Are Flyers or Leaflets Effective In Promoting Your Business?

Are Flyers or Leaflets Effective In Promoting Your Business? An interesting question to try and answer in the age of the internet and the entire social media platform!

You may wonder why this question? I met with a potential client this week named Bruce. He is starting a new company but he is looking for a low cost marketing tool, however, from his previous business he had concluded that flyers/leaflets are a totally waste of time.

I remember the old advertising quote that is credited to the late Lord Leverhulme of Lever Brothers & Unilever Ltd, "I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I'm not sure which half"

Could this statement be true for Bruce?

This comment from Bruce is not unique to him alone as there are a high percentage of small business owners who think the same way. However, the entertainment industry still makes a lot of money in the UK by using flyers/leaflets to promote all their activities

The real problem here is not the use of flyer/leaflets but the lack of clear objectives and the ability to target your potential clients. It is fact that if you are targeting men with a flyer/leaflet there is not need distribute it to women and children because this is clearly not your target market. So who are you targeting

Too often people using flyer/leaflets to promote their business fail to include a clear 'call to action' that is what do you want the person receiving the flyer/leaflet to do? Is all your contact information correct and clear? What are you promoting on the flyer/leaflet?

Suggestion for an enhanced result is to promote one thing at a time with the flyer/leaflet so that the recipient is clear.

What do you want to achieve with the flyer? If you want people to buy a product offer a discount on the flyer/leaflet and suggest that they present it or give them a code to use to obtain the discount. Just by doing this you will be measuring the outcome of the campaign. We run a marketing clinic here in the UK and you will be surprised how many flyer/leaflets we see that the client forgot to include a phone number or an email address. You can use an A7 size flyer to drive mass traffic to your website just by taking a screenshot of the site and printing onto an A7 will get you more direct unique visitor than you can imagine. Try it!

Thing you should avoid in a flyer/leaflets:

1) Generic email address i.e. Hotmail /Yahoo /Google /Gmail /AOL

What's wrong with them? The general public will not take you serious if you using any of the above free email address. The other very important issue that you may not notice or thought about is what are you really promoting if you are using a free email address? I am sure you have worked it out but really the reason the email is free is so that you can indirectly promote them to your friends, family and contacts. In Africa, Yahoo is the most popular email address and the business centres even charge to set them up for you. If you are having an email on a flyer try and get your own domain and you can use Yahoo or Google to host the domain so your email is ready.

2) Too much information

Use short and precise messages because if it is too long they will not read it.

3) Use unique template designs where possible.

If you use one of the designs suggested for your industry or sector, your competitor maybe using the same one. This could damage you brand long term.

4) Use colour wisely because in business colours have a different meaning hence most businesses communication looks very similar.

5) Don't design a flyer in haste because you are likely to exclude vital information about the product or services

6) If possible, only one channel to contact i.e. just a phone number instead include: Phone/mobile/fax/email and website address if you have one.

Well I totally disagree with Bruce that using a flyer/leaflet to promote business is a waste of time.

I hope you can perceive why I disagree because a sweeping statement like that is not valid because the response from flyer/leaflet advertising various immensely and if you use it strategically, it could provide you with great results.

Kennedy Imuere is theDirector ofSBC Marketing Ltd, a professional Speaker, Trainer, Author, Mentor and Business & Marketing Consultant in the UK.