Blog

1

What are you selling – Features or benefits?

30th October, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

This morning I saw an excellent advert on TV from Lego.  Now my 6 year old boy loves lego.  He’ll sit there for hours putting the little bricks together, sometimes building meaningful models, other times just building a wall or laying them out in colours.  Whenever we’re up town he always wants to go to the Lego shop to see the lates Harry Potter or Star Wars model.

Up until this morning,  I wondered why the little plastic bricks were so expensive and how can they justify the prices they are demanding for their kits.  (The Harry Potter nightbus will cost £25 for example and the Star Wars Millenium Falcon is approximately £130) After all, they are just plastic bricks aren’t they?

But, this morning, I saw this advert – It brought home to me in a very good example of selling benefits rather than features. It’s a very strong message, that Lego aren’t just selling plastic bricks, but their selling an experience, a tool to spend quality time and interact with your loved ones.  After watching it, I couldn’t help myself thinking about which kit to buy my son for christmas and imagining the hours spent with him building/taking apart and rebuilding the model.  To me that’s well worth the price tag.

I thought that their strapline encapsulated the whole message -”Build Together”.  That just says it all and it says it at a deep emotional level that gets over any price objection.

Take a look at the video – and see how you can apply this to your advertising.  Don’t just sell your widget,  think about what your widget does for your customer – How it will benefit them, how it will help them get what they want.  You press this button and you can wave goodbye to worrying about whether your competitors prices are too cheap and yours to high

Posted in Leaflet delivery, Marketing

1

The top 3 things that you can do to maximise results from direct marketing.

19th October, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

I was up at Solihull last week at a Seminar run by Nigel Botterill.  If you’ve not heard about Nigel, then he’s worth doing a bit of research on and reading/listening to some of his material  Nigel has built 8 seperate million pound plus businesses in the last 5 years and it’s fair to say that he is one of the countries leading direct marketers.

I’ve been fortunate to know Nigel and his team for the last 5 years and I’ve learnt alot from him.  Success leaves clues!  Take a look at this short video as Nigel explains the top three things that you can do to maximise the results that you will get from direct marketing.

Posted in Leaflet delivery, Marketing

0

How to generate an unlimited marketing budget.

13th October, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

I took an interesting phone call today, with a guy who started of by saying that “50% of marketing doesn’t work, if only he knew which 50%” He really believed this saying.  He wasn’t a happy man and kept referring to the fact that he had spent thousands and thousands of pounds on marketing and advertising and he had nothing to show for it. To him, the cost of marketing of his business was a necessary evil, something he had to do “to get brand awareness” and “Because my competitors are doing the same”

Unfortunately, we take a number of calls like this on a daily basis from people who are convinced that there isn’t a better way.

The saying that 50% of marketing doesn’t work but you don’t know which 50 was first used back in the 1930′s and that is where the saying belongs.  We’re now in the 21st century and with the technology that is available today, there is absolutely no excuse, no excuse whatsoever to say that you don’t know where your customers are coming from. Yet very few business owners have any idea.

When we ask our customers and prospective customers how they get their business – The stock answer they give is “I ask” – That’s simply not effective enough.  Most of the time your prospects won’t remember whether they’ve seen an advert, found your website or heard you on the radio. If you have staff, you are very mistaken if you think that they will ask the right questions to find out this information.

Therefore It is VITAL that you have a robust mechanism in place for monitoring the number of enquiries that  every piece of marketing you do has generated and that you can work out the return that you have received from that investment.   Note that I’ve used the word INVESTMENT rather than the word COST.

Without testing and measuring and without knowing these numbers, you’re potentially just throwing money down the drain, at best hindering the growth of your business and at worse driving your business into the ground.  Once you have a grasp on the numbers, you can then make an informed decision as to what marketing channels to spend MORE money on and what marketing channels to ditch.

Once you’ve worked out what marketing channels are sucessful for your business, you then have an unlimited marketing budget.  Let me explain.  You pay Google £5 for their pay per click advertising, because you have set up a proper system, you know that this has generated £50 in sales.  Question – How many £5′s would you like to pay google?  The only sensible answer is “As much as I possibly can!”

Another example a bit closer to home for us – Let’s say you ask us to deliver 5,000 leaflets and your payout it £200.  You know, because of the system that you have in place that these leaflets generated over £2000 of business, then unless you can’t handle the increase in work or you did not want your business to grow, you have no  valid reason for not arranging to deliver at least another 5000 leaflets if not double/treble that amount.

We have now embraced a system where for a very small fee, our customers can categorically tell, without a shadow of a doubt exaxtly how many calls they have received from their leaflet campaigns. And forcustomers asking us to print and deliver more than 20,000 leaflets we are including this completely free of charge.

We can also adapt this technique to absolutely any form of marketing that you do.

If you’d like to find out more about this system, then click this link.

 

 

Posted in Leaflet delivery, Marketing, News

3

What can a crash diet teach you about marketing your business?

5th October, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

Now I could be known as a rather portly chap.It’s not genetic, it’s not that I have a slow metabolism or that I’m big boned, but it is that I have an aversion to salad and a love of cake. I make no excuses. I know what I eat and unfortunately I eat the wrong things,

So, about once a year, I go on a crash diet – The Cambridge diet is the one that works for me. It’s extreme, consuming only 650 calories per day in the form of milkshakes (without the milk of course) and I’ll lose approximately 7lbs per week. Last year I lost nearly four stone, but unfortunately I put it back on, simply because when I came off the diet, I did not change my eating habits and went back to my old ways. I’m back on the diet now.

But, I know I’m fooling myself. Unless I change my habits when I come back off the diet, I’ll be back to square one in a few short months. If you ask any physician, nutritionist or personal trainer they’ll all tell you the same thing. A quick fix crash diet will only work in the short term. To maintain a healthy weight, a lifestyle change is needed, with sustained and disciplined effort and accountability to yourself as to what you eat as well as the discipline to undertake regular exercise.

So, what can this teach you about marketing your business?  Look at the similarities. Most small businesses will identify they have a problem. (Not enough enquiries/sales) and they do a quick fix by doing some marketing activity e.g. a leaflet drop, a direct mail campaign, an email blast or some cold calls.

They then get some results and they get busy servicing the orders that they have generated and they are happy that they’ve achieved results.

However, they start making excuses in a false belief that the good times will carry on without any further effort. They cease their marketing and go back to their old ways. And guess what happens… Their order book and sales pipeline decline until they realise that they have a problem again and they then do some marketing – And so the cycle continues.  Similar to the Yo-Yo dieter that will never maintain a healthy weight – The Yo-Yo marketer will never maintain a constant stream of customers and the business will not grow to the level aspired to.

So what’s the answer to this problem?  How can a small business owner maintain the momentum and continuity in their marketing?  I could write pages on this, but for the purposes of this blog entry, I’ll focus on just one aspect.  If you want your business to grow and make you money, you must realise the most important aspect of any business is marketing.  In business, without a sale, nothing happens and it is the right mix of marketing done on a consistent, disciplined and  regular basis that will get you results.

At The Leaflet Delivery Company, we work with our clients to develop continued door drop campaigns to ensure that they get the exposure they need on a consistent basis.  Our clients that get the best results are the ones that have us deliver their leaflets on a monthly basis.

We can handle as much or as little of the work that the client likes, from designing the leaflet, taking care of the print,  the distribution and even analysis of the returns.   It works like clockwork, once instructed, the clients are safe in the knowledge that each month one aspect of their marketing mix is taken care of with very little effort from them.

What are you going to do today to ensure that your marketing is not left as an afterthought or an activity to do when you experiencing a quiet period?

If you’d like to have a no obligation chat about how we can help you, please give me a call on 01908 760800.

 

Posted in Marketing, News

3

Which one is more annoying?

30th September, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

WeBuyAnyCar.Com, Go Compare, or The Meerkat?

Webuyanycar has that horrible tune that you just can’t get out of your head once you hear it.  Go compare – The cheesy fat bloke singing very poor opera and that bloody meerkat that has got loads of people saying “Simples” whenever they can.

I find these adverts painful to watch – But, and a big but – They Work.  I’m in the market for a new car at the moment, guess where I went to get a quote on selling my existing vehicle – And then I found myself on the Go Compare site looking for quotes for insurance.

Whilst extremely irritating, they are extremely clever pieces of marketing.  They’re clever on a number of fronts.

Simples - How bloody annoying

  1. They grab attention – They’re not just dull boring adverts – Like them or hate them, you can’t help pay attention.  They smack you straight between the eyes and shout “I’m here – Listen to me.”
  2. They’re Viral -  My 6 year old sings “Webuyanycar” – Probably just because he knows it annoys me, “Simples” is regularly said now and It won’t be long before it features in the Oxford English Dictionary and the fat guy is often talked about.
  3. There’s potential for a merchandising income stream – The Meerkats for example have been on sale for a long time in toy shops and supermarkets.
  4. They are consistent and they use multiple media – If you think about it, you’re probably exposed to one of these three messages every single day – Either through radio, TV, newspapers, internet banners and the viral effect.

So what can you learn here?

  • Firstly, when marketing your business you need to be creative – We’re subjected to thousands of advertising messages every day and we’re becoming immune to them.  You need to find an approach to grab attention quickly.  When having leaflets delivered for example, you need to stand out from the rest of the crowd – Use different shape and sizes – Use imagery and words that are going to grab attention.
  • Use multiple media types to promote your business – Try leaflets, newspaper and magazine advertising, direct mail and internet marketing,  but do it as a joined up campaign, getting consistent messages across.
  • Repetition – There’s an old saying that the worst number in marketing is 1.  People buy when they’re ready to buy, not when you’re ready to sell. By constant repetition and constant “touches” with your prospects, you can be assured that when they’re ready to buy, it’s you that they contact first.  We find time after time, that our clients get much better results the second, third and fourth time that they deliver leaflets to the same house.
  • Don’t be afraid to try something different – Don’t follow the crowd in your industry – Stand out from the rest.  Don’t be afraid to be irritating – What’s the worst that can happen?  I’ll tell you what – People that are not buying from you now, still won’t buy from you – So what!  Some of them will.  I’ve proved that, as even though all three of these advertising campaigns irritate me beyond belief – I’ve still found myself contacting them as a potential customer.

So, what are you going to do different?  If I can help in any way, then give me a call on 01908 760800

 

 

Posted in News

0

Have you seen those parking prices in Milton Keynes?

20th September, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

Xscape LogoHere’s how one business used recent parking price rises to actually INCREASE their customers with this ingenious idea…

Xscape is Milton Keynes’ premier leisure and retail destination, offering activities, restaurants and bars.

Earlier in the year, the council parking charges were put up throughout the city centre. To combat this, Xscape had the idea of offering free parking in the form of a downloadable ticket, or a cut-out ticket in the local newspaper – just as an added perk of visiting Xscape. Unfortunately, the response from these methods was not as high as expected.

The free parking idea was great, but Xscape needed a way to get their tickets directly into the hands of thousands of local people. The media plan was then developed to include door-to-door leaflet marketing, and the results were remarkable…

Steven Gordon-Wilson, Marketing and Promotions Manager at Xscape, continues:

“We felt that we wanted something tangible that people could touch and use straight away without having to download or cut anything out, so we thought that door drop was the best media”.

“We considered using a number of leaflet delivery companies, including the nationals. However, we felt that we wanted a local company that had real local knowledge. Someone that knew the area and had a good grasp of the demographics, not just someone reading figures from a database.”

“Firmly established itself as the market leader in Milton Keynes”

“When we researched the local delivery companies, we realised that The Leaflet Delivery Company had firmly established itself as the market leader in Milton Keynes. We found them to have expert local knowledge as well as a firm grasp of marketing concepts. There was no call to go anywhere else and they were the only sensible option. ”

They needed MASSIVE exposure in rapid time on just the right dates

Xscape’s main concern was finding a company which could deliver a large amount of leaflets, in a short amount of time, in just the right areas and on just the right dates, so the leaflet campaigns coordinated with school holidays and other advertising methods in their campaign.

The result?… A 200% increase

“We also found that when the other advertising and social media campaigns were running without the leaflets, response was very low. We saw an increase in 200% of people taking up the free parking offer when the leaflets went out. We will certainly look at supporting advertising campaigns with doordrop in the future, as it really adds measurable benefits to what we are doing.”

Through an affordable door-to-door leaflet campaign, thousands more people used the free parking offer provided by Xscape, drawing in more visitors from all over Milton Keynes. Plus, the leaflets contained advertisements alongside the free parking vouchers, which considerably increased the exposure of Xscape and its attractions!

It was a clever marketing idea and just the right kind of advertising technique which gave massive results.

If you want to experience the kind of exposure Xscape had with a  leaflet campaign of your own, call 01908 760 800.

 

Have you seen those parking prices in Milton Keynes?

Here’s how one business used recent parking price rises to actually INCREASE their customers with this ingenious idea…

Xscape is Milton Keynes’ premier leisure and retail destination, offering activities, restaurants and bars.

Only recently, the council parking charges were put up throughout the city centre. To combat this, Xscape had the idea of offering free parking in the form of a downloadable ticket, or a cut-out ticket in the local newspaper – just as an added perk of visiting Xscape. Unfortunately, the response from these methods was not as high as expected.

The free parking idea was great, but Xscape needed a way to get their tickets out there quick and across an audience of thousands of local people. The media plan was then developed to include door-to-door leaflet marketing, and the results were remarkable…

Steven Gordon-Wilson, Marketing and Promotions Manager at Xscape, continues:

“We felt that we wanted something tangible that people could touch and use straight away without having to download or cut anything out, so we thought that door drop was the best media”.

“We considered using a number of leaflet delivery companies, including the nationals. However, we felt that we wanted a local company that had real local knowledge. Someone that knew the area and had a good grasp of the demographics, not just someone reading figures from a database.”

“Firmly established itself as the market leader in Milton Keynes”

“When we researched the local delivery companies, we realised that The Leaflet Delivery Company had firmly established itself as the market leader in Milton Keynes. We found them to have expert local knowledge as well as a firm grasp of marketing concepts. There was no call to go anywhere else and they were the only sensible option. “

They needed MASSIVE exposure in rapid time on just the right dates

Xscape’s main concern was finding a company which could deliver a large amount of leaflets, in a short amount of time, in just the right areas and on just the right dates, so the leaflet campaigns coordinated with school holidays and other advertising methods in their campaign.

The result?… A 200% increase

“We also found that when the other advertising and social media campaigns were running without the leaflets, response was very low. We saw an increase in 200% of people taking up the free parking offer when the leaflets went out. We will certainly look at supporting advertising campaigns with doordrop in the future, as it really adds measurable benefits to what we are doing.”

Through an affordable door-to-door leaflet campaign, thousands more people used the free parking offer provided by Xscape, drawing in more visitors from all over Milton Keynes. Plus, the leaflets contained advertisements alongside the free parking vouchers, which considerably increased the exposure of Xscape and its attractions!

It was a clever marketing idea and just the right kind of advertising technique which gave massive results.

Want to give it a try? Get your leaflets in front of over 5,000 potential customers for only 5 pence EACH:

· 5,000 double sided A5 leaflets

· Printed by us in full colour on gloss or silk paper

· Delivered to 5,000 homes in your choice of areas within Milton Keynes

All for only £250+vat! (Competitive rates on design are also available if required)

And to top it off, just how many people are in each home? 1, 2, 3, 4 or more? The exposure is massive, and it’s all for only £250+vat, which even includes printing!

If you want to experience the kind of exposure Xscape had with 5,000 leaflets of your own, call 01908 760 800 now before the offer ends.

Posted in Case Studies, Leaflet delivery, News

0

When we stop doing leaflets our phone stops ringing!

4th August, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

“We tried it out & the phone started ringing…”

Like many local businesses, Building Tectonics Ltd had tried leaflet delivery in the past without real success.  The company needed something to give them the confidence that their leaflets were really being delivered in Milotn Keynes and evidence that they produced results.  What persuaded them to try again was the idea of satellite tracking for their leaflet delivery, to prove the leaflets were being delivered and not dropped into a wheelie bin.

Tony Keller, the Managing director of Building Tectonics Ltd explains further, “What The Leaflet Delivery Company helped us achieve was nothing short of incredible – and proved that you do not have to spend a fortune to gain an excellent and worthwhile response.”

Read more…

Posted in Case Studies, News

0

Name me an advert that you’ve only seen once

29th June, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

One of the most common misconceptions is to nurture an expectation that once you have launched your leaflet marketing campaign all you need do is sit back in your armchair and wait for the response to roll in.

Things are seldom as easy and clear-cut as this. Whilst some campaigns may return an excellent response on the first delivery the majority will need to be repeated on a regular basis and, where necessary, may have to be ‘fine tuned’ in order to improve your response rate.

Name me an advert that you’ve only seen once. I bet you can’t… and the reason is that when an advertisement appears just once it is rarely remembered.

Success rates usually improve with familiarity. It is a slow trickle effect that is likely to increase the more you keep your name in front of people.

Remember the old saying … ‘you can take a horse to water but you cannot force it to drink’. This is exactly the same with any form of advertising and marketing activity.

This is because people will only buy when they are ready to buy not when you’re ready to sell.

Customers are not waiting expectantly for your offer to drop through their letterbox in order to improve their lives! However, by ensuring that your marketing message is placed before them with a level of regularity will build a familiarity that associates your name and the products you sell. This means … when they are ready to buy – providing your offer is right for them … and your business is regarded as trustworthy … it will be you that they remember.

If your leaflet contains information about a product or service a prospect is considering buying in the future, they are likely to hang on to it so that they can contact you in the future. But the chance of your leaflet being retained will exponentially improve if your offer is placed in front of a buyer more on a regular basis.

The lesson here is to ensure that your name is always the first to spring to mind when a customer feels the time is right to buy the particular product or service you are selling.

As I have emphasised previously – targeting your leaflets is essential if you want to reap the benefits of a successful campaign. You will usually benefit more from dropping 10,000 leaflets regularly to the same targeted homes over a period of say five weeks – than you will be by haphazardly dropping 50,000 leaflets once to a mass number of homes.

Testing your offer is also vital. This can be done, for example, by making two slightly different offers to different halves of a 10,000 delivery drop. This will allow you to record which version returns the best response. If the response to leaflet A outweighs that of leaflet B – next time try reversing the offer so that leaflet B goes to the first batch of homes and vice versa. If leaflet A again pulls more response with the second group of houses you will know which version of your offer works best.

It is not rocket science but if you would like to know more about winning the hearts and minds of your customers through regular leaflet drops Please feel free to contact me on 01908 760 800… our advice will cost you nothing.

If you’d like more ideas on how to create a winning leaflet delivery campaign  Click Here

Posted in Leaflet delivery, Leaflet design

0

Good Value Or Just Plain Cheap?

28th April, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

We’ve never been a company that aims to compete on price – I think that you can probably see that from our blog posts and the fact that we offer so much more than just putting bits of paper through letterboxes.  I’ve always been one to be happy to pay for quality and to charge a decent price for a quality service.

I thought I’d have a bit of fun with this message and I’ve produced a small video which highlights the problems that you may have if you are just shopping around for the cheapest price.

Hope you enjoy the video.

Posted in News

0

We’ve been delivering for Movie Superstars

24th April, 2011 by The Leaflet Delivery Company

Yes that’s right, we’ve recently finished a Milton Keynes Flyer Delivery campaign for some movie and tv superstars – For some of the biggest names in their field.

Known for their roles in TV shows such as Sharpe, Dr Who, Merlin, Robin Hood Prince of Theives, V and Londons Burning as well as blockbuster movies such as Troy, Braveheart, The World is Not Enough and The Da Vinci Code they put on an event today in Mursley near Buckingham.

We’re talking about The Devils Horseman – Led by one of the worlds greatest Horsemen Gerard Neprous and his family.

Over the easter weekend, The Devils Horeseman put on a Wild West Rodeo show and they asked The Leaflet Delivery Company to help promote the event by delivering their flyers.

I took my family to the event today and it was easy to see why they are known in their industry the world over. We’re proud to deliver for the stars!

Posted in News

« Older Articles
Newer Articles »