Couple Hundred Thousand Door Hangers...No Phone # On Them.

[GetShitDone]

This is my first business & I might of had made a mistake.

I have 200,000 door hangers to be distributed to upper middle class areas of my city for a marketing campaign. They contain compelling copy, great design, a double-your-money back guarantee, along with a free service incentive (limited time). Only problem? The "next step" of the sales process is for the Prospect to go to our company website. There is no phone # on these door hangers, simply just it telling them to go to the website instead.

This is a company that is in the home maintenance industry for things such as gardening, cleaning, clean up, general maintenance, etc. That is what we are marketing on the door hangers.

A thing to consider here is that this is a multi-step marketing campaign. Meaning that there will be a total of 3 door hanger drops to each house. One door hanger drop will occur every other week. In conclusion, these home owners will see these door hangers a total of 3 times during good timing in terms of consumer demand for the year.

Is there a problem here that there is no phone # even though the home owner will see our advertisements 3 times? A Phone # will be on the company website most definitely, but I was wondering if it is a major problem that it won't be on the doors hangers in your opinions?

If so, what is a solution to solve this? I was thinking about getting stickers (phone number on the sticker label) and placing them on an appropriate place on the door hangers, writing the phone number on the door hangers, etc. There are however, a total of 200,000 of them.

Thank you & i look forward to your advice!

 

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[AllenCrawley]

I'm a firm believer that with this type of advertising you need to give your prospect every option to contact you. 800 number, local phone number, cell number, website, email, etc.

Remove as many barriers to contacting you as possible. Make it simple and easy. Remove as many objections as possible.

 

[Milkanic]

I'd say it's worth it for even a 1% in conversion at that volume.

Take them to a local shop and see if they can print overtop of them with just the phone # in the right location (should be possible).
A rubber stamp is probably the next fastest way to fix them.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Take them to a local shop and see if they can print overtop of them with just the phone # in the right location (should be possible).
A rubber stamp is probably the next fastest way to fix them.

Or have a print shop print out the phone on clear labels and affix to the flyer.

 

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[SeanKelly]

By not having a phone number directly on the door hangers you're significantly lessening your chances of making a sale.

Here's why:

• Most people are in a hurry and don't want to take the time to first visit your website before being able to request service. Unless they are in dire need of your service or they are very curious, it will take a while before they get around to actually viewing your site.

• You strategically designed your door hangers to get the phone ringing, but now you've created an unnecessary barrier before they can even call you.

• Some people are going to want to visit your website before hiring you regardless, however now that EVERY potential customer is forced to visit your site they may just find a reason not to do business with you. As you already know, your site is a representation of your business so it has to be top-notch because your target market will be judging you from the time it loads.

• You are lengthening the sales process which, in-turn, leaves more time for your prospects to compare other providers.

I can list more, but you get the general point that not having a phone number to call is a big mistake. Nevertheless, there is always a solution.

The only three that I can think of right now would be to:

• Spend more money on stickers and take the time to apply them to each one
• Stick with your original plan and just make sure that your website is top-notch
• See if it's possible to print over the existing design

Good luck with everything. I'm sure you'll figure something out.

-Sean

 

[hotshot]

My thoughts - who is your target demographic? I would assume with home maintenance, you're either going to have customers that are far too busy to do that stuff themselves, they want to outsource the grunt work, or they are physically incapable of doing the work themselves (elderly/handicapped).

In all of those scenarios, a phone call is the fastest, and easiest way to get this done.

What I would do is get the stickers printed. Then apply them on your walk between houses. That makes the 200,000 a lot less daunting of a task.

Cheers

 

[MJ DeMarco]

You can ink stamp them as well.

thing to consider here is that this is a multi-step marketing campaign.

The problem here is you're NOT dealing with a captive audience (airplane passenger, dude on an elevator) you're dealing with people who can choose to NOT look at your ad. They can simply throw it in the trash, hence subsequent messages will lose effectiveness.

 

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[ZCP]

Make the first pass 'as-is'. If response sucks, write in / label w/ the phone number. Make it clear that it looks like you forgot it on the first pass so they are less likely to see it as 'junk mail' and toss it out. Have it look like a company that is trying to do a good job and messed up not adding the phone number. Might make it look like you care and thus make you more appealing.

 

[Chris R]

200,000 door hangers

The issue with using a printer at this point in the game is their machine is going to have to do 200,000 passes which will be costly. Most likely the door hangers you have were printed on a big sheet that had several of them on one sheet, and then they were die-cut out. I think your most economical way out would be stickers of some sort. This way the stickers can be printed with several images per sheet, before they're die-cut out, and they can be affixed right before they get hung on the doors.

 

[randomnumber314]

Well you spent the $5-6k on the three step process...why not add a fourth round with the phone number in neon call-me-now colors?

 

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[Stubbers]

Did you not already prove this design? If the response was ok then you could run with it, but making them go to the website to contact you is a huge hurdle. I would go with either printing stickers or even yellow post it notes with a big call to action and phone number! It will add to the cost and delivery fee but may stand out from other hangers!

Good luck

 

[Vigilante]

Test a few hundred with stickers with a phone # on them, and a few hundred without, and see what happens.

The bigger issue might be I would be irritated if someone put three separate door hangers on my doors a few weeks apart.

 

[biophase]

If you have white space on the door hanger, buy a custom stamp and stamp that number on them. The people passing them out can easily stamp them before they go hang them.

 

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[GetShitDone]

Thank you so much for your help & advice. I fully agree & have learned that a phone # is essential.

I have learned from your responses that there are a few ways to go about it to find a solution:

1) Rubber Stamping - This is manually done and can also be done by distributors, perhaps at a higher cost then normal.

2) Automated Ink Stamp - Rather then manually stamping each door hanger, the door hanger is automatically stamped when a door hanger goes underneath its sensors. This is still "manual" but less manual then the options 1) & 3). I have found one that does 10,000 impressions for $20.

3) Stickers - Print clear stickers & place them on the door hangers. This can be manually done and also be done by distributors. I have pricing would be $1500-$2000 for my order of 200,000 stickers. But then I must take into the fact that the stickers need to be manually put on. I need to factor in whether or not there is an extra cost with the distributors for them to put the sticker on before they hang the door hangers.

4) Print Shop - I can go to a print shop & ask them to overprint my door hangers which seems to be the fastest however I am in the process of looking for a price on this. My business partner knows a print shop and I have contacted numerous print shops to get their pricing/feedback.

I sincerely appreciate the feedback, response, & advice.

 

[jon.a]

Test a few hundred with stickers with a phone # on them, and a few hundred without, and see what happens.

The bigger issue might be I would be irritated if someone put three separate door hangers on my doors a few weeks apart.

I was going to suggest this too. But, with 1000each way.
One question I had if you added numbers to all of them, what if you got a 1000 phone calls in a couple of days? Could you handle them?