We are told by many prospective clients that they have been offered solus leaflet distribution of their leaflets from anything from £35 to £45 per 1,000. The truth is that this is simply not possible.
Why? Because there is absolutely no way that the numbers add up. If the distribution company is employing good quality workers and is paying them at least the national minimum wage they will be losing money!
Let’s do the math…
On average a good leaflet distributor can distribute between 80 and 120 per hour, depending on the area being distributed to. This means that good distributors will be able to deliver 1,000 leaflets per day.
So, for example, if you have been quoted £35 per 1,000 then that means that the cost to the leaflet distribution company per 1,000 is £30 (if we assume a £5 profit margin, which is very low). That means that they have £30 left to pay for staff, fuel, administration, overheads, etc. If we assume that their overheads cost another £5 then that leaves only £25 to pay their staff.
Not only is that over £25 less than the minimum wage but you have to ask yourself if you would go out in all weathers doing what is a strenuous job for a maximum of £25 per day? Nobody I have spoken to would ever work for that sort of money!
So what is going to happen to your leaflets?
There are only three options available to these companies:
- Deliver only a small proportion of your leaflets (if any). In other words, you give them 10,000 and they deliver 3,000.
- Deliver your leaflets with up to 5 others which means that your leaflet will get lost in the ‘noise’ created by the other leaflets. See our post “Should I Share my Leaflet Distribution?“.
- A combination of 1 and 2
In all three cases, you will be left wondering why you are getting a poor response rate!
Our Advice
This is one industry where you definitely get what you pay for so always remember if it seems to good to be true, it probably is! Our advice is to be very careful when choosing a company to distribute your leaflets.
For further information, read our article entitled ‘What to expect from a good Leaflet Distribution Company‘.
