 0.5%.

I have mine double sided, windows one side, conservatories the other, within a couple of days, the conservatory jobs have more than paid for the leaflets and distribution!!!

[jampot]

thanx window washers 
if i put out 10,000 flyers at 1%
i shud get 100 new costmers @ £10 min per clean
that shud be £1000 a month 
il be happy with that 

[jampot]

I have a company put them out for me.

You should look at a response of 0.5%.

I have mine double sided, windows one side, conservatories the other, within a couple of days, the conservatory jobs have more than paid for the leaflets and distribution!!!

thats what im having on my leaflets (wc 1 side ,gutters & cons other)

mine are comming from dp design 135g colour both sides

[davids3511]

I use a different leaflet. Ther customer puts it in their window and I drive around and speak to hom ever has put it in their window. My leafletter put abut 300 out last wednesday and I got 13 customers out of that.

All in all I put out 10000, I now have 219 customers, I lost or dumped another 40 or so.

[michael papworth]

Ahh! It's a different approach to leafleting.

The approach that Mick and others are advocating is saturation leafleting. I can see how that works.

My approach is little and often and follow up with canvassing.

It might come down to how much available capital you have. I use my approach because it requires very little up-front capital expenditure. I can print 500 double-sided tri-fold leaflets for little over the cost of the paper using an old LaserJet printer (dirt cheap to run) and a letter folder machine. My time delivering and following up canvassing comes for free at the moment.

I hadn't thought about Paul's clean windows theory. Very interesting. I'll give that one some thought and some investigation.

I've used David's "put it in your window" approach and it got the same about 4%. Followed it up with canvassing and got 12%.

Love this forum. So many brilliant ideas bouncing around!

[Sanity]

I find saturation leafleting of an ideal area will get a response of 1% or so.

BUT, each job you get will expose you to being seen by neighbors etc who might not feel they need a wc till they see the job you do.  Then you will get more work in that area.  That is what has happened to me anyhow...

[paulscotney]

I discovered another thing leafleting as well. I went down a road leafleted all the houses about 40 got nothing. The rest of the road were bungalows, about the same amount, so I never bothered to do them.
About 2 months later I got a phone call from one of the bungalows who had been given my leaflet by a friend and now I have 3 bungalows in that road and one is having the gutter cleaned, a flat glass roof over side of house and fascia and another is having con roof done.
I now just think it is best to leaflet everything except obviously slummy houses.It seems impossible to tell by just looking from the pavement.

[MJH]

I have a company put them out for me.

You should look at a response of 0.5%.

I have mine double sided, windows one side, conservatories the other, within a couple of days, the conservatory jobs have more than paid for the leaflets and distribution!!!

How much approx did you pay for them to be delivered? out of interest.

[pingu]

0.5% seems to be the return that I have experianced.....

Dave.