Whether you call it Door-to-Door, Door2Door or Door Drop, delivering unaddressed print marketing materials direct to every letterbox in a given postcode or area can be a surprisingly effective way of generating sales and leads.

Leaflets, flyers and postcard printing are particularly popular as they are low cost. Here are 7 reasons you might consider blanket dropping as part of your print marketing mix:

1.Total coverage
There is no better way to ensure your message reaches every household in a given area, making door-to-door leafleting ideal for small local businesses and those interested in geo-targeting.

2. Receptive Audience
Consumers are typically at their most relaxed and receptive when they are in their own homes. Combine this with a well-designed and eye catching offer, and you increase the chances of them not only reading your print material, but acting on your call to action.

3.Targeting?
Select target destinations for your door-to-door print materials based on the socio-economic group and demographics of the postcode and you can increase response rates while reducing waste. Use a site such as checkmyarea.com to identify postcodes with demographics that match your target audience and eliminate typically unresponsive households.

4.Going green?
While blanket dropping to large areas without regard to demographics may not be environmentally friendly, you might be pleasantly surprised to learn that investing in green printing could actually cut your print marketing costs. Look for Forest Stewardship Council (AFC) or Ancient Forest Friendly (AFF) accredited paper to ensure it comes from trees in sustainable and non-sensitive forests. Also look for suppliers who use vegetable oil based printing inks, biodegradable laminates (so the materials can be composted and rot down more quickly) and carbon offsetting for printing and transport.

5.Flexibility?
If you only have a small budget, you can focus your efforts on a small area. You can also run trial campaigns and extend out to regional or national delivery only when you know the marketing materials are effective. You can also target by location, delivering a specific message to each area (such as printing maps and contact details of the nearest store on flyers.)

6.High Impact
Keep your design simple with a single call to action, and door-to-door marketing materials can be high impact. Include a coupon, voucher or special offer code and encourage consumers to either hand in the leaflet when they visit your store or type it in when they visit your website, and you add perceived value to your communication.

7. Tracking?
Using codes this way not only increases the effectiveness of your campaigns, it also makes it easier to track their effectiveness. If you match tracking codes to postcodes, you can even see how well your campaign performs at a granular street level, making it possible to refine your targeting for future campaigns even further.
Hopefully, by now you can see that far from being a waste of resources, door-to-door print materials can be a cost effective, flexible and powerful tool in your marketing campaign.

Dean Williams

Dean Williams is a design and marketing blogger working for Print-Print Limited, promoting business and building brands through quality print marketing. If you’re interested in small business promotion then please get in touch hello@print-print.co.uk