You have spent a lot of money on a promotional flyer to advertise your business, you have printed it on good quality paper and you have paid a distributor to hand them out all over your city. Unfortunately, as soon as your flyer is pushed through the mail slot of 99% of doors, it will be headed straight to the rubbish bin or recycling box. All of your hard work has gone to waste to create something that will probably only used by your customers to line the bottom of their birdcages.
Why are your promotional flyers destined for the bin? Is there anything you can do about it?
Take a Close Look at Your Flyers – Are They the Best They Can Be?
Take a look at the flyers that you have been distributing and ask yourself whether you can really blame your customers for throwing them away without a second thought. Do they stand out from all of the other advertisements, or are they boring and ordinary? It can be difficult to look at your flyers objectively because you are emotionally invested in your business, but try to look at them from the perspective of someone who has never heard of your company or what you do. Would the flyer pique their interest?
Unfortunately when you are distributing flyers for your business you will have a lot of other promotional mail to compete with. Unless your flyer has a great offer or is very interesting and eye-catching, you can’t really blame most people for recycling it with the pile of other junk mail.
Tips for Improving Your Flyers
The good news is that there are a number of ways you can improve your flyers and make it more likely that your customers will pay attention to them and save them. Here are a few tips to apply to your flyers to help them avoid a one-way trip to the rubbish bin.
- Make the largest text eye catching. The headline or the largest text on the page should be something that makes the reader look twice. Too many flyers simply state the name of the company, which won’t catch the customer’s interest.
- Use a large and impactful font for this big headline, which will make it more readable and make it stand out in a pile of papers from across the room.
- Most of the time, people look at images first and then read text. Use an interesting main graphic or a vibrant colour image to grab the attention of the reader. Make sure that it is obvious how the image is related to the text.
- Follow up the headline with strong and simple points that outline what you have to offer. Focus on the benefit of your product or service for the customer… what’s in it for them?
- Avoid too much text. People will get bored reading the flyer and you will lose their interest.
- Include a call to action at the end. Perhaps you want them to visit your website and sign up, or request a free report, or order a free trial. A leaflet or a flyer with no call to action is a wasted opportunity.
- Take a random sampling of all of the other common flyers that come through your door. Does your flyer look like every other one? Think about how you can make it stand out, such as using an unusual colour or printing it on a shiny or textured surface.
These are just a few of the main ways that you can make it less likely that your promotional flyer will end up going straight in the bin and instead be read by your potential customers.
About the Author: Paula Whately is a blogger and entrepreneur in London who recently had a new flyer designed for her business. With the new design in flyer distribution, London customers were calling her at a much higher rate than usual.
