Since the dollarisation of the economy in 2009 a number of business organisations have resorted to the use of flyers to reach out to their target markets. This is because, unlike in the pre-2009 hyperinflationary period, printing prices became stable and affordable. This period also saw major printers like PrintWorks coming up with special packages for flyers which benefitted most business organisations especially the small to medium enterprises (SMEs). The rush for flyers should also be viewed in the light of businesses trying to regain ground lost during the hyperinflationary years. Flyers are way cheaper to produce and distribute compared to other media of communicating services and products to your target market. Whatever your reasons for using flyers, this medium of advertising businesses and brands has gained ground and it is important that you use it effectively to get maximum mileage out it.
Design
If you decide to use flyers to market your product or services, get the services of a good graphic designer in order to get the very best design for your flyer because in business image matters. Your final design should show an attractive contrast between your colours and the white background. Should you decide to use photographs to illustrate your flyer ensure they are relevant and are not inverted. Evidence of inverted photographs includes photographs taken in Zimbabwe showing vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road and any text, for example on road signs, reading backwards. While photographs are merely illustrative, inverted images give an impression of lack of professionalism.
Use attention-grabbing headlines and persuasive copy. Use a neat layout as opposed to a crowded one. Make sure that your services and products are listed or described using the correct spellings. Get the services of a good copywriter to do the writing for you. If you cannot afford one get a good English language teacher or journalist to go through the text of your flyer for an agreed fee. Choose a good font like Tahoma which stands out and helps to emphasise your text. Avoid use of funny font types like those used in wedding invitation cards as they lack formality and invite a casual response from the readers of your flyer. Poor spellings, grammar and font choice cast your organisation in very bad light. The market judges you and your company silently and it may never give you a chance to right any wrongs.
Limit advertised products
Do not try to fit every product on the flyer as this creates a crowded and bad-looking flyer. Why not advertise specific products at a time? It is easier for the flyer recipients to remember a few products than to bombard them with whole lists of products. Remember that their minds are also bombarded by many hundreds of messages from the television, the radio, billboards, and Whatsapp messages from friends and so on. Your message is likely to stick in their minds if it is not overdone.
Distribution
One area where most entrepreneurs miss it when using flyers is in distribution. Most assign street flyer distributors to stand in strategic places like busy streets or at busy traffic intersections. This is all good, but are your flyers going to the correct target market? Most often some of the distributors aim at distributing every flyer they have rather than distributing them to the correct market segments. Usually these guys are not marketing experts and such terms as target market are, in fact, Greek to them. Given these circumstances, the onus falls on you the entrepreneur to plan the effective distribution of the flyers to your targeted segment of the market. You can also hire the services of professional flyer distributors like the Harare-based Mr Flyer to distribute your flyers.
Talk to conference and seminar venue owners so that they give you advance information about upcoming events and the profiles of the people who will be attending them. You can then target events whose attendees fit your target market for flyer distribution. If you sell goods and services used by women strike an alliance with a hair salon owner for the distribution of your flyers to salon users who fit the profile of your target market rather than assign distributors to approach any women in the street. Should these venue owners charge a fee, pay it instead of paying it to the street distributors who sometimes throw dozens of flyers through one car window in order to complete their task earlier.
Any successful marketing communication is about planning and executing the plan smartly. Only those entrepreneurs who plan and execute the interface of their brands with the market get better results than the market’s best.
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