Last week, I received this printed flyer in the mail and it made me sad. Not like in a ‘death of grumpy cat’ type of sad, it was different. I was sad to see yet another small business throw their hard-earned money down the drain and wasting their precious time with ineffective print advertising. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Yet, the issue doesn’t lie in the form of advertising, quite the opposite.
The tide is turning
Contrary to popular belief, there is a sharp rise in the effectiveness of flyer advertising and ROI in recent years. On a daily basis, our electronic inboxes are getting filled with email after email, newsletter after newsletter, deal after deal. Yet our physical mailboxes remain somewhat empty, bar the odd electricity bill. Here lies the opportunity!
The figures on the effectiveness of physical direct marketing tell an interesting tale. Recent studies have found electronic mail advertising’s response rate sits at around 0.12% on average. When you compare this to direct flyer mail’s response rate of around 4.4%, the overall response rate is 10-30 times higher than its electronic equivalent. Naturally, our fingers are hovering on the delete button on every given opportunity. We have become numb to this form of electronic advertising.
Making printed flyers a marketing success
The content of your flyer is where the success of your direct mail campaign lives or dies.
We have countless clients come to us with an idea to run a flyer campaign. More often than not, they want their logo up the top, a shopping list of services, some claims of having the best quality or offers of free quotes, then the standard contact information at the bottom.
When I challenge them on this kind of approach, it is often met with “we just need to get our name out there”. For small businesses, with limited marketing budgets and little brand recognition, this is doomed to end up in the bin, the physical delete button.
But it doesn’t have to end there, printed flyers can work for your business as a means of lead generation.
Let’s have a look at some easy ways to make your flyer campaign a roaring success:
Have strong calls to action
When your reader picks up the flyer, what do you want them to do with it? Do they call you? Do they download something from your website? Do they email you to claim an offer? Make sure you tell the reader exactly what you want them to do after they’ve read the flyer. Having your logo, a list of services and contact information just doesn’t cut the mustard.
Give value
Good marketing isn’t about you, it’s about your customer. What do they want? If you are an electrician selling security systems, you aren’t actually selling security systems. You are selling safety and peace of mind. Rather than a generic flyer with the latest offers of cameras and lighting, send them some information on how they can best protect their home and family from prowlers. Valued information such as this will place your flyer as welcomed visitor into their homes, not yet another adverting intrusion destined for the bin.
Limit your content
A common mistake we see many small businesses make is fit as much content as they can into their flyers or marketing material. Trying to get bang for their buck! In doing so, we run the risk of confusing the reader and not getting their message across. Try limiting your content to one topic and one goal only. If you are a beauty salon and want to offer waxing as summer approaches, stick to this. No need to mention facial treatments, manicures and eyelash extensions. Focus on one thing to catch the reader’s attention and turn them into a customer.
Choose the right distribution method
You’ve got your flyer content spot on, great news. There are good calls to action, it’s clear and concise and it supplies valuable information to the reader. Make sure it doesn’t get lost in the mail by being buried in amongst the supermarket catalogue and 20 other flyers. Using leaflets distributors who specialise in small batch runs (no more than 4 per drop) means your flyer will get noticed, read and actioned.
Now is a great time to consider printed flyers as a means of growing your business. With mailboxes comparatively empty compared to inboxes, your flyer is much more likely to get read and noticed. Following the above action methods, not only will it get noticed, it will turn the readers into new leads for your business.