Leaflet Distribution Method

The first aspect that you need to determine is what type of leaflet distribution is going to yield the highest results. There are two main methods which I will review in this article: door to door and hand to hand.

Door To Door Leaflet Distribution

Door to door leaflet distribution is one of the most popular methods of delivery. So many of our customers have only ever considered door to door leafleting before they speak to us. For businesses which rely on residential houses within a designated area (e.g. takeaways), this is a valid method if done correctly. But for almost all other businesses there are far more targeted, higher-impact methods, which can be executed for a similar budget. For a car bodyshop this method can deliver the localised results that you want as long as enough leaflets are delivered.

If you are geographically bound by targeting residential accommodation and are planning a door to door leafleting campaign, the first question you need to answer is whether you should use shared or solus distribution. Shared means your leaflet is delivered at the same time as a number of others, whereas solus means your leaflet is delivered by itself. In terms of impact and measurement of results, solus will generally generate a multiple of about ten-to-one in comparison with the cheaper shared distribution method.

As such, I would recommend that you should only ever consider solus distribution, even if you are working with miniscule budgets. Shared door to door leaflet distribution is a false economy, as the campaign impact is reduced by a multiple of how many other pieces of print are received by the potential customer at the same time. News share goes one worse than shared leaflet distribution, as it hides the leaflet inside a copy of a free newspaper – an item which, in itself, is already regarded as junk mail. The leaflet does not even get an airing until it is found by the small percentage of customers who actually manage to receive the paper, then bother to read it, then actually find the page where it is hiding, then find it to be the most interesting thing on the page amongst all of the local news articles… All this before the leaflet even has the first glimpse of opportunity of being absorbed as a piece of promotional collateral by the recipient; who, given the random nature of the paper’s distribution, is most likely to be completely inappropriate for the products or services being offered! Cheap it may be, but throwing your money straight into a bin is cheaper still.

So how much should you pay for solus door to door distribution? As little as possible seems like it should be the obvious answer, until that if you take a look at the math. Those of you who have attempted to take any of the leg work on yourselves will know that to properly deliver one thousand leaflets into an average suburban residential housing area, it takes a full day of about eight hours. When you do the math, that works out to be one house every 30 seconds. So you need to ask yourself, if I am being charged just £50 per thousand for solus distribution, does that mean that some diligent, reliable hard working person is undertaking all of the hard work, for just £3.75 per hour!? While an amazing amount of customers kid themselves into thinking they have found a real bargain, the actual reality is not as pretty. Like anything in life, you get what you pay for. It will generally mean that you are only getting a small proportion of your print delivered. If you are not paying for an appropriate amount of man hours, location mapping, team management, print logistics and activity reporting, the chances are, you are not going to get it! Again, if saving money is what you are after, it is cheaper to either throw your money straight into the bin, or just not to do anything at all!

Costs do vary massively from company to company, so do shop around and look not only for fair price which allows the distribution company to do a proper job, but also for a professional approach, which offers proper team management, activity reporting, full accountability and flexibility in terms of targeting. If the above hasn’t scared you off door to door completely and you are going to run a door to door campaign, you should give yourself the best possible opportunity to make it pay, by finding a distribution company who are able to map the areas to identify the most suitable locations in terms of average income levels, age ranges, ethnicity or even housing type (terraces, semis, detached, with or without gardens, driveways or whatever else is relevant for what you do).

Expect to pay anything between £50 to £79 per thousand and upwards, depending on the volume, size and format of your print material, for a decent job to be done.

Hand To Hand Leaflet Distribution

Hand to hand leaflet distribution allows you to select the exact activity locations which have the highest yield of your target audience, the most opportune timing for the leaflet delivery and a well-presented introduction to the nature of the promotion. As such, distributing your print material directly into the hands of your customer is generally the most targeted method of delivery which will produce the greatest results for the majority of businesses, products or services. It is therefore often the method of leaflet distribution I will ask you to consider first.

Hand to hand leaflet distribution has a range of advantages over door to door, which you should consider before finalising your distribution plans:

Location Selection

The locations for your leaflet distribution can be matched to suit your target audience. In simple terms, you do not have to wait for them to come to you, but can deploy leafleting teams wherever is going to be most beneficial for who you are trying to reach. You can target professionals in busy office area walkways, or outside commuter stations during rush hours or at lunch times. Shoppers can be reached on the high streets or close to the stores which attract a similar customer base to the one you are trying to reach. Students can be targeted on their university campuses, drinkers in city centre pubs, theatre goers outside of theatres, football fans outside of their local stadiums on match days, etc, etc. If you can identify approximately who your target demographic is, you should be able to determine a number of leaflet distribution locations which will benefit you the most.

The extent of your coverage is then only really limited by your budget and the extent of your service delivery. Most cities are able to offer a similar mix of targeted locations, from train stations, office areas, high streets, universities, sports grounds, concert halls, ethnic suburbs, farmers markets, etc – so your distribution can be carried out simultaneously in numerous cities at the same time, multiplying your potential audience reach proportionately.

Activity Timing

Unlike most door to door campaigns, your hand to hand leafleting can be precisely timed to maximise impact. If you are handing out a leaflet for a new office area eatery, you should be reaching potential customers on their way into work, or before they make their purchases during lunch times. If you are promoting a high street fashion store, you might reach customers while they are already in the city centre, browsing for clothes on a busy weekend. For lower price tag or impulse buy items, this can have a massive impact on the take-up of your campaigns, by negating the need for the potential customer to have made a premeditated decision or to take the leaflet with them. For some higher-value items, you might consider giving the leaflet to recipients before they get on a train or as they make their way home from work, so it is taken back home for a lengthier review.

Customer Incentivisation

Potential customers are exposed to hundreds of adverts across a wide array of media every day. Leaflets have a slight advantage over most other types of media, as they are tangible. You can hold a leaflet, read it, absorb the information and either put it in the bin, or keep it in your pocket for when you need it. The chances of a potential customer putting a leaflet in their pocket and keeping it for when they actually do need it are multiplied greatly if they have an incentivised reason to do so, such as a voucher.

Adding a voucher suddenly transforms a simple piece of paper into a potentially valuable piece of paper! If the recipient does not have an immediate and active need for the products and services being offered, then a proportion of the print will not make it beyond the first available bin. A voucher should make a potential customer think that the leaflet might come in handy in the future, and that they have a financially worthwhile reason to keep the leaflet until it is needed. Please note that offering a £5 discount when spending £1,000 does not do this! That said, a voucher doesn’t directly have to cost you a large proportion of your profit margin. You need to identify the range of offerings you can provide which sound very generous to the customer, but are actually very low-cost for you.

An additional free bonus when providing a voucher is that it provides you with an accurate measurement mechanic to gauge the success of your campaign. You can count up the amount of vouchers which have been redeemed through each of the distribution locations and methods to see what works best for you, which should help refine your strategy for future leaflet distribution campaigns.

Print Design

I recommend a general two-second rule, that if your potential customers are not interested in your leaflet within the first two seconds of looking at it, the chances are it will end up in the bin. Ask yourself roughly how many poorly designed leaflets from all types of businesses have you taken one glance at before throwing straight in the bin!?

I would suggest that takeaway menus are often among the worst-designed types of marketing material which are distributed. Most fall into the trap of being made as cheaply as possible, without any consideration for company individuality, eye-catching design or attractive headline offers. In an extremely crowded, competitive marketplace this means that the majority of what actually makes it into potential customers’ hands is just wasted.

When I pick a restaurant or a takeaway, I must have complete confidence in the quality of ingredients, the authenticity of the cooking and ability of the chefs. If the print fails to do this in the first few seconds, I am unlikely to become a customer. Similarly, when customers pick any product or service from any industry, they need to be persuaded to become your customer.

An eye-catching headline, which informs the recipient of why they should become a customer, is a good starting point. This should be followed by some summary info detailing why they should buy from you. What makes you so good at what you do? Convince me; and do it quickly, before I get bored of reading it!

Conclusion

Some car body shops think that if you don’t have big marketing budgets, you just have to make do with second-rate leaflet distribution done as cheaply as possible. I would suggest that if you are starting small it is even more important to give yourself the best possible opportunity in order to grow. Similarly, when you are working with larger budgets, there is far more at stake financially if it is not done correctly. In either situation, it is absolutely vital that leaflet distribution is planned intelligently and executed effectively, or you might as well not do it at all. With all of the above taken into account, your leaflet distribution campaigns can and should be a very powerful marketing tool, which can be utilised by almost any type of business.

The number one issue in laying out an ad in a newspaper is to make it eye-catching. Because several ads are typically placed on one page, each ad needs to be distinct and stand out. Consider this: When you flip through a publication like a newspaper, you will at least stop and glance at the pictures if you do not read the articles. If the picture looks interesting, you will read the headline. If that looks interesting, you’ll go on to read the rest of the story.

Artwork should be the main element. If you look at ads generated by national ad companies, the artwork occupies well over 50 percent of the ad space, sometimes as much as 100 percent of the ad as the text is embedded in the picture. Text occupies 20 percent or less of the available ad space. The best ads have the art occupy 70 percent or more of the space and the text 20 percent or less.

When building ads for a local newspaper, it’s best, if at all possible, to use pictures of local people in the ad. Local people mean local news. By getting local people in the ad, you are making a connection between the advertiser and the community. Readers will see the picture of someone they may know and will stop to find out what the person is doing. The picture should be interesting – not just a mug shot. Get a picture of the car bodyshop owner and a customer talking or examininga completed repair. This puts the customer in the paper, which shows the business is interested in serving its customers. By getting product in the picture as well, the ad will show what kind of business is being advertised.

It’s unfortunate but true that a surprising percentage of weekly newspaper subscribers are illiterate. Truly. Text does them no good. But they can and do look at the pictures to see what their friends, family and neighbors are up to. By including product in the picture, you are helping the illiterate readers understand what is being advertised.

The picture should be at the top or high up in the ad. Take a tip from the news side of newspapers. Pictures almost always go at the top of the story. It’s because the picture draws the reader into the story and we are conditioned from long habit to read a newspaper page from the top down.

The picture should reach horizontally from border to border or very close to that.

White space, as defined as open areas with nothing there can be good and can be an art element but most advertisers will look at this as wasted space. White space is not the space between letters or the leading between lines, unless the spacing is taken to extreme. White space can be wasted space, but doesn’t have to be. Except in rare cases, the white space should not be more than 15 percent of the ad. The rare cases where white space is the art element, the space should be at least 80 percent of the ad. A full page with two short lines of copy in the bottom half or middle of the page is one of the most effective ads you can get. It demands your attention.

The second barrier is the risk they take when recommending you that you may not perform as well for their referral and they will be (very slightly) responsible for any bad experiences that referral has.This perceived risk (however small) and the problem of inertia must be overcome.

Introducing a Car Body Repair Customer Referral Scheme

All car body repair businesses can benefit from a customer loyalty and referral scheme in their bodyshops. A typical scheme will give the customer a percentage or reward for referring somebody new. The reward usually has a monetary value eg. £10 M&S Vouchers, 20% off next car body repair, free valet…

Best practice for a reward scheme is to give something to both the referrer and the referral. This way both parties win on the deal, incentivising the referrer and giving the referral some positive reason to view the deal as something other than the referrer trying to “make a sale” for reward only.

Much research has been done throughout the years on the size of the reward needed to incentivise the customer into sending through new business. The results are promising for a small business to the extent that the value of the reward does not have to be high it simply has to have some perceived value. The difference in referral rates when a reward was 10% of the sale price compared with 20% of the sale price was negligible showing that a small incentive goes a long way.

Another interesting study showed that increasing the value of the reward to the referrer based on increasing numbers of referrals results in a large increase in referrals. An example of a stepped reward scheme:

• Refer 1 new customer = £10 Voucher
• Refer 2 new customers = Free £25 valet
• Refer 5 new customers = Free £200 alloy wheel refurbishment
• Refer 10 new customers = Free iPad

Managing your referral system is straightforward with many low priced software packages available that can manage the loyalty scheme at the same time. An example all in one solution can be found here

The best customers for any business are repeat customers followed closely by referrals from your regular customers. These prospects convert much more often than average and are already expecting a good value and quality service, letting you get on with it with the minimum of interruption.They are also often willing to pay slightly more as your service is already perceived to be of a higher value than an unknown business. If you are at the stage where you can run your business on the back of regular and referral business you are in a very good position. For tips and advice on running a successful referral program and customer loyalty scheme read A Guide to Bodyshop Referral and Loyalty Schemes.

If you are not in this enviable postion yet or business has slowed down, where do you then turn to get new customers? You know you need to acquire new leads and prospects but what are the options and how do you decide the best route to take?

Traditional Print Advertisements

Traditional advertising still works well for the local car body shop and smart repairer. The classified ad sections of your local newspaper and well placed in content ads can provide a good ROI (Return on Investment) although anecdotal evidence suggests that the returns generated today are not what they were 10 or even 5 years ago. See our Guide to Writing a Car Bodyshop Print Ad for help and advice.

Local Directories

Costs for the major directories are high for a small business. Prices of many hundreds or thousands of pounds for single entries are common. The benefit to your own business is difficult to judge without trying it for yourself. Many car body shops report a very good ROI from directories such as Thomson Local and the good old Yellow Pages but others report negligible results for what is a substantial outlay each year.

Leaflet Campaigns

Leaflet campaigns generally have a very low return rate of around 2 to 3% meaning you can expect 2 or 3 enquiries per 100 leaflets delivered and we all know those enquiries will not necessarily convert to paying customers. This makes it not worth the time of most small businesses to deliver using their own or employees time to hand deliver. Leaflet distribution companies can deliver the required volume for you to generate enquiries but this comes at a cost and it’s own problems. For cheap leafleting at a cost of around £20 per thousand for newspaper inserts or £30 for shared leaflet delivery the issue is that your leaflet is one of many and the return rate often drops below 1%. You can even see your leaflets being delivered at the same time as your competitors.

Solus distribution where your leaflet is the only one delivered can cost between £50 and £80 per thousand with minimum orders often around 5 to 10 thousand. The return goes back up to 2 or 3% on this method. It is often worth a test campaign of 5000 leaflets to judge the returns you get and use that data to make a decision on your ongoing marketing efforts. Check out our guides containing information and tips on How to Conduct a Succesful Leaflet Campaign and Leaflet Design for Car Bodyshops.

Television and Radio

Television advertising for car body repair businesses gives a historically poor ROI which is why you don’t see many TV ads for this industry. ChipsAway ran a successful national television campaign in 2009/2010 and reported a 34% increase in enquiries although there is no data on the conversion rates or the actual ROI. The budget for this was around £150,000 which is beyond the reach of many car bodyshops.

Radio on the other hand can be highly effective for local businesses like car bodyshops and mobile repairers. Local campaigns can cost from £1000 up to whatever your budget is and the ads can be targetted directly to your local targetted prospects. A successful radio advertising campaign must be properly planned to make the most out of your investment. To be notified of our upcoming feature on A Step by Step Guide to Radio for Car Bodyshops sign up to our free newsletter or check back next month.

Internet Marketing

By far the most important entry on this list. If you are serious about wanting to gain new business then your website is your number one priority. Your website is your brochure to the world and should reflect everything great about your business that you want to convey to your target audience. It must look and navigate like a professional site and it should contain a clear Call to Action – like a well placed phone number or a link to your quote system. If you don’t have a website – you NEED one. If you do have one then you should go and look at it and see if it is fulfilling the requirements you have. We have a lot to say on internet marketing and your web presence, so much that we have a whole series of articles that every serious business owner should read. Start at Your Car Bodyshop website.

Whilst there are many acceptable ways to repair and repaint cosmetic imperfections the following steps are what I believe to be a good set of guidelines to be worked at and amended as the professional repairer sees fit. Most of the products I use are 3M branded materials mostly through a system of trial and error over the years but there are some perfectly acceptable generic products available for this process.

1. Prep the wheel

With the perfect domain name and a dedicated team of writers and researchers we hope to take this site to the level it deserves as the number one destination for car body repair professionals.

The style of our articles and reviews is our own. Rather than the traditional dry and matter of fact tool and equipment reviews that are all over the web, we aim to give a realistic and thoroughly unbiased opinion by actually using and testing all the equipment we feature.

The newly developed Careers section will provide information, tips and advice on how to get along in the vehicle refinishing industry, as well as having up to date live job boards.

Finally, the Training section will contain details of recommended training courses as well as videos and photo logs of work in action.

Any feedback on the new site is very welcome!