When is the best time to send out flyers???

[Vibe Ray]

When is the best time to send out flyers?

[KirbysLawn]

I do flyers according to the season. I have crabgrass pre-emergent flyers, aeration flyers, winterizing flyers, and so on. If you are planning on putting out general flyers soon, I would say Febuary would be best. That is the month I get the most hits on my web site during the first 6 months of the year.

Ray

[Toroguy]

I would try and saturate two weeks prior to your growing season. Another trip when the temperatures get real hot and people get fed up with doing it themselves.

[kutnkru]

We begin distributing flyers a month prior to the service we plan to offer it. This way we can distribute them either bi-weekly or every ten days depending on responses.

I figure that 70% are discarded the first time, and 50% the second. If we dont get many calls the first time they go out, then I plan on a 10 day routing schedule for the flyers.

I also turn to some of the more "trustworthy" teenagers, to distribute them once the season has begun. I have them put on a company t-shirt and good jeans or shorts and send them running.

We have three neighborhood kids who did so well the first time that I give them a .25 bonus for every service they have "sold". This way I know that they are getting to the doors. If they each distribute 2000 flyers and I get a 10% return thats $50 in each of their pockets additional.

So far things have worked out well. The other thing is I have heard thru the grapevine that quite often customers are happy to see the younger generation working instead of 'puting or hangin at the mall.

Kris

[Man Joe]

Last year put out fliers beginning second week in March for mowing. Began mowing for first customer who responded to fliers on March 24th.Your location is south of us so you could probably begin even earlier.We may start a little earlier ourselves this year.

[bluebyu62]

Hey guys, I use door to door flyers extensively to generate calls. My opinion is that a customer can look in the yellow pages and find tons of landscapers, but if a company took the time to drop off some info in their door, then (in my mind) it gives you an edge over the others. I like to distribute them in plenty of advance. Normally hand out about 1000-1500 per year. I've been using this advertising method for the past 3 years, and am now up to about 120 lawns, but people DO save the flyers and keep them in their files. I always get calls from people that saved them for 3 or more years. Whoever says flyers dont work??? Guarantee you will have good luck with them.

[JimLewis]

Flyers can be laid all year long. We will always get results, even for immediate work, if we lay enough of them. We just put out 4000 flyers in the last week and a half. We have 2 big jobs this week as a result and we landed 1 year-round maintenance account. I have also given another 7 or so bids and expect to land at least one or two more of them.

People will also hang on to flyers for a while. Some people call up to 6 months later. So there is a small residual there too.

The best results from flyers is in the spring and early summer. The challenge is that's also when we are the most busy and don't have much time to go hand out flyers. So I try to hand out as many as we can before our rush starts. Our rush begins in the middle or end of Feb.

I also make a point to have the guys go do flyers in the spring and summer if we ever have a free day with no side jobs to do. So we always end up doing a few fliers every month or two.

My estimate is that we have to lay about 200-500 flyers in the winter to get an [immediate work needed] call, and only about 50-100 in the spring and summer to get a call. So they are obviously a LOT more effective in the spring and summer. But I always lay them throughout the winter too. It's a good way to make good use of down time.

[MTS Services]

I have 40,000 flyers going out on Jan. 30th and another 40,000 on March 20th in a direct mail program. This is the first time I have tried this. Last year I pasted out about 200 by hand and had a pretty good response. I am very interested to see how this works out. It was fairly resonably priced it only cost me $1200 to have the flyer designed, printed and mailed.

[JimLewis]

40,000 !! Wow. I hope you are prepared for the total onslaught of calls you are about to receive!! :-)

[Man Joe]

MTS Services looks like you've got a great advertising program put together. Haven't tried Direct Mail myself, but the numbers 40,000 (twice) should help keep the phone ringing. You should be able to pick your jobs and increase your prices on these.

[thelawnguy]

40,000? I do business in a city of 75,000, according to the census there are 34,000 buildings that includes single family homes, corner stores factories etc.

I sure hope you target them to your market seems kind of foolish for everybody in that 5-story apartment building to get a flyer.

[Eng Mwr Guy]

A suggestion:

A follow up after a mailing is 300% more effective than just direct mail alone.

A follow up visit after a drop off is 300-1000% more effective than just dropping it off.

You may want to consider creating a "profile" of your "typical" customer. This will help you target your mailings/telemarketing better. Things like income, square footage, age, sex, occupations, business types, etc.

Many magazines/newspapers have these type of demographics available and will sell you lists with exactly the specifications you require. It saves money & time in the long run too.

Good Luck.

[Vibe Ray]

Originally posted by Eng Mwr Guy
A follow up after a mailing is 300% more effective than just direct mail alone.

A follow up visit after a drop off is 300-1000% more effective than just dropping it off.
Could you please explain this a little more Eng Mwr Guy??? What do you mean by a follow up and a follow up visit? Are you saying first use Direct mail, then another direct mail follow up(how long after)? And then a visit to them personally? And why is the follow up more effective?

[Eng Mwr Guy]

This is generic for all business so bear with me.

If you drop off a flyer in person this is excellent.

If you drop off a flyer 5 days to 10 days later and talk with the people this increases effectiveness.

Ideally, you mail to a section of town (or drop off flyers) then 5 days to 10 days later call the homeowner up. Ask if they saw the flyer and had any need for saving time and effort throughout the year by outsourcing their yardwork to a professional.

There is a guy who is a marketing "guru" who has tried all kinds of combinations of mailings and telemarketing and such. He measures effectiveness of various marketing campaigns to determine what gives the best results.

Jay Abraham is the marketing guys name. Any book by him is worth reading and most importantly doing.

It seems follow up shows determination. People like this to a point.

Have you ever received a mailing that you read and said to yourself "hey, I would like that...that is interesting" then you set it next to your other mail. Then, you forget about it. Two weeks later you end up throwing it away even though you had a genuine interest at the time. The follow up is very important!!! ANY follow up is better than no follow up.

I would work the neighbors to where you are currently mowing/landscaping hard for business. This should get you more profits due to lower non-mowing times.

[LoneStarLawn]

Good idea but I don't plan calling 12,000 people.plus look up their phone numbers

[MTS Services]

I hope I do have more calls than I can handle it's always more fun to turn down work than to wonder if your going to be able to pay your mortgage the next month. I live in an area were there are over 3/4 of a million people with in 30 minutes. I plan to have route for each day in a certain area so I am not wasting all day driving. As for getting them to the right people it is mailed to a single family homes in a certain zip code in which I choose. I have chosen to put the first 40,000 in to the higher classed areas. Like I said I have not tried this so I don't qiute know what to expect but hopefully something good turn out.


Thanks
Matt

[JimLewis]

Hey Matt, You don't have an email listed so I couldn't email you. But would you do me a favor? After you send this first batch out in January, email me 2 weeks or so after and let me know what kind of response you got so far. I am very interested in doing this. I have a friend who's been wanting to do it for me so I am curious as to the results.

[MTS Services]

Jim,
Here is my e-mail msparrow@xmission.com. If you have any other questions let them fly I will do my best to answer them.
thanks
Matt