Flyer Distribution??

[Strong Eagle]

...and think Strong Eagle is being a bit more understanding now.

Contrary to UKD's assertions, I was heavily involved in targeted marketing campaigns back in the 80's. I ran a GIS based mapping and demographics company. We'd buy mailing lists and phone lists, then geocode them against census data to target race, age, sex, income etc. We'd add voting and polling data, and other interesting demographic data like having a pool in the yard.

We sold targeted mailing lists for all sorts of localized (neighborhood) small businesses. We developed lists targeted businesses where our clients could place racks with freebies or even consignment merchandise. We ran studies for the best place to locate businesses catering to suburbanites.

We also sold lists, labels, and phone bank lists for political parties, including the Texas campaign for Reagan/Bush. We set up call centers to take polls and encourage the votes. We sent custom tailored requests for money.

And because we knew a lot about political demographics we supplied all the data (plaintiff, defendant, and the court all trusted our numbers) for a 2 year long federal court case involving Chicago aldermanic redistricting. Indeed, I personally wrote the software that was used to redistrict 7 states (congressional seats) and 7 cities (including Houston).

I learned a few things about targeted marketing. First, the degree of personalization makes a difference. Sending a letter to 'Occupant' resulted in far lower response rates, then a letter addressed to 'Mr. and Mrs. John Smith', so we tried to paste together names, occasionally pairing up a mother or daughter with good ole Dad as 'Mr. and Mrs.'.

Same thing with the content. If we could modify even small parts of a letter or a poll question based upon known data, the response was better.

And the second thing that made a difference was the quality of the piece. A cheap ass 3" x 5" post card, light weight, with single color printing didn't do near as good as job as an embossed letter (even announcing a grand opening)... something that looked like it was lovingly prepared, just for you.

These moo cards seem an interesting concept and will look further in to those this afternoon. In response my business partner is a graphic designer (very good one at that!), so everything will be of top quality design. One of our ideas is to print barcodes (QR codes) on them, which when scanned by a mobile can bring up a website, music page or youtube video of that particular artist.

Based on my experience, this is the track to be on. Create something that seems valuable, or maybe really is. Bringing that letter I mentioned to one grand opening we did, resulted in a free flea collar for your dogs or cats.

If you could actually provide a free downloadable MP3 that would be good stuff and unusual. Or discounts to something or other if someone does actually go to a website to leave you some demographic information for next time. Or an extra sweetner by recommending a friend.

Good luck.

[savestheday]

Thanks. Yeah we've thought about the possibility of an mp3 download, which wouldn't be a problem to obtain, but we have to research further on how to implement this and whether it can only be downloaded at a computer or if a phone can be used too. Seems like computer only at this stage. This is one of a number of value-adds that we hope to provide. Discounts or other would depend on any relative sponsorship obtained.

Cheers for all your input guys.

[ukdesigner]

SE I apologise for my blast and maybe it should've been aimed more st sms than you as he seems to be more of a stick in the mud these days. Maybe he's just getting old and grumpy

With what you were saying about letters, in fact a dear John letter will get you between 1-3% return whereas a dear "name" will get you a response between 7-9%. I do a massive amount of those these days for clients back in the UK and have even been educating my clients here about the increase in responses they'll get by personalising letters / emails etc etc. Here it's been such hard work. They just don't embrace new ideas well here and constantly go on about tradition and history blah blah blah. With data merging these days you can do massive things, even catalogues and also scripting within the artwork. Very handy but like I say, wasted here.

Those Moo cards do look interesting and I'm thinking of doing them myself but I feel that it would be wasted on most businesses here. So far the ones I've met only seem interested in doing everything safe and not even do anything original. If you're aiming for a younger, more tech savvy or even hip market then I think they'll work great. Mind you coming up with 30 designs (that's from memory so don't flame me) is a huge amount of work. Rather you than me. It's not doing them per so it's doing 30 original ones and if your designer is like me or any other designer I've ever met then he'll design and then design them again and again and again. I've always outsourced my own marketing work. Every time I've printed stuff it's gone straight in the bin once it's arrived! Too critical.

Good luck and if you do go down the Moo cards route let me know how they come out.

[ukdesigner]

Uhhhh... handing out flyers is not exactly a 'modern' concept... I think this got started shortly after Gutenberg fired up the first printing press.

It might be target marketing and then again, it might not. Is it targeted marketing to hand off a Burger King flyer to every person who steps off the escalator in the basement of Suntec 1? It is 'targeting' all the folks who have come downstairs to each lunch, I suppose. But it's not really. If it were targeted, the flyers would be targeted only to those looking for cheap western food.

Only the OP can actually determine if he has a real target audience or is simply making assumptions about the nature of the audience he intends to push to.

I understand what you mean and in this red dot where they make it difficult to reach your true target audience by either selling you lists at exorbitant prices but that's missing all the relevant information, (I've tried to buy them legitimately, not from those dodgy suppliers) this is about as close as the OP will probably get to their true target audience without spending 10k.

Flyers are not the preferred option and I tend to steer clients away from them and look for alternative, albeit even printed items, that will generate a higher response rate. Original ideas and artwork is always best. Maybe a nice foil block on a 300gsm matt textured card. Another option is to go slick and offer a matt lam card. The nicest I ever did was a silk laminated card but ask them here about that and they have no idea what you are talking about. I admit I've thought about buying my print from the UK and shipping it here. Who'd have thought it'd be cheaper there than here!

[savestheday]

Problem is with those Moo cards and the other print options is money. Flyers work as one type of print option because they are cheap to produce in bulk and easy to distribute. It just wouldn't be economical to get too fancy, as you said earlier K.I.S.S. This would be different if we were creating event or sponsor invitations.

[Strong Eagle]

Peace, UKD. You've got a lot of interesting information. I never liked paying the price for private mailing lists in the US, and they could easily be augmented by other data sets, which apparently are not available here.

For example, a political party or a candidate wants to send a personalized mailer to generate some funds. He/she supplied me with a list of donors which included address and name.

I'd geocode against voter registration and property records to match up other family members. If I had age, I could make a good Mr/Mrs match, else, 'danger, danger, Will Robinson'.

I really enjoyed the demographics and matching thing... given your comments about the crap available here, it would be interesting to see what is actually available from the gahmen in terms of direct lists (driver's license, voters) and aggregate at say, a block level.

Possibly you and I ought to drink a beer, being as your a creative sort and I'm a pretty good data mechanic.

[BillyB]

On a slightly unrelated note and apologies to dig this post up again, but have you guys looked at the option of using the iPad as a tool to assist your marketing efforts?

We got sent one in the post earlier this week with a pre-locked product demo and a note saying its yours to keep if you agree to a full product walk through and deep dive. I was quite taken aback by this effort and like the arrogance and belief in the product. Needless to say it's not right for us but it certainly made a lasting impression and opened my eyes to a whole host of possibilities in this space.

I am also seeing more and more lunch 'meetings' using iPads. Even though I don't 'get' the overall concept of the iPad I must admit, as their deepest cynic, they do look compelling and powerful, and are certainly convenient to be passed around and viewed in between beers etc.

I have read about bars and restaurants with iPads built into the tables making orders seamless and obviously pushing all sorts of adverts to the customers. Morgan Stanley are shifting their focus toward the iPad and it wont be long til the rest of thee IB's follow suit.

Interesting food for thought for a Friday!!