Transcript

Hi I’m Carmen Sognonvi and in this video I’m going to introduce you to a marketing technique that is inexpensive, easy to implement, doesn’t require any technical know-how, but allows you to perform the kind of precise demographic targeting and hyper-local geographic targeting that you’d pay a fortune for if you used direct mail.

So what is this powerful marketing technique?

Flyers! That’s right, good old-fashioned, boring flyers.

We may be drowning today in a deluge of fancy new tools like QR codes, viral videos,
search engine optimization, blogs, pay-per-click ads, social networks.

But for local businesses, there’s no tried-and-true way to get the word out to prospective customers quite like flyering.

Think about it. You can decide exactly which geographic regions to target, not just by city or town or zip code, but down to the street, the block, even the apartment number.

And if you’re doing hand to hand distribution, you can choose to hand out flyers to just the type of person who fits the demographic profile of your ideal customer!

There’s no other marketing technique that provides that level of detailed targeting for such a low investment. So if you’ve been neglecting flyering efforts lately because you’re caught up with the latest shiny new object, it might be time to give flyers another look.

There are so many different formats you can use when it comes to flyers. What you decide to go with will really be driven by your budget.

The cheapest and easiest type of flyer is of course, just a black and white print-out on regular letter-sized paper. You can run these on your own office printer or on a photocopy machine.

If you’ve got a bit more to spend, you can upgrade to color printing, and from there to different formats like business cards, postcards, rack cards. There are also door hangers, with pre-punched holes that go around a door knob, kind of like those do-not-disturb signs you get in a hotel.

One mistake I see a lot of local businesses make with their flyers is to make their logo or the name of their business the biggest thing on the flyer.

If there’s one thing that should be prominent on your flyer, it’s your offer. What tempting offer can you put together that will make a customer pick up the phone and give you a call? If you’re a restaurant, maybe it’s a free appetizer with every entree. If you’re a retail store, maybe they can save $10 off a $30 purchase. Whatever it is, make sure that the first thing your eye is drawn to is this offer.

The second biggest thing on the flyer should be the call to action. In other words, what’s the action you want the customer to take after seeing the flyer? Should they call you to make a reservation at your restaurant? Should they come in your store and show the sales associate the $10 off coupon? Make sure you really spell it out.

So remember: if you want to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to flyering, make sure that the two most prominent items on your flyer are your offer and your call to action.

There are so many things you can do with flyers! You can give them out to people hand to hand, you can put them on the windows of cars, you can slip them under people’s doors, tack them on bulletin boards, you can hand them out at local street fairs

You can include them with your product. So if you’re a florist, staple your business card to the plastic wrap. If you’re retail store, throw a couple flyers in their shopping bag. If you’re a restaurant that makes deliveries, include a few extra menus or flyers alongside the food.

One great way to use flyers is to go to other stores and ask if you can leave flyers near their cash register and ask if they have flyers that they’d like to leave at your business. If you offer to reciprocate right off the bat, you’ll often find that people will be willing to help you out.

Don’t assume that just because it’s a totally different type of business than yours, that you won’t get good leads.

There’s one store where we have rack cards promoting our martial arts school, and we’ve gotten tons of calls and quite a few new student sign-ups from people who saw us in this store.

And what kind of store is it? A Jamaican jerk chicken spot! Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think karate, but it just goes to show that you can’t make assumptions about other business’s clientele.

One important tip is that if you’re going this route, you might want to use either a tri-fold brochure or a 4×9 rack card. They fit nicely in a plastic holder that doesn’t take up a lot of counter space and it keeps them looking neat.

If you found this video useful, please sign up to get free email updates from me so you can get more great marketing tips! If you’re on the blog, just fill out the form below. Or if you’re watching this video elsewhere, go to visit https://www.carmensognonvi.com/newsletter

Thanks, and let me know how your next flyering campaign works out for you!

Get free local marketing tips from Carmen

If you found this video useful, enter your email address below and click “Yes, Send Me Tips!” to get free tips from me on how to run a successful local, bricks-and-mortar business: