The Curse of the Crappy Flyer

If you are like majority of service businesses you have made your share of flyers. Flyers are a wonderful vehicle for inexpensively getting your message out there.

I am not sure if we just like to copy what we see others doing or if it is genetic, but most flyers have the same layout.

• Company name
• Possibly a worthless tag line (i.e. we don't cut corners, we clean them)
  
• A long list of services (to make the ad confusing)
  
• Maybe the habitual and horrid 10% off
• Name again and phone number

Rarely and I mean rarely does anyone give a reason to use their service. The reason is usually 10% off. It is important to realize how non motivating that is. It is VERY important to realize that because there is no price to base the percentage on it becomes worthless.

Percentage off is really a retail ploy. It is very easy to pick up a shirt at Macy's look at the price and take 50% off. It is all right there. You either think it is worth it or not. Now your flyer does not give them the comparison. Just 10% off.

Let's go back to Macy's for a minute. You pick up a shirt on a 30% off rack and the tag is missing, what do you do? Put it back and move on. Sure there is a select few interested enough to bring it to the cashier to figure it out but 100 others picked it up and set it down.

The point is there was interest and it was squashed. Most people will not run to the phone to try and find out how much 10% off would be for them. You will get some, but what about the other 100?

Now if you say "Take $20 off!" people understand that. If you add something like free screen cleaning make sure you put a value to it:

FREE Screen Cleaning ($50 value)

Be sure to give value to whatever upgrade or service you are throwing in the deal. If you do not give it value you cannot expect them to.

Never start out a flyer with your company name. View your flier as a magazine on a rack at the grocery store. You are next to People, Vogue, National Enquirer, Time. How do you get the attention of the steady stream of people scanning the covers?

Most magazines are impulse buys which means they do not have a strong relationship with their readers. People see something on the cover that made them toss it in their cart. Some of these magazines pay over $100,000 for copywriters to come up with headlines that stop people in their tracks.

They do not pay them that much because it does not work.

You are selling the invisible. You are selling something that does not have real value. You need to give it value and the more value you give it the more people will want it.

Your company name at the top will destroy a huge part of the readership. You may get calls but you would have got those calls PLUS many others if done right. Sometimes you need to keep in mind how many prospects you are losing as well as how many you got.

I have seen flyers build million dollar service companies. Flyers can be the most lucrative and cost efficient forms of advertising you do, take it seriously.

Your flyer layout should look like this:

• Headline
• Reason
• Offer (to include deadline)
• Restate reason (optional, but adds power)
• name/CALL NOW!/number

I get bombarded by people wanting me to look over their flyer. Sometimes I find myself saying "didn't you show me this already?" No they did not, it just looks like the 100 others I looked at.

Keep in mind all these people are not having me look over their flyer because it was working.

Don't be afraid to have some personality in your ads. Everyone tries so hard to be professional they make their company cold and disconnected. Flyers can be fun to play around with and a great way to experiment inexpensively.

Have fun with it


Paul