Do Flyers Work? Is This a Good Idea?

What do you mean by "work"? For some people this might mean a conversion of 10% of those flyers and others might want to see better results. Personally i think that it's all about the cost. If I can hand out flyers and spread the world to 1000 people for 50 USD or less then I don't care how many listen to my message. Sometime it's hard to quantify this type of advertising but I'd say that you give it a try.

We all hate spam and junk mail. And placing a flyer onto windshield is no different. I am wondering if it could bring any bad publicity. Should I use disposable domain names printed onto the flyer?
Perhaps two different flyers, one for personally handing out to people and the other for placing on the windshields?

It will cost me about $100 for the paper and ink. The distributors of flyers will be paid $20 each plus the percentage.

Disclaimer: I am not a marketer. I am not a copywriter. I think I have something to contribute that is worth you reading but I don't have any claim to being an authority on the subject.


Asking "Do Flyers Work" doesn't make sense. I've seen ads that sold like crazy and I've seen ads that flopped. It doesn't matter if it's flyers, referrals, TV ads or Adwords. The medium isn't the be all and end all and it certainly doesn't decide whether your marketing will be effective.

The better question is:
Will this flyer with Message A, distributed by Method B to the people of Demographic C make me more money than it costs?

I think it was Joe Sugarman who said if you have the right audience and the right message you could write it on a napkin and people would buy... :-)

My answer is that in my experience there are a lot of people in the real world who would like to learn how to make money online. You'll need to get past their scepticism and fear of being ripped off.

Can you do this in a flyer? Guess that depends on the message on the flyer...

Local live workshops might be better than sending them to a website...

Some of best customers looked they could not scratch their arse with a spare nickel, yet they can go the cupboard and roll out 10K cash plus and hand it to me on their dingy kitchen table and it happens more often than not. never pre judge people.

Neither.

A world famous "coach" will know their market and are likely to convert the best prospects who attend their event.

They are also likely to follow-up with non purchasers after the event.

If you do have something of value that would appeal to attendee's of another marketer's event you would be better proving your worth and then approaching the coach for a JV partnership.

Otherwise look at the advice Ewen has gifted you in regards to using a qualified list to promote your offer to.

Do you have a product of value to promote?

Oh and something else....

What if every attendee already gets an autographed copy of the book at the event?

What if there is already a forum where attendees discuss the event and ideas...much like every marketing event there is usually already a Facebook page as a minimum...particularly if the author you describe is "world famous" as you describe.

Just a thought...

I understand that I should reveal the name of the author, my website that I want to promote and the design of the flyer to get more specific responses. I am not willing to just yet.

There is a page for this event created on FB. I can see that 1500 have marked that they are going. Mostly young people in their early twenties, a lot of university students, both boys and girls.

The event costs about $300. VIP lounge with all the benefits is $1500.

Why not try business cards? You can get 1000 decent looking ones made for $10-$15. Pay someone $20/$30 to distribute them at the parking lot of the event. If you have an attention grabbing headline, a call to action, and a coupon code for an inexpensive report (related to the subject of the event) on the business card, I would think you should have some kind of sales, or depending on your goal, build a list, or both. If you get zero responses? Well, at least you will have tried it for $50.00 or less.

My response to this is I will throw the ad on the ground in the parking lot. Why because I am making a statement and its an annoyance that the flyer was unsolicited. Getting on peoples bad side will not have a good impression. however with this said if your selling a strip club it may work if your distributing nudes because it benefits the potential consumer at that moment in time. IE it makes the target audience feel an emotion that is not negative persay.

Flyers can be effective, but truly there has to be an immediate call to action so you can take advantage of that split second of interest from the potential customer. For example, adding a QR code or SMS Mobile Keyword that someone can text or scan to get more info or save the coupon on a phone has been proven to be highly effective.

As a marketer, it's really the combination of a proven offline marketing strategy with flyers and combining them with a modern day mobile marketing strategy by adding the QR code or mobile keyword to engage interested customers on the spot immediately to take action.

For QR codes it does require that the buyer have a QR code scanner for the mobile keyword, the customer would simply be instructed to text the mobile keyword to a short code such as 95577

Flyers can work and at the same time fail to work depending on how you package them. These is a paper with designs to most of the products you offer. You need to be careful when designing them. In order to make people read the message on the flyers, they really need to have been attracted. My advise is that you come up with strategies that are modernized and implement mostly pictorial messages, they are the best rather than having plain text on them. Make the reader enjoy retaining the flyer.

Flyers get straight to the point. You’re either interested in what the flyer has to say or you’re not. Also, the flyer can go into the “real world” where regular people are interested in buying real things. You have to keep in mind that not every member of your target market will always have access to the Internet.

The only success I ever saw with flyers was when I was at university. During freshers week (The first week for first year students) I handed out "student jobs from home" type flyers which promoted UK based CPA offers and surveys.

I made some money but nothing notable.

I tried it again later and made nothing.

As far as marketing with flyers, I would say from my experience that distributing flyers door to door works well depending on what you are offering, but placing flyers on cars in shopping malls and parking lot is not going to get you positive results, just my cents.

I wish you all the best,

Martin

Do consider the fact that it is ILLEGAL to put flyers (or anything else) on a car.

Depending of the town/state you could be fined with:

littering
tampering with private property
soliciting without a permit/license
vandalism (a Class D felony - with 2 years prison time)
criminal mischief (a Class D felony - with 2 years prison time)

In Biddeford, Maine, the BPD will charge you with ALL of the above AND will charge the fine at PER FLYER they collected. The lowest fine is the $250 littering fine.

In other words, if you print up 1,000 flyers and put them on the cars at the Biddeford, Maine, WalMart, and the officer on duty, happens to collect up all 1,000 of your flyers, you will be fined: $250,000 JUST for the littering offence (and yes, BPD does do this)

AND if the store has a "no soliciting" sign on there door, you could be sued by the store (and big boxers like WalMart DO sue) for as much as $25,000 PER OFFENCE (meaning per flyer)

Every state and every town within each state has different laws regarding flyers on cars.

Also, that does not include the people who will sue you.

Take me for example - I build art cars with $10k plus paint jobs. If you put a flyer on my car, and I come out of the store and find a scratch on my car, i'm gonna flip out, and the first thing I'm gonna think is that you scratched my car while tampering with it, leaning over it, to lift up the wiper and put you flyer on it. And you better pray the window wasn't damp and the ink didn't stain the glass (because it DOES you know)...I'm gonna see the damage to my car, look at that phone number, address or web site on the flyer and haul your vanalising, trespassing, tampering with private property ass to court - and believe me, I'll win (I've won before - I know how to do it again), and then you better pray that I'm the ONLY car owner dragging you to court, because 1,000 flyers? That the potential of a 1,000 angry car owners dragging you to court

Tread carefully when touching someone's car - people who are car buffs go fanatical insane melt down nut job crazy on your ass if you ever look at their car the wrong way - I know, because I'm a car collector with racks of best of show trophies, and you even think of putting a flyer on one of my cars, I'll tun into the craziest, screaming nut job you've ever seen.

Make sure when you think of a way to market your business - that you are not breaking any laws or pissing off your future customers.

I guess it depends on the country's laws. Where I am flyers on car windscreens are common and advertise everything from local restaurants and events and fortune tellers offering ther services.

Depending on location one could always hire a couple of hot ladies or men or one of each dressed to attract attention and hand out flyers to people.