Should I Share my Leaflet Distribution with Others?

Beware of falling into the trap of sharing your leaflet distribution with other companies to save money.  Spending a bit more for solus delivery is for more effective.

Sharing your leaflet distribution with others it is not the best way to generate sales for your business. Distributing your leaflet on its on is more effective.

This article discusses the pros and cons of sharing the distribution of your leaflets with others vs solus distribution.

The primary advantage of sharing your leaflet distribution with other companies is to save money. The question that you need to consider is whether saving money outweighs the disadvantages which are outlined below.

There are many disadvantages to sharing your leaflet distribution with other companies, some of which are listed below:

1. The impact of your leaflet will be diluted when it is delivered with other leaflets. The degree to which this dilution will impact on the response rate will vary depending on a number of factors. These include the design of the leaflet (how well it stands out from the others) and the number of other leaflets it is delivered with. In general, the more leaflets that it is delivered with, the less chance you will have of having a decent response rate.

2. Depending on who you use to to distribute your leaflets, they could end up being buried among a number of other leaflets. Royal Mail and other prominent mail delivery companies are particularly bad for this. They usually deliver at least three leaflets together. Worse, they will put all of the smaller leaflets inside the largest item. This means that there is a very good chance that yours will never even be seen. This is because the leaflets will be binned if the recipient is not interested in the leaflet that the rest are encased in. For further information, see our comparison between the door-to-door distribution service offered by 2112 Leaflet Distribution and the Royal Mail.

3. You could end up sharing leaflets with your competitors. We recently received four leaflets delivered through our door by the same company (I know because I saw the person delivering them). Two of the four were for companies who were direct competitors in the same area. This was clearly not a good ‘investment’ for either company.

4. The more companies you share with, the less impact your leaflet is going to have. This is likely to have a negative impact on your response rates. By far the most effective way to increase your chances of obtaining a decent response rate is to deliver one leaflet on its own. If you really want to share then the fewer other companies you share with the better. We would suggest that you should never share with more than one other company.  You should also ensure that those companies are not competing with you, either directly or indirectly.

Some people argue that it does not make any difference if you share.  They think is a chance that your target audience will have receive leaflets from other companies on the same day as yours. While may be true some of the time, it is by no means certain. It is something that you cannot control. You can, however, control whether you share your leaflet distribution with others or not. This is not a decision that should be taken lightly.

In our experience solus leaflet distribution is by far the most effective way to distribute your leaflets. This will give you the best chance of getting a good response rate.