How to Use Leaflet to Promote Your Business

Leaflets can be a very reasonable way of passing on your message to potential customers, particularly if those customers are the end users, and leaflets can be distributed directly into their homes via their letterboxes. As with mailshots, one must accept that the take-up rate can be low.

This distribution could be done by hand, by post or even as inserts in special interest magazines.

The first method is obviously the cheapest. It is a job one could do oneself, or perhaps by cajoling members of the family into helping. Perhaps your friendly newsagent could be persuaded to allow the paperboys and girls to deliver your leaflets with (not in) the papers, to give a blanket, non-selective, coverage.

Post would involve more expense. A wider geographical area could be covered, especially if you were doing a selective distribution and trying to target the right type of firm or , household. Mailguide A Comprehensive Guide to Royal Mail Services is available at your local library or from FREEPOST, Royal London House, 22 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1NL.

Inserting your leaflet into specialist publications could be another way of achieving a selective distribution – the cost might be comparable with that of a direct postal distribution, so could be worth looking into.

But what of the leaflet itself? Like the mailshot, there is only a short time to get your message across – between the letterbox and the waste bin! This means that the techniques you use in compiling your leaflet must gain the immediate attention of the recipient (AIDA applies in this situation, too), and be relevant to the product or service you want to sell – and do not forget, that is why you are doing the exercise.

Consider ‘visual aids’ to attract the attention of the person picking up your leaflet, and to underline your selling message. Drawings, photographs, cartoons could all come into this category – but choose with care, they must reflect the correct image of what you are offering. Do not infringe other people’s copyright by using their material without permission.

Think about the actual material you will use for the leaflet: something suitable to the image, for instance plain paper or coloured paper? Glossy or matt finish? What sort of weight paper would be appropriate? Would thin card be going too far?

The size of the leaflet could be significant. Would A5 be too small or A4 too large? Will it be a flat sheet, or will it be folded? If so, how – in two or in three? (Who will do the folding and how long will it take? – what would be the extra cost, and would it be worthwhile?)

Give any prices you quote on the leaflet a ‘life’, for example, ‘Valid until end of June’ ‘Special offer for July only’ or indicate a time span by implication – ‘Spring 2007’.

Make any follow-up action easy: prepaid reply, freephone, credit card payment.

Leaflet drops could be a cost-effective way of testing the market with a business idea. As with the mailshot method, take a conscious look at the leaflets which you receive through your door or in the post, and use them as a yardstick to designing an effective one of your own.