Response From Flyers

Hi there everybody,

Here in the UK the Royal mail provides a service to drop single sheets of a4 flyers to postcode areas designated by you.Does anyone have any first hand experience of this regarding the sort of response rates possible or even ideas from design to produce maximum results.

I have a friend 20kms from here who receives all his business from large spending on this very method,but he wont tell me the ins and outs,any thoughts?

Kind regards to all,


UK Paul

What you've described sounds like what we call "Bulk Mail" which is a classification for postage and delivery. The cost per piece is lower on most items but there are drawbacks including presorting, labeling, drop off points, etc.

Response rates are going to vary depending on the timing, the message, and the audience.

There is very loew response on such flyers, as most people who read news papers just dont look at those flyers

We did this for a client about three years ago. It was for a free mobile text service.

We distributed over 100,000 A5 cards through door drops and also via handouts at universities etc.

The response was 0.001%. A total waste of time. Advertising on Google was a little better

Originally Posted by Julian We did this for a client about three years ago. It was for a free mobile text service. We distributed over 100,000 A5 cards through door drops and also via handouts at universities etc. The response was 0.001%. A total waste of time. Advertising on Google was a little better

Was this the best option for your client at the time or were they exploring options? Would you say the poor response was due to the medium, the message, the timing, or possibly something else?

Paul,

I work in the UK Direct Mail industry and your question is not an easy one to answer. The effectiveness (and all important ROI) using Royal Mail door to door is highly dependant on the demographics of your offering. In most cases door to door will be less effective (on a cost per response/cost per sale basis) than a more highly targeted data driven campaign.

The exceptions to this are when your product has mass appeal to most households irrespective of demographics (and that begs the question of if there are more cost effective ways to market if that's the case). Profiling by postcodes alone is very hit and miss, it usually means you are profiling by affluence levels alone and even these can contain a wide mix in a given postcode area.

The over-riding impression from door to door is that 'you don't value me enough as a prospect to research who I am'. That may be acceptable in others mediums like radio, TV etc but most households are now accustomed to getting their direct mail personalised.