Hey everyone,
I wanted to take a moment and get some opinions on a practice I used to do as a General Manager, and am considering renewing and adding to my operation as an owner. As I am sure many will agree, being visible and top of mind is a great way to build sales. When you offer delivery, investing in Car Toppers and or Side Magnets can offer a great return on investment. But what are your thoughts on “Left / Right Door Hanging” and “Driver Specialist Bounce Back” cards?
Door hanging works, perhaps arguably not as well as it once did, but I am sure everyone believes that at least someone in their community would order because of a door hanger. Now in my opinion sending groups of employees to blanket a neighborhood can sometimes be seen as an enviromental nuisance, a labor sink hole (because we all know they aren’t out there jogging door to door), and sometimes even a waste of money if your employees decide to toss the door hangers in the nearest dumpster and go have some lunch on the clock.
To counter this, we used a program called Left / Right door hanging. When drivers would clock out on their deliveries they would take a couple of door hangers (usually 2 or 3 per order but sometimes more). Our policy is to park on the side of the road when applicable (except on major road ways), as it leads to fewer accidents backing out and in my opinion is more “polite”. After dropping off the order to the customer (and hopefully having their car topper seen by the neighbors), they would do a quick jog over to the house on either side of the customer and perhaps one or two across the street and hang a door hanger. Usually this added only 30 - 60 seconds on to the delivery time (as the drivers tend to put a little umph in their step so that they can get back for more orders).
Often this lead to other deliveries in that immediate area, which lead to more exposure for the cartopper (other neighbors are now seeing it there multiple times that night), and the distribution of more door hangers to create a continuous effect. The door hangers are usually a menu (front and back) with generic offers (often very close to regular menu price) on the bottom.
We never had any complaints on this when I was doing it as a General Manager, and did see a good amount of orders coming from them as I recall, I just can not remember specifics.
In addition we handed out Bounce Back cards with all of our delivery orders. We would print business cards that would say something to the extent of “Your delivery experience was provided by” and have a blank line for the driver to write his or her name in there. On the back it would have a 7 day bounce back (Free 2 Liter, Free Bread side etc).
Is anyone using these techniques or something similar? If so how is it working for you? If not what are your thoughts on them?