Leaflet Ads and how they work

28th September 2022
6 Minutes Read

Introduction

Leaflet ads are a great way to reach people in local areas of London.

Leaflet ads have consistently remained a considerable part of the advertising efforts of most successful London companies.

No matter which technological changes in the advertising landscape have shaken up the industry, leaflet ads have remained.

This is mainly because leaflet ads guarantee that you can get your advertising materials to every single household in your chosen area. This is not something that is available through any other method.

The physical nature of the leaflet ad is also an important element in this. You can read up on some statistics relating to how long people keep physical leaflets are more in our blog devoted to the topic.

1. What is a leaflet ad?
2. Who uses leaflet advertising?
3. Why use leaflet ads for your business?
4. Leaflet advertising types
5. What is a good example of a leaflet ad campaign?
6. Should I include a discount voucher on my leaflet ad?

What is a leaflet ad?

Leaflet ads are physical pieces of advertising that you deliver to your potential clients. The most common delivery method is through the letterbox to people’s homes.

We generally recommend using an A5 sized leaflet ad on paper that is somewhere between 200-300gsm.

This level of paper weight and format gives your leaflet some structural integrity and it can handle delivery, transport and storage well.

It is generally advisable to keep your leaflet ad simple and focused on a single service or product you are offering.

If your business is more complicated and the range of services you offer is quite large you might want to consider using multiple leaflet ads.

Who uses leaflet advertising?

Companies across many industries use leaflet advertising. Restaurants, Estate Agents, Law companies, Schools, Churches, Tutors, Gyms and even local councils use leaflet advertising.

You’ll find the same level of diversity when it comes to the size of the companies that use leaflet advertising.

You’ll see a local family restaurant using a similar form of advertising as a large multinational food chain.

Why use leaflet ads for your business?

We discuss many of the advantages and disadvantages of leaflet advertising in this blog.

Reach Everyone

The most important advantage you get from using leaflet ads is the fact that you can reach every household in your key areas.

We’ve already mentioned this earlier in this article but it is such a big point that it bears repeating.

You can do this in a way that targets certain demographics or reaches absolutely everyone without a demographic skew.

Combine with other methods

On top of this leaflet ads synergise very well with other forms of advertising. A good example is combining social media ads with leaflets.

You can target your local area with leaflet ads over a period of 2 weeks and deliver to every home.

A week after that you can target the same part of London with your facebook and Instagram ads.

The synergistic effect will make itself clear when compared to using only your online ads on their own.

The combination of the virtual in the form of online ads and the physical in the form of leaflets just works.

You can, of course, repeat this process multiple times in different variations.

Leaflet ads also don’t run the danger of over saturation. We all know the YouTube or TV ads that we end up having to view multiple times a day.

Leaflet advertising operates differently. If the recipient is not interested they can discard your leaflet. They don’t need to look at it over and over again as they are trying to get through their day.

As such the change of irritating people with leaflet ads is minimal. On the other hand you can have your leaflets delivered to the same areas multiple times to guarantee repeated impressions.

This method allows you to gain the benefit of repeated exposure but in a controlled way. Each delivery = 1 impression. You are not running into the same danger of over saturation that a TV or a Youtube ad does.

Leaflet advertising types

There are multiple ways of getting your leaflet ads to the people you are hoping to target.

Hand to Hand

Hand to hand deliveries rely on a group of distributors standing in a strategic area and handing out your leaflet to people passing by.

This is a relatively expensive way of getting your leaflet ads to your potential customers. Hand to hand campaigns tend to work only in fairly specific circumstances. To find out more about hand to hand have a look at our page focused on this topic.

Door to Door

Door to door is the most commonly used, effective and economical way to do leaflet advertising.

Door to door campaigns rely on the distributor delivering to privately owned residential addresses in your select area.

This allows for very efficient deliveries, demographic targeting, geographic targeting and good tracking of campaigns and the deliveries themselves.

As such we recommend that you always look at Door to door campaigns first. We talk more about door to door on this page dedicated to the topic.

B2B

You might be focusing on providing services mainly or exclusively to businesses. In this
case you will want to target businesses with your leaflet advertising as well.

This is possible but we do this via a different service to normal B2C door to door deliveries.

Businesses tend to be more spread out, clustered around industrial areas and high streets. As such you want to use a separate B2B delivery service.

You can have a look at our B2B page for more details.

Council Deliveries

We’ve mentioned that standard Door to door campaigns focus on privately owned residences only.

This leaves out council properties. This is often because council properties are often clustered into estates that are gated.

Delivering in these areas can be complicated and special access needs to be negotiated.

We’ve managed to build a delivery system that allows for this. It however has to be run as a separate service from door to door campaigns.

If you want to target council estates and properties have a look at our council delivery page and find out how this works.

What is a good example of a leaflet ad campaign?

We can demonstrate how a leaflet advertising campaign can work on a case study for a local Italian restaurant.

The restaurant is opening for the first time in a month. The owner has decided that the advertising should be in place for the opening.

He contacts a local reputable leaflet delivery company.

They help him design a leaflet ad that focuses on the fact that there is a new Italian restaurant in the neighbourhood and that they make excellent pizza from a combination of Italian and local British ingredients.

On top of this there is a 10% coupon included with the flyer and information about the fact that this restaurant does deliveries.

The restaurant owner together with his distributor decide on printing 60,000 leaflets to be distributed in 3 drops.

The first drop goes out the same week the restaurant opens. The second drop 3 weeks after and the third drop another 4 weeks after.

This way 20,000 households have been informed about the fact that there is a new Italian restaurant in their local area three times.

This has been done over a period that is long enough not to be too intense but short enough to develop interest and mind-share.

After this, the restaurant can choose to run 2 regular drops a year to keep the interest going. These can advertise wine tastings, new dishes or just include a reminder about the great food that this restaurant serves and delivers.

If you want to know more about leaflet ads for restaurants specifically have a look at our page dedicated to this topic.

Should I include a discount voucher on my leaflet ad?

The answer to this question is going to depend on the goal of your campaign and the type of business you are advertising.

You always want to discuss this question with your leaflet distribution company.

In general, if your goal is to get people into your business in the short term using discount codes on your leaflet ad is a good idea.

Using unique discount codes for your leaflet promotions will also help you get a general idea about how successful your various drops have been.

You can record how many times each discount code has been redeemed and use this information to decide about which locations you want to be targeting next time and which leaflet ads to use.

You can also have a look at a variety of statistics about response rates to leaflet ads on the DMA website.

How to make a leaflet

March 27, 2024
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Best ways to advertise your business in London

March 14, 2024
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Pamphlet drops and distribution

February 16, 2024
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Get in Touch With Us

info@theprivatepostman.com

Sales only: 0203 269 1012

Jobs: See vacancies here

Request a Quote…

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have a minimum quantity for your leaflet delivery?

Yes we do. It’s 5,000 leaflets per postcode. If you have less than 5,000, you will be charged for 5,000 anyway – it’s the minimum job rate. We can print 5,000 leaflets from around £90.
What do you charge per 1,000 leaflets?
How do I know my leaflets will be delivered?
The Private Postman uses a multitude of exclusive systems simultaneously, making us the only bullet-proof system on the market. GPS alone is not enough. We use three types of tracking:
- Live GPS and Data Track GPS: showing workers walking up and down all roads and paths. Proof of delivery.
- Live client updates let you come and watch delivery any time you like, unannounced, giving a truly transparent delivery. ‘Ride along’ services are not transparent.
- Live backcheck reporting: our 12-point checks are our industry secrets.
Our Postmen must pass all checks before they get paid. Our results speak for themselves, as do our reviews.
What is the average response rate for leaflet distribution?

There is no ‘one size fits all’ equation to this question. Any company who tells you there is or has a ROI calculator – beware! If there was, it would be as simple as putting in £100 into the machine and out comes £120 – we would all be billionaires.
Factors of response rates depend on a multitude of factors including:
Time of year, local competition, leaflet design, distribution company, the strategy of the drops, quality of drops, your account manager telling you the truth about your idea…Yes really, we tell it as it is, ‘both barrels’ – but always are constructive.
How long will it take to distribute my leaflets?
How do I place an order?

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Leaflet Ads and how they work

Introduction

How to make a leaflet

Best ways to advertise your business in London

Pamphlet drops and distribution

Get in Touch With Us

Request a Quote…

Thank you for your form submission, your message has been received.

Frequently Asked Questions

Contact Us

Find Us

Legals

Leaflet Ads and how they work

Introduction

Other Blogs

How to make a leaflet

Best ways to advertise your business in London

Pamphlet drops and distribution

Get in Touch With Us

Request a Quote…

Thank you for your form submission, your message has been received.

Frequently Asked Questions

Contact Us

Find Us

Legals