Distributing flyers vs online promotion

Distributing flyers vs online promotion, let's see in detail the cost estimate of flyer distribution compared to online advertising

With this article, we begin a series of appointments dedicated to promoting one's business through the Internet. Since I moved from Trento to Rome in 2008, my main activity has been providing consultancy to companies interested in maximizing their online presence. The crisis we are experiencing has pushed many businesses to invest in less expensive advertising channels that guarantee a higher return on investment. In this first appointment, we will compare the old, polluting, and annoying flyer distribution with similar tools that the web can offer.

• Professional Graphic Design about €300.00;
• 20,000 A5 color flyers about €300.00;
• Distribution with 85% coverage * €300.00

*) the cost for a widespread distribution of 20,000 paper flyers in a large city like Rome and Milan ranges from €0.022 to a maximum of €0.030 (in the provinces, the price is between €0.0030 and €0.0036)

Total Investment to distribute 20,000 flyers about €: 900.00.

A well-planned flyer campaign with flyers created by experts has a maximum yield of 3%, a very optimistic figure, if the product is mass-market (food items, mobile phones, etc.). Therefore, spending €900 to create and distribute 20,000 flyers would yield a maximum return of 600 contacts (not sales), resulting in a cost of €1.5 for each additional request for information about our products/services. As mentioned, 3% is a very high figure; if the product/service is niche or the flyer is poorly designed, we could drop to a value below 1%. Thus, in most cases, we would have about 200 contacts at a cost of €4.5 each. Furthermore, if the distributor does not comply with all regulations, such as notifying the prefecture, we could also receive a hefty fine as the client.

If the flyer distribution is done at the entrance of an event and/or inside a shopping center using hostesses, the cost is similar, but the yield is much worse. If you happen to encounter a pretty girl distributing flyers at the entrance of a fair and/or cinema, stop and observe what happens as soon as people receive the flyer and pass by it; the first available trash can... center. This is the fate that more than 97% of the flyers you have so eagerly printed will meet. So much so that by law today, in addition to what is established by Article 1 of Law No. 375/1939, the "recyclable" symbol and "throw in the trash" must also be affixed.

The situation is very different on the Internet, where the substitutes for flyers are many: Mailing lists, electronic flyers, Google Adwords, and Facebook. Skipping the first two systems, which have various issues, the best yield is certainly offered by Adwords; in this case, the advertising is reversed, meaning we are not the ones proposing our products/services to a specific target, but those searching for such products and services through the search engine find us. This is a huge advantage, as our advertisement appears only to interested people. Let's see a practical example with an NCC cooperative; in this case, it involves a worldwide campaign (something impossible with flyer distribution) in the first 15 days of December 2011, with an expenditure of €266.00, 10,743 advertisements were published on Google, seen by users searching for the set keywords (e.g., "taxi ciampino," "shuttle rome," etc.), 4.78% of those who saw the advertisement clicked to learn more, resulting in 514 contacts at a cost of €0.52 per contact; of these contacts, 170 requested information, and 24 of them immediately booked the rental service. Another advantage over flyers emerges: we can have precise data not only on how many read and interact with our advertisement but also on how many purchase the product/service through it. Essentially, the Adwords campaign cost about €1.5 for each conversion; in the practical example provided, it concerns a service that interests tourists coming from abroad or outside Rome, and not of general interest.

Another valid system is certainly Facebook, where it is possible to create a page for a product/service or for one's business and promote it very selectively. For example, to promote a book, one can create a FanPage on Facebook and run a campaign to promote it, precisely targeting people who live in Italy, are over 16 years old, and are interested in or subscribed to a movement related to the topics discussed in the book. However, to increase sales of products and services, nothing today beats Google, whether it is a simple Adwords campaign or meticulous SEO optimization work. Obviously, in this case, it is also necessary to invest in a highly professional Website.

Learn more: Idromarket Flyer