[rl]

Hi all, apologies if this has already been asked, remember (i think it was matt) was getting 30,000 or so flyers delivered and was hoping for about 300 new customers from them. Was just wondering if they worked etc?

Cheers

[Tosh]

Hi rl,

I've put out, and had delivered a lot of leaflets, about 10,000 over the years I reckon, and the results are pretty disapointing.  I'd say you'd be lucky to get a 1% success rate with them.

I reckon you're going to spend about £600 on those 30,000 leaflets (my last box of 5000 cost about £100; A5 size) and to get them delivered would cost about £100/£150 per 5000 leaflets, so another £600 to £900 quid. 

If you think you're going to deliver them yourself, its not easy work delivering leaflets.

And 30,000 of them is just about every house in Lancashire; I think Chepstow has about 5000 houses; though it is small town.

I reckon you're better off buying some work and starting from there; or go door knocking.

[Lee Pryor]

in 2007 i did a royal mail leaflet campaign of 120,000 spread over 4 months and while we did get alot of customers the result was overall dissapointing, that said there were several factors why, which we have learnt and have since had better results from leafleting.

imo the place leafleting works best is while your doorknocking, which is exactly why we are currently building a door knocking team to start next year.

this year we delivered 25,000 and had a good result, next year 30-40.

[rl]

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't think a response of 1% was too bad, if you spent say £1200 getting 30,000 leaflets printed and  delivered and got 1% at an average price of £10 that'd be £3000 a month of work.

I think Lancashire has a few more houses than 30,000, think my town has half that number alone???

I agree (from my time on here) Door knocking together with leafleting does seem to be the best way, but i was intrigued as to if you could get 300 customers from mass leafleting or if it wouldn't work.

What % did you guys get from your leaflets alone do you think?

[Lee Pryor]

expect between 0.4-1.5% depending on certain factors like

your leaflet design

if its being put out alone or with others

density  and affluence of your chosen area

competition from other window cleaners.

time of year.

[jonnyald]

i raked in a lot of work from leaflets ,but as tosh said,its gruelling work,  its tough to do it everyday,.   luckily i had a bit of cash so i paid a  woman to do it.  even though she looked like hattie jaques and wore flip-flops  she slogged on and once i saw her doing it pushing a pram with a big kid in it too !  

[rl]

cheers for that, is it just me or does even 0.4% not sound too bad a return. £1200 for 30,000 leaflets = 120 customers at £10 = £1200 worth of monthly work. And cheaper than employing a door knocker?

Again, I know nothing compared to you guys just saying what I think, which is probably way off the mark!

[Lee Pryor]

i have 3 leafleters

one ive had for 3 years is 75 years old retired postman, hes great.

second guy i spotted leafleting one day while i was out cleaning i asked him if he would do it for me to and he does.

last, is a girl i was at school with, got her by advertising on facebook.

[Lee Pryor]

rl you not off the mark but you have to remember 1 thing about those 120 customers as a result of leafleting. they will be spread out

the more you drive the less you earn fact

if you got those 120 from door knocking or a combination they would be much tighter, and this is the key.

[rl]

lee02, do you door knock as well or mostly leaflet? Do you think you could build a round from scratch (albeit spread out) from leafleting alone?

[jonnyald]

i paid my leafleter ten quid an hour,this encouraged a good slog effort and  i paid her daily and i gave her a streetmap which she coloured in with a markerpen as she went along. somedays this brought in dozens of new work,other days perhaps only 6 .  i think it depends who your target customers are ,i do the ordinary houses ,non high priced  mostly council .  

mate, the only way your going to find out ,is to either hit the streets yourself or find a slogger to do it

[Lee Pryor]

i built my business from scratch by just leafleting for the first 3 years. alone.

[rl]

cheers for the advice,

I know it's the only way i'm going to findo out, have been trying to decide if i'm going to take the plunge and get going, just trying to find enough hours in the day to try and get going whilst having a full time job.

I was wondering if I put out say 30,000 leaflets delivered by someone else (whilst i'm working), if i'd get enought work to be able to pack in my job and make the jump straight to w/c without having to try and juggle both w/c and job. No point in thinking about it if it's not going to work, but if it would work it could be the solution for me.

 

[Lee Pryor]

rl, email me on lee@pryors-uk.com

[michael papworth]

cheers for the advice,

I know it's the only way i'm going to findo out, have been trying to decide if i'm going to take the plunge and get going, just trying to find enough hours in the day to try and get going whilst having a full time job.

I was wondering if I put out say 30,000 leaflets delivered by someone else (whilst i'm working), if i'd get enought work to be able to pack in my job and make the jump straight to w/c without having to try and juggle both w/c and job. No point in thinking about it if it's not going to work, but if it would work it could be the solution for me.

 

Just a thought: Nearly everyone I know who has started a successful small business has started part-time and built it up bit by bit until they had enough to go full-time.

[cockney rebel]

I have over 300 customers on me book's and all from leaflet drop's by myself. Just got another 10,000 done so ready to blitz house's in new year. Sometime's people call me 6 month's down the line cos they kept me flyer. It's hard graft but cos it's me own buisness it's worth it.

[Jackal]

iv just starting trying build a round from scratch and sent out 1000 leaflets on one estate where i live and off that iv got 3 regular customers iv had 3 other jobs that i advertised on the leaflet gutters and facia cleans,got more customers from word of mouth alone,iv just ordered 5000 leaflets to go out again
so my % is less than 1% think its 0.3% of regulars but have had bonuses out of them,i want to buy a small round start with but nothing out there so id suggest you try buy one to then do the leaflets aswell

[Lee Pryor]

I've been looking at the mathematics of this.  For someone who doesn't want to knock on doors (there are plenty) this stacks up.

Royal Mail will deliver 10,000 leaflets for £500.  Might be more expensive than employing yourself, but they are not going to end up dumped in a stream. Add £120 printing cost.  Total £620.

The most common response rate I see quoted on here is around 1-1.5%.  Assume 1%.  100 customers at £10 returns £1,000 (of turnover) in month one.  The effort repays itself in the first month.  There are companies marketing out there that would kill for that kind of return.

That can then become the core for growing your round.  Livery on your van will lead to more business.  Give people a free wash if they refer a neighbour (offer it after the neighbour's third wash and you're not damaging your cashflow or taking  on one-offs).  Leaflet the ten houses either side of your customers every third time you do them referring to which house you're currently doing.

By the way, if you live in a city, 10,000 houses is an area roughly a mile and a half  to two miles square, so it's not terribly spread out.

PW

yes its true that they do actually deliver them or is it?? no in fact its not. turns out 10000 of mine were not delivered due to staff sickness and so on. they just send them to be recycled and werent going to tell me, in the end after making a fuss for nearly 12 months i got a refund on the printing and delivery cost for that 10000. still would have preffered them to be delivered.

for those that are interested the total cost was £7500.00 and we added £70,000.00 to our anual turnover which i supppose is ok but was not the 150k i was looking for. however there was a large learning curve along the way and if we did it again i know we could achieve over 100k

and yes i would do it again in fact we plan to in 2011, its more likely to be 2 drops of 60,000 leaflets spread over a longer time.

[macmac]

I've been looking at the mathematics of this.  For someone who doesn't want to knock on doors (there are plenty) this stacks up.

Royal Mail will deliver 10,000 leaflets for £500.  Might be more expensive than employing yourself, but they are not going to end up dumped in a stream. Add £120 printing cost.  Total £620.

The most common response rate I see quoted on here is around 1-1.5%.  Assume 1%.  100 customers at £10 returns £1,000 (of turnover) in month one.  The effort repays itself in the first month.  There are companies marketing out there that would kill for that kind of return.

That can then become the core for growing your round.  Livery on your van will lead to more business.  Give people a free wash if they refer a neighbour (offer it after the neighbour's third wash and you're not damaging your cashflow or taking  on one-offs).  Leaflet the ten houses either side of your customers every third time you do them referring to which house you're currently doing.

By the way, if you live in a city, 10,000 houses is an area roughly a mile and a half  to two miles square, so it's not terribly spread out.

PW

Depending on the area your £10 average could be a problem.

[Mist A Bit]

iv just starting trying build a round from scratch and sent out 1000 leaflets on one estate where i live and off that iv got 3 regular customers iv had 3 other jobs that i advertised on the leaflet gutters and facia cleans,got more customers from word of mouth alone,iv just ordered 5000 leaflets to go out again
so my % is less than 1% think its 0.3% of regulars but have had bonuses out of them,i want to buy a small round start with but nothing out there so id suggest you try buy one to then do the leaflets aswell

my best leaflet drop was 3 jobs out of 100 leaflets. i then put 1 leaflet in a papershop window for 20p per week and got a £200 gutter cleaning job at a country house near my village