Flyer Distribution or Door Hangers? Which Should You Use?

Is flyer distribution a valid form of direct marketing for bigger companies, or is it just for local businesses reaching nearby areas? It’s a good question, because using a flyer distribution service can no doubt be quite effective at engaging potential customers in their daily lives.

A good way to answer this question is to compare flyers to door hangers. How are they similar? How are they different? What can each of these accomplish better than the other, and for which kinds and sizes of businesses?

They’re related enough that you might think of them as a similar form of marketing, but the truth is that one is far superior to the other.

What is flyer distribution?

Flyer distribution is an offline marketing strategy used for promoting products and services, usually tailored to a local audience that can bring success and increase brand exposure. It refers to any coordinated marketing campaign that includes flyer delivery services on behalf of a business.

A flyer is sometimes glossy, often flimsy, and always easily disposable. It’s a method for attracting customers from a local area, often in proximity to the business doing the delivery.

They may be comparable to a brochure in appearance or size. But you distribute flyers externally with the purpose of inspiring an action, whereas you distribute brochures after a customer enters a business.

We’ll look at some different flyer distribution strategies a bit later.

Steps to get your flyers distributed

Businesses looking to implement a flyer distribution campaign can follow this basic process:

1. Choose a marketing message

It all starts here. Decide what you want to say, and what you want your potential customers to do. What’s your offer? Are you selling something, or just looking to increase brand awareness? Having a grand opening or a new product launch? What advertising message will generate a response and have maximum impact?

2. Identify the audience

Who is this for? Why them? Once you identify the targeted audience for your campaign and have enough information about how your marketing efforts can be tailored to connect with these potential customers, you’re ready to create content.

3. Create the promotional materials

Your marketing materials include all the content you intend to print. This usually means advertising copy, graphic design, special offers, information about your products and services, website and contact information, and directions to store locations.

4. Print the flyers

With your flyer design done and the size of your audience known, you can print and prepare for delivery.

5. Finalize your delivery strategy

Professional flyer distribution services will help create a plan to make sure all your promotional materials get delivered to the targeted neighborhoods. There are a few ways to do this job, and you can employ more than one strategy:

House to house — deliver to each residence in chosen zip codes
Select block groups and specific addresses — a more data-driven and efficient delivery campaign will only select individual block groups (small neighborhoods) and addresses that are the most likely to respond favorably. This is Power Direct’s approach
Local businesses — hit business districts if you’re doing a B2B campaign or if your ideal customers are likely to be found in certain places
Busy intersections — engaging consumers in person can increase campaign success
Every door direct mail — this less personal but also less costly approach can reach whole areas through the postal service

6. Commence delivery and audit the process

With the plan in place, small businesses can do the legwork themselves and distribute a few hundred flyers in a day or two until the job is done.

Larger companies will utilize professional flyer distribution services such as Power Direct to ensure all their promotional materials get delivered. In our case, our 3-point auditing process has no equal in the industry. Most companies just snap a few photos as ‘evidence’ that all your thousands of flyers were delivered.

We use live GPS tracking and on-site auditors to ensure 100% delivery.

7. Analyze campaign effectiveness

After enough time has passed, you can tabulate your response rates and determine if your campaign was a success. Measure things like response rate, leads generated, revenue produced, revenue per flyer, and other relevant metrics.

Then, use that data to plan your next campaign!

Are flyers and door hangers the same thing?

No, but there is some overlap. Either can be used to access residents at their home, though flyers may also be handed out at events or placed on cars.

Door hangers are much more professional. They’re typically higher-quality in terms of sturdiness (weight and finish of the paper used) and the graphic design.

And while anyone can place flyers on car windshields (typically disgruntling the car owner), door hanger campaigns are highly-targeted in their reach, with distribution much more carefully monitored.

National brands choose door hanger campaigns because they’re more precise in their reach, and improve their brand perception instead of detracting from it like can happen with flyer distribution. Plus, door hanger distribution costs can be highly efficient because of the superior targeting.

How flyers and door hangers are different

Let’s break down some of the distinctions between these forms of media.

Quality and durability

Flyers are easily disposable and thus do not make as strong of an impression. A slight breeze or brief sprinkle could ruin them. Door hangers tend to have more permanence, being thicker, more durable, and more colorful.

Cost to produce

Flyers require less money to create, and most recipients treat them as such. Door hangers are still an efficient marketing medium, but do require a greater investment.

Production process

You can often print flyers using local print shops, and many smaller businesses do exactly this.

Door hangers use more customized, higher-quality printing processes, and in Power Direct’s case, we use environmentally-friendly inks and employ sustainability practices that make recipients view your brand more favorably.

Plus, Power Direct’s printing capabilities are nearly unlimited. From scratch-offs to scented prints and custom die cuts, we’re doing incredible things with this hand-held marketing media.

Targeting

Flyers get their name in part because they can “fly” around. These are meant to be quick and easy to distribute, with relatively low stakes. But you don’t usually create targeted flyer distribution campaigns, especially factoring in things like demographics, past customer data, or behavioral data.

Flyer distribution can certainly use a geographic strategy, but this will be general in nature, not specific to particular residences. Every door in the zip code or neighborhood gets one in a flyer distribution marketing campaign.

With door hanger distribution, however, you can use more advanced methods to create more effective, personalized, and efficient direct marketing campaigns that bring in new customers.

Power Direct uses the world’s leading data sets paired with research from our in-house,

California-based data team and your own data sets to identify the exact streets (or even specific addresses) where your top prospects live. Then, we reach them with a high-quality, professional message that they simply can’t miss.

What does a campaign cost?

Get a custom-built sample campaign with real targeting data, ad creative, cost estimates, and distribution plans.

Use the Project Estimator

What’s better — flyers or door hangers?

All things being equal, door hangers are the better choice. That said, there can be some exceptions.

Are you a single location restaurant just trying to get the word out in your nearby community? Do you have a limited budget but a strong work ethic? Flyer distribution might be a good choice to help provide a quick boost to your business.

So if you’re able to invest time, but not much money, flyers can work for you. There’s nothing wrong with that.

If you do have an even modest marketing budget and a brand reputation to protect, door hangers are the way to go. This is even more true if you’re a marketer for any business and you’re judged by the results and efficiency of your work, or if you have strong competition in your market and lofty growth goals.

Five common flyer distribution strategies

While professional door hanger distribution is certainly a better option than distributing flyers, small and new businesses may still have reason to explore flyer distribution as your business gets off the ground.

Here are some of the most common methods used to distribute flyers around a local area.

Door to door

Though some may fly away or otherwise be lost, you can often slide flyers into the cracks of doors or under welcome mats.

You’ll need to make sure someone trustworthy does this because it’s physically demanding work. Flyer delivery requires a lot of walking. A less motivated employee will likely distribute the first couple hundred, and then might “lose” the rest in a nearby dumpster or recycling bin.

This is impossible with professional door hanger distribution through Power Direct, because we visually verify 100% delivery for each campaign and document this for our clients to review. We use GPS monitoring to ensure distributors actually go to the entrance of every address on the list, and our employee auditors oversee each distribution.

Everything is monitored from our California-based distribution headquarters and anomalies are caught — and fixed — immediately.

You can watch it happen in real time through your client portal or ride along with our auditing team during distribution.

Cars in parking lots

If your business or offer relates to a particular demographic, or has proximity, placing flyers under the windshield wipers of cars in a well-chosen parking lot is a quick way to conduct flyer distribution. Also, you can return to the same lot multiple days in a row, such as a grocery store lot.

Just remember that when using this strategy, weather may be a factor. And, established brands will want to avoid this method as there’s a high level of liability tied to this kind of distribution, it may violate local ordinances, and it could annoy car owners and lower your brand perception.

Events

You can pass out flyers at local events like concerts, sports events (high school, college, or pro), and indoor events like conventions and conferences.

Power Direct has a brand ambassador service where we send trained teams of professional, enthusiastic individuals to represent your company with an in-person experience. This can include flyer distribution, but it will be much more engaging than just handing out leaflets to passing strangers.

Street corners

Speaking of leaflets, you can also just stand in high traffic areas and distribute flyers to people as they walk by. Most people take it when someone offers something to them. Many will look at it as they walk. This is one of those time-tested types of offline marketing campaigns that simply get results.

At malls

Malls are like an indoor version of a street corner. Pick a high traffic area, on a day with lots of shoppers such as weekends or certain evenings. Especially if your business is also in the same mall, this strategy is a terrific way to help more people find your store and pay you a visit.

This is another case where established brands will need to be more careful as there’s additional liability attached to this method and malls may take issue with distribution unless you go through lengthy, sometimes costly, approval processes.

The best alternative to flyer advertising

You should now have a good understanding of the advantages of flyer advertising. And you also know what door hanger marketing can achieve that flyer distribution services can’t do as well.

With Power Direct, you’ll deliver a much more efficient campaign. You’ll also get better visibility and consideration, because nothing beats the front porch for attention and for lack of competition or distraction. With all that going for you, you’ll earn a stronger ROI and better value for your marketing investment.

Want to see some recommendations and a project estimate?

The best thing about our free estimate is that it includes an ad targeting report that you get to keep that forever, regardless of whether you end up hiring us to do anything.

This report is a free, enterprise-level analysis using 2,000+ demographic variables, the latest data sets, and human-based refinement (our in-house, California-based team has decades of experience).

That’s a very valuable asset to anyone looking at front door direct marketing or flyer distribution services.

Get project recommendations, estimates, and ad targeting report

Flyer Distribution FAQs

Is flyer distribution cost effective?

Flyer distribution is a relatively low-cost form of advertising. To design and print a batch of flyers and distribute them in a local area can be done for minimal expense. For local businesses, flyer advertising is lower risk than more expensive forms of media.

However, professional door hanger distribution is more cost effective for established brands as audience targeting is much better, the media itself is higher quality, and accurate distribution is guaranteed and verifiable.

What’s the most effective way to distribute flyers?

This really depends on your campaign goals and how many you have to deliver. You could distribute flyers door to door, on cars at a parking lot, at or outside a live event, on the street, in the mall, or at various other public locations.

Can you reach specific demographics with flyer distribution?

Generally, no. Flyer distribution is a form of local mass marketing. You print them. You deliver them to the locations you want to deliver them until they’re gone, and then you’re done. There isn’t a lot of personalization or demographic targeting here. You can certainly use geography, however, such as certain streets, zip codes, and neighborhoods.

Do any flyer distribution services offer GPS tracking?

Yes, Power Direct offers door hanger distribution, which is a more effective, mature, and sophisticated version of flyer distribution. Power Direct uses GPS as one part of their system to verify and report accurate distribution of front door media.

What are the main benefits of flyer distribution?

Flyer distribution directly engages people in person, and this can happen in or near a place they live or work. Their personal nature makes this offline promotional strategy more appealing than most digital marketing, as well as direct mail. Flyers are also low-cost and relatively low-risk.

And you can easily track the effectiveness of flyer distribution services using basic direct response techniques.