How many leaflets do you post a month?

[Dale Harries]

Just that really? Not sure if there's an amount you need to post?

 

[ched999uk]

Depends if you need more customers or not.
If you need more customers just crack on and drop more leaflets - canvassing (door knocking) might get you more customers quicker!

 

[AndyD]

Just that really? Not sure if there's an amount you need to post?

Leafleting can be quite frustrating tbh, you can spend hours leafleting a whole area and not one call. And then someone will post on FB that they are in the area cleaning windows and suddenly every man and his dog is asking for them to do a quote for them!

 

[Mattlekim]

I once put 600 leaflets got 1 Customers. Never again...

 

[Chris34]

Generally the return on the leaflets for me is at least £1 per leaflet delivered. That return is made up of the full years takings for the customers. So 1,000 leaflets would return £1,000 extra income over the full year. It can be a lot more depending on the one offs like conservatory roof cleans, gutters clears etc. But as a rule of thumb, 1,000 will deliver at least £1,000 in extra work and much of that is immediate. There is then the knock on work from the customers you get from the leaflets, so you end up getting the neighbours house via the recommendation.

Recently I got Royal Mail to deliver 3,600, I got 3 phone calls. This is terrible and leads me to believe they were not done. The worst I've ever had is 1 call out of 600 when I've posted them out. However those 3 phone calls got me over £400 of immediate work and increased my monthly turnover by £45, so another £500+ per year assuming I don't lose them. So even a bad result has covered all the costs and increased my turnover with pretty much zero effort on my part.

You're approach to how you do it is the key thing and I am starting to think that if you deliver them yourself that's what the key is. When people see yourself delivering them I have a feeling they respect you more for doing it yourself rather than getting the wife, kids, stranger, royal mail to do it.

After having the royal mail deliver all of them, I delivered 50 on my own, got one call and got the job which was £250 per year, then tapped on 10 houses around that house and said I'd just been to quote that house, 1 agreed to the same terms and I got it at the same price £250 per year. So £500 per year from 50 leaflets dropped.

Leaflets definitely work, but you have to think about your approach and constantly monitor and tweak them.

I've found my leaflet customers more reliable than canvassed customers. They tend to be better customers, more serious and are definitely more inclined to ring you up about the extra services you offer.

I've got someone who will be delivering my leaflets starting in the coming weeks, I'm giving them a 3 month trial doing 600 to 800 per week. I'm not expecting miracles but I'd expect to get 5 to 6 calls per week resulting in around about £800+ of extra work per month immediate work and that would work out about an extra £150 to £200 per month ongoing work, hopefully a lot more but that's what I'm expecting minimum. If it works out then I have good plans for the winter and will keep them on maybe giving them more responsibility to manage it all themselves while I crack on with doing the work.

 

[ched999uk]

Recently I got Royal Mail to deliver 3,600, I got 3 phone calls. This is terrible and leads me to believe they were not done.

I thought Royal Mail only did a minimum of 8000 leaflets - did you manage to negotiate them down? How small a postcode area will they do?

 

[Chris34]

I thought Royal Mail only did a minimum of 8000 leaflets - did you manage to negotiate them down? How small a postcode area will they do?

They don't have a minimum, not sure how small they can go but the software to pick you're area is actually 1st class, you select it by the postcode area and for us it seems perfect. You then book it in on the software and say when you want them delivered. You can then either have them collected for £100 or so, or drop them off for free in Warrington. There are about 5 drop off depots in the uk.

But yeah the software is really good, you click an area on the map and it tells you how many residential addresses are in that postcode and how much it will cost. You can have as many or as little postcode areas as you like.

It all seems great... until you find they've not done it. I had 4 customers looking out for the leaflet, different sides of one postcode area. I thought they would get delivered so only asked a few, if I knew it would be this bad I would have asked everyone to look out for it. Anyway, all 4 of them said they never received it, 3 of them said they were looking through everything one by one.

In my view, based on my own experience of delivering them, based on 4 customers saying they didn't get it, based on only getting 3 calls, in my view only 500 were delivered, all on the small houses that are easy ones for them.

 

[Chris34]

Feel free to have a go though Ched, but if you do I'd tread carefully and pick a postcode that has minimal houses so you don't blow a load of money testing it out. Cost me about £300 + the cost of 4000 leaflets (you have to send extra to cover any additional new builds since they last counted the houses).

Me myself I'll never use them again. Maybe addressed mail I might give a go as they can't really get out of that. But not for unaddressed mail.

The software is good though for finding out how many houses are in a given area, so I'll use that for when I'm employing my leaflet delivery person to plan the areas to cover.

 

[Dave B]

Feel free to have a go though Ched, but if you do I'd tread carefully and pick a postcode that has minimal houses so you don't blow a load of money testing it out. Cost me about £300 + the cost of 4000 leaflets (you have to send extra to cover any additional new builds since they last counted the houses).

Me myself I'll never use them again. Maybe addressed mail I might give a go as they can't really get out of that. But not for unaddressed mail.

The software is good though for finding out how many houses are in a given area, so I'll use that for when I'm employing my leaflet delivery person to plan the areas to cover.

Royal Mail deliver them in a bundle of other “junk mail” in the customers eyes so probably don’t even get seen when the pile of mailsort as they call it (did the job for a while part time when I moved and built up a new round)
Once buried in a pile of leaflets nobody will see it

 

[Chris34]

Royal Mail deliver them in a bundle of other “junk mail” in the customers eyes so probably don’t even get seen when the pile of mailsort as they call it (did the job for a while part time when I moved and built up a new round)
Once buried in a pile of leaflets nobody will see it

Yeah that's correct and I wouldn't expect as good results as when I post them single, but for me to have 4 customers look out for it and all 4 say they've not seen it leads me to believe they were just not delivered.

The 3 calls that I got, one did say it was inside a farmfoods leaflet, which is a big leaflet, but I expected that.

Just a numbers game but I was disappointed, I thought I could trust the Royal Mail but it's completely knocked my confidence, won't be using them again.

 

[johnny bravo]

you are better off knocking on doors when you get too many big fat NO THANKYOU then start Kicking Doors down

 

[Dale Harries]

Thanks for all your replies!

 

[johnny bravo]

it is unreal now how many Window Cleaners are about now . Around 7 years ago i was able to get all the work i have now from New Builds. Lot of canvassing % Door knocking. Tried it the other day people just moved in . Got beat to the post Haha
Where there used to be 2 on big new estate there is around 10/12 different Window cleaners on same estate. Im so glad im not just starting up again .

Soul destroying when you keep being told Sorry i have one . they only been in the house 3 days .

 

[AndyD]

it is unreal now how many Window Cleaners are about now . Around 7 years ago i was able to get all the work i have now from New Builds. Lot of canvassing % Door knocking. Tried it the other day people just moved in . Got beat to the post Haha
Where there used to be 2 on big new estate there is around 10/12 different Window cleaners on same estate. Im so glad im not just starting up again .

Soul destroying when you keep being told Sorry i have one . they only been in the house 3 days .

I live in a cul de sac where there are only 4 houses. 3 different window cleaners attend once a month!

 

[Pjj]

it is unreal now how many Window Cleaners are about now . Around 7 years ago i was able to get all the work i have now from New Builds. Lot of canvassing % Door knocking. Tried it the other day people just moved in . Got beat to the post Haha
Where there used to be 2 on big new estate there is around 10/12 different Window cleaners on same estate. Im so glad im not just starting up again .

Soul destroying when you keep being told Sorry i have one . they only been in the house 3 days .

Could be if they have moved locally that their previous window cleaner is doing them , we continue with our customers if they move to an area we cover .

 

[scottish cleaning service]

We are lucky up here, not many use the wfp method. I picked up a £7 clean in my mum's council area and she wants me to clean her daughter's round the corner. The other windy said she owed a few months and it didn't go down well so the cleaning was stopped and he lost both. Slowly I'm picking them up and dearer into the bargain. Did another first clean which maybe a one off but my water was roasting so I gave them a good soaking and went back and scrubbed them and they came up great. I haven't met another windy up here that uses hot water but its only a matter of time.

 

[Doddy111]

Generally the return on the leaflets for me is at least £1 per leaflet delivered. That return is made up of the full years takings for the customers. So 1,000 leaflets would return £1,000 extra income over the full year. It can be a lot more depending on the one offs like conservatory roof cleans, gutters clears etc. But as a rule of thumb, 1,000 will deliver at least £1,000 in extra work and much of that is immediate. There is then the knock on work from the customers you get from the leaflets, so you end up getting the neighbours house via the recommendation.

Recently I got Royal Mail to deliver 3,600, I got 3 phone calls. This is terrible and leads me to believe they were not done. The worst I've ever had is 1 call out of 600 when I've posted them out. However those 3 phone calls got me over £400 of immediate work and increased my monthly turnover by £45, so another £500+ per year assuming I don't lose them. So even a bad result has covered all the costs and increased my turnover with pretty much zero effort on my part.

You're approach to how you do it is the key thing and I am starting to think that if you deliver them yourself that's what the key is. When people see yourself delivering them I have a feeling they respect you more for doing it yourself rather than getting the wife, kids, stranger, royal mail to do it.

After having the royal mail deliver all of them, I delivered 50 on my own, got one call and got the job which was £250 per year, then tapped on 10 houses around that house and said I'd just been to quote that house, 1 agreed to the same terms and I got it at the same price £250 per year. So £500 per year from 50 leaflets dropped.

Leaflets definitely work, but you have to think about your approach and constantly monitor and tweak them.

I've found my leaflet customers more reliable than canvassed customers. They tend to be better customers, more serious and are definitely more inclined to ring you up about the extra services you offer.

I've got someone who will be delivering my leaflets starting in the coming weeks, I'm giving them a 3 month trial doing 600 to 800 per week. I'm not expecting miracles but I'd expect to get 5 to 6 calls per week resulting in around about £800+ of extra work per month immediate work and that would work out about an extra £150 to £200 per month ongoing work, hopefully a lot more but that's what I'm expecting minimum. If it works out then I have good plans for the winter and will keep them on maybe giving them more responsibility to manage it all themselves while I crack on with doing the work.

How are you planning on paying them Chris? Amount of leaflets delivered or a standard hourly wage?

I’d love to find an individual I could trust to deliver leaflets every week. I’ve paid family members to do them in the past and found the leaflets in their house a few weeks later or dumped in a park, how will you monitor what’s being delivered?

 

[Chris34]

How are you planning on paying them Chris? Amount of leaflets delivered or a standard hourly wage?

I’d love to find an individual I could trust to deliver leaflets every week. I’ve paid family members to do them in the past and found the leaflets in their house a few weeks later or dumped in a park, how will you monitor what’s being delivered?

I'm using my neighbour who is keen, she need the money and her and her daughter are doing it. They just started this week and I've not given them a lot to do (600 between them), they are awkward houses though but even so I expected around 3 hours for two people that have just started (never done leafleting before). They went out on Wednesday with the intention of doing the whole lot, said they needed the cash that day which I said would be fine as long as they do them all. Anyway got a text later on saying that after delivering around 400 they got really hot so decided to call it a day and will be delivering the rest today.

Now based on past experience, this is ringing alarm bells, so I'm not too optimistic for the long term. Just have to see.

Pay wise I've been really reasonable. I've said it will be 3 to 4 hours work each time, each will get £12 per hour, a minimum of 4 hours pay even if they do it in less than 4 hours. I've also included a £3 bonus per quote I get booked in, not each new job, just a quote.

The more I'm in business the more I realise that some people are just not self motivated. Some people just need a constant whip cracker, without one they'd do f all. I think that's why most people are not self employed. The self motivation is an ability that we as business owners probably underestimate how important it is.

I'll keep you posted on my new leafleters but I'm not hugely optimistic by any means. It took me 3 hours to plan the route for them so it's not like there is no time and planning gone into it from my part. Zero calls at the moment as well but I kind of expected that given the current economic uncertainties. I've got no work for the next week so I'm going out on my own everyday to gauge the general feeling. Will also have my leafleters out (if they're still up for it).

 

[ched999uk]

How are you planning on paying them Chris? Amount of leaflets delivered or a standard hourly wage?

I’d love to find an individual I could trust to deliver leaflets every week. I’ve paid family members to do them in the past and found the leaflets in their house a few weeks later or dumped in a park, how will you monitor what’s being delivered?

There is an app on Android called Geo Tracker that I use to track my own leafletting. As soon as you start the app it starts recording gps data, it is very accurate even to the extent you can see when you walk up long driveways although not always. When you finish you stop it and then you can see the exact route on google maps. I believe you can then share the route via email etc. You could get who ever is delivering leaflets to do something similar.

 

[Chris34]

There is an app on Android called Geo Tracker that I use to track my own leafletting. As soon as you start the app it starts recording gps data, it is very accurate even to the extent you can see when you walk up long driveways although not always. When you finish you stop it and then you can see the exact route on google maps. I believe you can then share the route via email etc. You could get who ever is delivering leaflets to do something similar.

This sounds ideal, I'll give it a whirl

 

[Chris34]

@Doddy111 well that's gone exactly as I thought it would. Neighbour finally finished the remainder of the leaflets today, she said she hated it and didn't want to do any more ever again She said it took 4 hours in total for the 2 of them, that was spaced out over 3 days (their choice). Her daughter is in her early 20's btw, not a child or teenager.

I can accept that people are not self motivated to do this type of work but I am almost certain that if I left 15p on every letter box house after house and said to someone all you have to do is go and collect them... well they'd do it all day long. I just don't understand why it's so hard to get people to do it, especially when they're so keen and enthusiastic before starting it. Really baffles me.

Anyway, with the amount of time I've spent organising it all... it's just the same old saying, if you want something doing and doing right you have to do it yourself. Very frustrating but I guess I'll have to do everything myself.