Door Hanger Advertising ... Do you use it and does it work?

I am looking at a new form of door hangers to push my grand opening …

It has a band it feature, so it wont fall off the door knobs. 5,000 full color door hangers cost $295.00

I am going to send out 10,000 (my 2 mile radius)

Have you ever used door hangers? And if you have, what is the response rate on them? My Grand Opening specials are very good,

(Large, 1 topping 6.99, 2 xl 1 topping 13.99 and 12 wings 5.99 or xl pizza and 12 wings 13.99)

you should really look into the post offices EDDM(every door direct mail) it is cost effective and you can hit every door in the town and not worry if the customer actually got the flyer

just go to USPS.com and click on the eddm link or go to the local post office

no mailing permit required just pay for each pc

Were you planning on doing them all at once?..If so, it might create more business than you can handle all at once…

As far as whether or not door hangers work…My past experience with them was very good, although it was years ago…

I have not used the rubber band door hangers, but have recently been doing a heavy door hanger campaign to create general awareness. I like them as opposed to the EDDM because it allows me to create more hours for my staff, and I tend to do a little better (costs me on average .09 per piece to hang not counting the piece cost where as EDDM is .145). But more so I like that I can target just a couple of streets and do a few hundred each day so that my orders trickle in instead of a mass jolt.

If you are looking to get them out quickly (a day or two) it will not be efficient, but over a couple weeks 10,000 is doable with about 4 - 6 employees doing it a couple of hours each day.

As for the response, I have seen about a 1.5 - 2% response on them which is a bit lower, but being a new company you really have to drill it in to customers to see a good response rate.

Hope that helps!

Anyone ever try the Black Book method of hitting the same houses 3 times on different weekdays over the course of 2 weeks?

brad randall:

Anyone ever try the Black Book method of hitting the same houses 3 times on different weekdays over the course of 2 weeks?

Click to expand...

I try to put myself in my customers shoes when I make decisions like this. Because I know I would be pi$$ed if someone doorhung my house that often, there’s no chance I would do that to my customers. Sometimes getting someones attention is not the best way to turn them into a long term customer.

paul7979:

brad randall:

Anyone ever try the Black Book method of hitting the same houses 3 times on different weekdays over the course of 2 weeks?

Click to expand...

I try to put myself in my customers shoes when I make decisions like this. Because I know I would be pi$$ed if someone doorhung my house that often, there’s no chance I would do that to my customers. Sometimes getting someones attention is not the best way to turn them into a long term customer.

Click to expand...

This is short sighted and goes against every marketing principle in the book. You will always get a better response with frequency. Hitting an area 3 times in 10 days will increase your penetration and orders dramatically over a blanket drop.

Not doing what is most profitable and well documented because you have some idea that it might piss someone off is only going to reduce your ROI. In this day and age, you can’t afford to take bad advice, even if it is coming from yourself.

Truthfully, doorhanging has become a very, very small part of my marketing budget as I believe in most neighborhoods it is unwelcome and turns people off. I will still doorhang apartments from time to time, but disagree with you that doing so three times in ten days will have a long term benefit to the business. The black book was written many years ago at a time when doorhanging was considered less intrusive and had a much better response. While other marketing gurus might push the advantages of repetitive advertising, they probably are not talking about advertising that is already seen as intrusive. If the same person knocked on my door over and over to sell me magazines or cleaning chemicals, I would make sure they got the point that they were not welcome.

If getting someones attention is the main goal of marketing, I once did a doorhanger that did just that. Our local utility company uses red 1/3 page doorhangers to notify customers that their electric was shut off for non payment. I printed doorhangers the same size and same color that on one side read only “IMPORTANT FINAL NOTICE!!!”. On the flip side it had “today is you final chance to get a 16” large 1 topping pizza for only $xx.xx from …". No advertising I have ever done got the attention that this did. In hindsight, it was the worst thing I could have done for my business. I pizzed off far more people than I expected with it and halfway through my second day of hanging them in the lower priced apartments and neighborhoods I had to quit and throw the rest of them out. I’ve never had so much terrible feedback from a marketing campaign.

Everyone has to find the marketing that works for them, but I would strongly suggest not ignoring your gut when making decisions regardless of what the book says. I will always make decisions based upon what I feel is right, and I believe anything else is short sighted.

I have to agree with Paul. I feel people tolerate one door hanger every now and again as non intrusive. But if you are door hanging them multiple times in a short period, along with whoever else may happen to be doing the same, you are bound to piss some people off. So yes, you may get a higher immediate ROI, but what about those people who now, be it for a justifiable reason or not, will not order from you and will instead give negative opinions.

I think it is better, in the long term, to door hang an area every 1-3 months, and substitute with other forms of advertising. After all if you put out a superior product with superior customer service, the good word of mouth will more than do you justice.

Here is what I find -

1. Direct Mail through he post office is great pricing, but are they inserted inside coupon bundles or are they like a post card by its self?
2. I myself, don’t usually look inside coupon mailers (jb dollar, gold clipper) books that come out monthly with tons of company ads, I think most of those get thrown away
3. I like door hangers because You usually look at it as you take it off the door, and I don’t get many of them. I personally think I would space them out. There is 30,000 households in my 5 mile radius (my delivery zone) so my plan is split it up 7500 a week, so every customer gets 1 a month - still do mailer packs and mix some direct mailers in there

So only doing them Monday - Friday - that be 1500 a day so 1-2% return should be 15-30 combination of new and repeat customers.

I am also gonna monitor percent per day so I know what days draw better and make sure i mix up deliver days so If I hit Elm street on Monday next time I hit it it will be a different day

IDK It’s just so hard to market - and I gotta make sure I have good coupons, to make them call but still make money on them - and deliver a quality product to keep them calling back - sending out menus and fridge magnets with every new customer and box toppers on all boxes

I put door hangers on the same level as spam mail. Doorhang me three times in ten days and I’d organize a boycott of your business.

IMPK,

1,500 a day is a heavy order. My guys average 70-80 an hour in the average spaced houses. I am not sure about you area but I would imagine at maximum 100 per hour which equates to 15 hours of door hanging. Now I live in Florida so it may be very different but my guys can only go out for 3 hours at a time because of the sun. So if you plan on doing 1500 I would plan on having 6 people going out each day. Just throwing it out there in case you didn’t know that. Good luck to you, I find door hanging to be successful.

We’re in FL as well…we figure approx. 100/hr per person…

In this heat, we only go out 2 hrs/day…

Our results trickle in over several weeks…

I think it would nearly impossible to determine return on these over a short period of time…You may get a little burst, however, you will continue to get some results over a long period of time…

The great thing about door hangers, is you can test small slivers of your market…Take a couple hundred house and hang them every couple weeks…And then take another couple hundred houses and hang them every 6 weeks…After 6 months, take a look at the results…Which group gives you the best return?..It may be that a lower frequency works just as good as the higher frequency so you can save some money…

In my pizza days we did a 6 week cycle in a larger market and a 3 week cycle in a smaller market…These lengths of cycles seem to work best…

And as far as return, when I calculate this, I also figure out how much each dollar of sales cost as a percentage…And do not be too worried about how high the % is…If it results in carrying more to the bottom line, keep spending…

My store opens August 1, and yes I plan on having 6-8 people hand them out. I have NO advertising other then this door hangers for this moment, so I will let you all know how many orders they get me

In addition

I do plan on the direct mail, and mailer coupons, however right now for opening weekend its door hangers

wish me luck

Great tips here. IMPK, good luck on your opening!

Liz Barrett
PMQ

There are a couple things you can do when opening a new store. Naturally, the goal is to create a buzz about your new business. Interest can be created in many different ways. Here are a couple of examples of things you can do:

1. Make sure your logo signs are up and well lit at night at least one week before opening.
2. Make sure the building and parking areas are well lit as well. One mistake you will absolutely regret is not having enough lighting outside your restaurant.
3. A simple “Now Open” banner should be displayed on your building with balloons and streamers in the parking lot.
4. This idea is completely dependent upon your financial situation, but Garlic Jim’s used this technique in the past: Print a banner that reads “Free Pizza Slices, Today Only”, and hang it by your pole sign. Set up a table in the center of your dining area in your store and pass out free slices of pizza. This should be done a couple days before your grand opening. This will allow potential customers to get a sneak peek inside your business, it will generate a ton of interest you might not have received otherwise, and it will allow you to distribute marketing to a new and potentially loyal customer base.
   4A) In case the last sentence got lost in the wordiness of idea #4, I want to reiterate: Make sure you have menus and magnets to pass out with those slices! If you don’t have magnets, talk to Royce. He’ll hook you up.

Personally, I would hold off on doorhanging in the beginning. Saturation mailed postcards is a much easier and faster way to get the word out to all your customers anyway (see http://www.melissadata.com for a zip code mailing list). Over-committing yourself by bringing doorhanging into the picture is not a great idea if you look at the big picture. I promise you, most of your time will be spent putting out numerous fires and training a very enthusiastic, but very green crew.

Hope this helps,

-J_r0kK

If I did door hanging I would be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail for littering. I have never seen door hanging in our town and would never consider doing it as it would infuriate our community.

The was a story in the police blotter about the citation for littering that was issued to another business that put fliers on windshields at the local shopping center.

No thanks.

Direct mail puts a piece in peoples hands for less money and is considered acceptable.