Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I'm not aware of documented experience with flyers, but I think they fall into the "too cheap not to try" category for a lot of businesses.

If you're putting them in a place where the market is right, and if the product or service is at all good, this method can certainly work.

Hi WOMG,
Flyers merely passed out are most successful when:
1) You know you are reaching your target audience (people who live or work in the area of a new retail store, etc.), and 2) When the flyer doesn't just go for awareness, but when it makes a particular OFFER.

Literally THOUSANDS of studies have been done comparing ANY type of ad that's merely awareness versus one that makes a particular offer to drive retail traffic, web traffic, phone calls, etc. The offer -- the special motivator that gets your audience to take action NOW -- is the key. A direct marketing study often cited concluded that if your ad doesn't get the viewer to take action immediately, your response drops by 50%.

Making a specific offer can greatly improve your ROI from most marketing investments, and speed up your sales cycle.

"effective way to introduce a new product or service."

A Local paper press release will save you time and money.
It even better when the paper does a bit on the new place.

that's my 2cents, take it for what it's worth.

Stu

Your results or success of utilizing flyers largely depends upon your target audience and type of service offered. For many years, I was the Founder and President of a non-profit charitable organization. Through tracking and documentation of sources, we learned that flyer distribution, for our specific audience and type of service, was the most effective and media advertising actually was the least effective.

Because our organization was very "community" oriented, virtually all facilities that we approached approved posting of the flyers. This allowed us to target high traffic, specifically relevant locations for placement. With the approval of the facility, the flyers often remained posted and visible for an extended period of time (often you may get a 30 day posting life or longer).

When posting a flyer, one of the more difficult aspects was to make it "convenient" for the reader to gather and record information necessary for them to act. We often found that if only one flyer was posted - often a reader would simply take the flyer in lieu of finding a pen, paper and having to write down the pertinent information. So it is important to either arrange to leave numerous flyers at the individual location - or to create a flyer with tear off information.

Anyhow, for us...flyers were an enormously successful tool.