One of the most popular lead generation and brand awareness channels in the UK is door-to-door leaflet distribution—and it’s easy to see why. Whether it's part of an ongoing omnichannel strategy for increased campaign reach or enhancing your neighbourhood presence, there are plenty of benefits to adding leafleting to your marketing mix.

However, when it comes to door-to-door leaflet distribution, it can be hard to figure out where to start. What leaflet distribution method is right for you? How much does a leaflet distribution cost? Do I need it?

Luckily, as the UKs first leaflet distribution platform that lets you run your leaflets like digital ads, our team knows a thing or two about this popular leaflet distribution approach. Whether you want to generate more leads, build brand awareness, or increase your campaign scale, there’s something for everyone in our comprehensive guide.

Types of Door-to-Door Leaflet Distribution

There are predominantly two key ways to distribute your door-to-door leaflets. Figuring out which one is best for you is based on your campaign objectives, target audience, budget, and how you want leafleting to complement your other advertising channels. If you’re not sure what methods are available, consider these options.

Solus

Solus (delivered individually) door-to-door leaflet distributions allow you to cut through the sea of over 5,000 adverts your audience is likely to see daily. They offer an excellent opportunity to establish trust with your brand in comparison to digital ads, and a foundation of trust often leads to a more effective direct response. In summary, Solus leaflets reach a wider audience within your target demographic, get shared among family and household members, ultimately resulting in increased lead generation. However, they come with a higher cost and are typically best suited for direct response campaigns targeting medium to high-ticket sales.

Shared

Shared door-to-door leaflet distributions (delivered with others) are also popular, particularly for smaller budgets or broader targeting. When executed effectively, such as when sent alongside other leaflets promoting complementary services, response rates tend to increase, maintaining a more cost-effective approach. For this reason, they tend to suit businesses that rely on low-ticket sales at volume, such as fast-food restaurants. Many businesses experiment with leaflet shape and size to help them stand out. Nevertheless, it's important to factor in the associated printing costs. Regardless of the perspective, anticipate lower response rates compared to solus door-to-door leaflet distribution campaigns.

How to Set Up Your Door-to-Door Leaflet Distribution Campaign the Right Way

Now that you know your options, it’s time to think about what you want to get out of your campaign and devise a strategy to get there.

The first step is to think about your campaign objective. This might sound self-explanatory at first, but once you consider your goals in the context of your wider omnichannel strategy, you’ll see why it’s so important. Perhaps you’ll be generating more consultations or student sign-ups, and so you will need a direct response funnel? Or maybe you want to drive app downloads with a deep link. Regardless of your objective, ensure it remains at the forefront of your focus.

Next, think about targeting. Use your current customer or student base as a starting point and try to unearth any trends in the data that will help you build a picture. You’ll want to think about a range of parameters such as where they live, whether it’s in a flat or house, their average property price, distance to your business or course, and even when they’re more likely to be home. Once you’ve fine-tuned your targeting, you can go back to your objectives and choose a door-to-door leaflet distribution method that aligns with your campaign.

Concerned about targeting a niche? As marketers, we thrive on the challenge of hyper-targeted campaigns. Employ strategies such as leveraging government census data to gain in-depth insights into a specific area. Upon delving into the data sets, you might be astonished by the multitude of characteristics you can leverage to enhance your targeting and increase your chances of success.

Also, make sure you think about your wider marketing funnel when you consider your campaign setup. For example, if you’re a course provider and your campaign objective is to sign up more students, you’ll need to think about an admissions system to optimise this process.

How Much Does a Door-to-Door Leaflet Distribution Campaign Cost?

The cost of your door-to-door leafleting campaign will vary massively depending on the approach you pursue, the scale of your campaign, location, and printing costs, among other factors.

For example, it can cost anywhere between £35 - £80 to distribute 1,000 leaflets, and the price will depend on where you are in the UK (London comes at a premium), the size of the project, the type of paper stock, and the quality of the distributor. Small sole-trading individuals often provide cheap quotes, but their lack of transparency can put you more at risk than if you use a high-quality, large distribution company.

Alongside the cost of distribution, you’ll also need to factor in other fees. Because of this, a typical door-to-door leaflet distribution campaign tends to be split like this:

• Distribution
• Printing Costs
• Graphic Designer
• Landing page

How Long Does It Take to Set Up and Launch a Door-to-Door Leaflet Distribution Campaign?

The timings involved with your project will all depend on the size of the campaign you plan on undertaking and how much you’re prepared to spend. However, let's say you want to distribute 10,000 flyers per day in London. In this scenario, you would need a team of 4/5 distributors.

But distribution isn’t the only consideration you’ll need to make. You’ll also need to factor in printing and setting up a funnel to increase conversion rates. All in all, from start to finish, your door-to-door leaflet distribution can take up to 2 weeks to start generating leads—sometimes more.

How Do I Create the Perfect Leaflet for My Door-to-Door Leaflet Distribution?

As with any ad, there’s an iterative process to design, test, and refine your finished leaflet. Here are just a few of the key elements, as well as the direct response principles you’ll need to incorporate into your leaflet design to encourage an immediate response.

Call Out

A callout is whatever feature you use to get your audience's attention. Typically, there’s a 0.5-second window for someone to decide what they do once they pick your leaflet up. The job of a callout is to get your lead interested enough to keep them reading.

Value

Once you’ve got their attention, you need to get them interested in what you have to offer. The best leaflets make the benefits look as big as possible and the costs look as small as possible. That’s why savvy advertisers use this section to make a hard-hitting offer that compels the lead to want to find out even more.

CTA (Call to Action)

If your lead makes it to the finish line, make sure they have clear instructions on what action they need to take next: Call this number, Scan this QR code, Click this button, etc. Make calls to actions clear, concise, quick, easy, and preferably measurable to track your response rates.

For more personalised guidance and to run your leaflets like digital ads, book in free advice call. Happy leafleting!