Don’t just tell, make it sell!

It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does - you get a sinking and deflated feeling when a client tells you that they’ve had very little or no response to their door drop campaign. The client will always look to blame distribution rather than the message, design or even targeting of the leaflet.  You can go back and forth all day about the delivery method and giving them reassurance that it went out. But normally the answer to the poor response lies within the message and the design itself. In an ideal world, we’d love to read all marketing material before it gets printed, but sometimes door drop companies are the final port of call in most leaflet campaigns.

When asked to talk about a poor message and helping a client to correct the initial design and improve the ROI with a second drop, this particular client came to mind. They originally contacted us with the leaflets ready to drop off and a simple instruction of the closest 10,000 homes to the gym.  Sounds like an easy campaign to complete, right. That is until you get the dreaded call to say that the client has had one phone call from the campaign. After calming the client down and reassuring them the distribution has gone out. I decided to take a look at the leaflet. Visually it looks very good! But there was no call to action, no real detailed information and far too much imagery and a lack of narrative. The leaflet itself had no detailed information about where the classes were being held.  I immediately called the client back to explain why he may of received very little response and as they were new to door drops, I felt a responsibility to rectify the issue and restore their faith in door drops.

Between the inhouse designer and I, we changed a number of things; 

- Put all classes on the leaflet and include more relatable images to classes.

- Place narrative within the images 

- Include an address of where the classes take place 

- Social media tags 

- Include a call to action (The client opted for two on this occasion)

Further suggestions that were put to the client.

- Bullet point the benefits of the class 

- Show an indication of the price of the classes. 

- Who are the classes targeted at? 

You automatically have to assume that consumers are lazy, to the point where you need to outline all the detailed information in order to generate better readership participation and, hopefully, a response! The original leaflet lacked information, there was no real incentive for the consumer to try a class and it was merely an informative leaflet about the classes! We’d changed the message, design and created a call to action! The client was satisfied and the presses startwd rolling.

Away from the design, let’s look at the targeting. Now proximity targeting is always an easy option, especially for any SME business assuming that all consumers live on their doorstep. First let’s see what the client is offering. Expensive unique fitness sessions along with the option to taking PT sessions that would trump any monthly gym membership cost. So the cost per session is quite high and the areas targeted were less affluent and the chance of disposable income being spent on costly fitness sessions would be extremely low.  

Acorn, Experian, Mosaic and Geodem are all excellent tools when assisting a door drop campaign to reach a particular audience. I suggested to the client that we extend the area to 4 miles to increase our chances in reaching more affluent areas with disposable income. From this, I was able to identify with the client three valuable sectors in which to target! With the leaflets back at the warehouse, teams ready to deliver and an eager client to measure the response, we were ready to deliver.

So four weeks on……. How did it go? 

Statement from the client.

“A massive thank you to DLM! My original campaign was a massive failure, I had the leaflet designed by a friend, which I was happy with, as it was free and then distributed into areas which did not compliment the services that I was offering. DLM provided a new design and select postcodes that worked better for me. Overall 21 people trialed the free class and 9 people took the reduced PT session! Not only have I retained some of these clients, they’ve recommended the session and the classes have grown in size. My social media insights/google analytics show an increase across all platforms and my brand has grown within the gym! My only advice to anyone considering a door drop for the first time is to spend more money on the design and get it reviewed before printing, take time to evaluate the areas for distribution and get help from DMA door drop member.”