20/10/2014
How to increase the shelf life of your leaflet
by Batanai Mabido
Leaflets are effective marketing tools but they
can be quite unforgiving for those who cannot
execute and deliver properly. On the other
hand, if done well, they are simple, cheap and
they can most certainly do the job.
Keep in mind though that regardless of what
materials you use or how much effort you put
into creating your leaflets, it will definitely
cost you a certain amount of money and there
is no point in spending on something that gets
ignored or dumped straight in the bin. Despite
common but false public perception leaflets
don’t always get ignored or immediately
consigned to the recycle bin. In other cases,
people do keep the leaflets. The question is,
how do I ensure my leaflet is noticed and
retained by the recipient? You would ideally
want them kept long enough for them to be
used to purchase your product or service or
perhaps to refer it to their friends and family.
Here are some of the ways you can make sure
that your leaflets will have a longer shelf life
than usual:
Get Noticed
Advertise regularly and target carefully! Let
people know about your product or service.
One rule of advertising is to be consistent and
persistent. Statistics show consumers register a
brand or a product in their mind after seeing a
particular advert at least three times. Aid your
leaflets with other forms of advertising to help
reinforce your brand. In that way, they won’t
be a stranger to your product once they
receive your leaflet and the likelihood of them
keeping your leaflet for future reference
increases exponentially.
Incentives
Offer discount vouchers or other types of
promos with your leaflets. This technique will
definitely get people to keep your leaflet
longer – until when they intend to use it. Not
only that, they could also share it with family
and friends whom they think would be
interested in redeeming your discount or
promotion. Keep the expiry dates for an
amount of time that is not so long they forget
about your offer. Make sure that you keep
your customers interested, create hype around
the product and the discounts or promotion
you are offering. This is a good way of
reminding them about the leaflet and increases
the likelihood of them availing themselves of
your product or service.
Repurpose
Make leaflets that can be repurposed. Perhaps
this is the best way to ensure a long shelf life
for your leaflet. This requires a certain amount
of creativity on your part. A great example
would be to distribute leaflets that can be used
as bookmarks as well. This may cost a little bit
more than the regular run-of-the-mill design
but if a longer shelf life is what you are after,
the extra cost will pay for itself from new
businesses through your bookmark leaflets.
You also can keep them small, say credit card
size but listing all your contact information in
a clean, precise manner. By using this
technique people will keep your leaflet as a
contact reference much like a calling card,
safely in their purse or wallet sometimes for
weeks on end. No other advertising can do
this.
What comes around, goes
around – the shelf life of a
leaflet
