Deliver flyers door-to-door
 

Doing a quick labor survey ... if you were to pay somebody to deliver flyers door to door, how much would you pay per flyer?

This is truly old school marketing, but flyers remain one of the most cost effective ways for a small business to grab the attention of new customers.

At least that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it!

Thanks
Robert J.

Not in my town
 

Many towns frown on the practice of distributing flyers door to door. I found out the hard way and quickly heard from the authorities. Same for door to door salesmen. Regulations require you to seek permission from the powers that be, pay licensing fees, and generally grovel in the dirt before you are allowed to approach homes directly.

It might be more reliable, cheaper, and easier to arrange for your flyers to ride along with something else that is already being delivered to area homes. Like utility bills, church newsletters, newspapers, pizzas, etc.

OR an easier way....
 

just drive by a put a magnetic business card on their mailbox.

FYI... The post office does not have a problem with anything
outside of the mailbox.




I buy them for .15 a piece and put them on anything that's
metal.

later...
Pappy

hmmm....
 

Find 10 non-competing businesses that would like to do a bulk mailing...they print and provide their own flyers an pay you ten cents for each one.

Find a mailing list of all residences in the area, or if not available create one.

Use a computer generated hand written font to print the envelopes from the list.

Hire a student to do the list compilation (if you can't find alist), pay them to print and stuff the envelopes.

Use bulk mail to get best rates....and mail them out.

Hand written font will get more opened and the contents perused.

The ten cents for each flyer inserted (10 flyers x $0.10=$1.00 per envelope) should cover your mailing cost and labour costs and you get your flyer out for free (and legally without permits, licenses, and all the other red tape....if the ten cents doesn't cover the cost raise it until it does.

Paying people to pass out flyers house to house usually results in 40% of them dumped in a trash bin instead of being delivered.

Re: Deliver flyers door-to-door
 

Quite a few companies out there charge 25 to 30 cents.

If you spend time in hiring your own delivery folks - students - or people from craigslist - you could get it done for 10 to 15 cents or so. But how do you make sure that they do indeed deliver your fliers?

... flyers door-to-door ... very inefficient
 

This is a very inefficient way of getting positive attention ... if any. There must be a better way of targeting your customers.

Anyway, if you insist on doing this, consider employing only people that are mentally challenged.

A company here distributing leaflets & free newspapers found that these people are very reliable in doing this repetitive task and are happy for the income. Plus they do not put loads of it in the trash and lie to you about having done the work, like students are apt to do. This is boring, repetitive work and most people will not do this for peanuts. They will look for short cuts.

Since so many people put stickers on their mailboxes to refuse unaddressed mail, they now have resorted to combining several offers together in a folded colour "cover" that is printed like a magazine cover, complete with headlines of the offers, pictures and a small quizz / competition. Inside this cover - which changes weekly - are the different flyers. If they go one step further and enclose it, it can be mailed as printed matter ...

If you want to attract positive attention, why not do something remarkable? You could get a couple of students together on a weekend and go and do something to help the community and then have a table with eats & drinks for those that helped - and invite the press. If you let the helpers wear your t-shirts and have brochures and a good angle to your story, you will generate positive mentions. The helpers will do it for free. Your cost will be the treats.

I have seen small companies jump on a current problem issue and do something and shine in the press, because of it. Cleaning up a park, getting garbage out of a town stream, carrying shopping bags for the aged, removing graffiti etc.

You might have a better idea that suits your business ... If you can find something that is closely related to your business and you have an opportunity to repeat it regularly, you will "own" that promotion in your town and that will bring repeated benefits.

As an example - as a fundraiser, a sports club here organises to race plastic toy ducks down the river. They buy in bulk and then get people to decorate theirs. They get schools and companies involved and fan the competitive spirit a bit. They charge 5 bucks a duck - which goes to a non-profit cause -or their club fund. On the big day some local bigwigs - plus some beauties - are involved to get it started. The right to fire the starting gun is auctioned off. Anyway there are prizes for the fastest, the nicest, the ugliest, the slowest - whatever. Everyone has a lot of fun. The press love it. The local cable station is there. Sometimes even others - depending on their angle that year. The participants love it. And it is repeated yearly.

Plus nobody can steal that idea locally - they "own" it. Might be a bit limited for you purposes, but I guess you get the idea ...

Thanks to all who weighed in! (DNO)
 

Thanks, gang.

Great info and insight. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Thanks to all who weighed in! (DNO)
 

Another idea you could actually hire a local mail man to tape flyers on the outside of each mailbox in his route... A local mailman I know has 600 homes he delivers mail to everyday, I am sure he would like the extra income for handing out flyers... You could pay him like 0.10 cents or 0.20 cents for each flyer he distributes, alot cheaper than regular mail, or you could do the same scenerio of hiring local school kids to do the same, but to tell the truth I would trust the mailman before I would any kids.

Bad Idea
 

The quote below is from:
http://www.usps.com/receive/mailboxstandards.htm

Re: Bad Idea
 

The advice I gave happens alot where I live LOL.. I would still try it.