Door hangers or mailers?

Alright... I was wondering what everyone thinks would work better.

Mailers - I send out postcards to new homes in various developments. Got a couple leads / sales from it, but nothing super fantastic.

Door hangers - Haven't hung them yet, mainly due to it being more effort.

The cost of the mailers is slightly more then the door hangers, but only like $40. And I do all the work at home rather then walk around to 500 homes.


I have some extra $$ so I wanna do one of them... any thoughts as to which would work better??


RoAcH

I prefer mailers because i can make them look more professional than a door hanger. I used to split advertising costs with a pizza restaurant on their boxtoppers for take out and delivery customers. I did scout the delivery areas first to make sure they were going to my target audience first. Basically we each had half of the ad space and each page was attached to each box leaving the restaurant.

I also check with my local government offices because they list all new homes (and owners names) with addresses weekly. I just wait for the close dates on the properties and send them a mailer. This is great because im not wasting time and postage sending mailers to areas that aren't or have little to no affect on increasing my business.

Also there is nothing wrong with taking a mailer right up to a homeowner and promoting yourself and your business. I have no problem leaving a mailer as doorhanger or even as my overgrown business card.

Anyways thats just my two cents.

A very successful tinting buisness in CA uses door hangars. They pay people per card to hit all of the new and old residential areas.

An old retired guy walked up to my house one day and handed me four different door hangars one of them being from BEST window tinting. He had a pouch on his waist like a tint belt full of door hangars.

Problem for me is that i am in a historic area and can be fined for door hanging or tagging residences. The city i live in considers it littering if you leave unsolicited flyers at a residence. All it took for a buddy of mine was one fine when he openned his landscaping company. And all it took was one person to complain. But if you mail it then it is legit. I have personally handed out mailers to neighbors of homes as i am working on them but i wont hang and leave the evidence for all to see.

Well I just got in the door hangers.. came out very nice actually. 48hourprint.com is who I used... Their prices were lower the local shops, and from the time I placed the order till I got it was 4 days. (I used normal UPS ground shipping)

I also ordered more postcards -there is this one area I wanna hit and they have signs at the entrence to the development that you can't solicite.. (sp?) so I didn't want to chance the door hangers. Hopefully they will come in tomorrow or Saturday.

Next week my goal is to hang as close to the 1,000 hangers as I can. I only have two days setup for installs... other three will be hitting the streets.


RoAcH

nice job getting some doorhangers in roach....my company prefers to do mailers, hey oldhare where or what government office displays new home addresses. So far i've done it the old fashion way riding my mountain bike around and getting the first and last street numbers on the street and mailing to all of them. thanx for any input, an online source would be great

mailers are great because its less work for you but door hangers make sure that the customers see it. When I get mailers they go right to the trash.

I did an area on Friday with the door hangers... This time I took my BMX bike with me. Went way, way faster. No way I can cover as many homes on foot... So it worked out well.

Of course, if no response then it didn't work out THAT well. :(


RoAcH

when your driving around your hood take note of how many cars that dont have any tint and focus on that address. (make sure you put on post card current resident or post office will not deliver.)

door hangers its more personal people will at least take a peek at it before they throw it away .wat do you do with door hangers?

so how did the door hangers work?

We use doorhangers and postcards. With door hangers, when we finish ajob,I send my guys 10 to 15 houses in each direction,which gives 60 total hit. Our hangers have a line like 'Do you know your neighbor is cooler than you???" and "Your neighbor is proctected better than you are. Call to find out how." We put out about 1000 - 2000/ monthand get a lot of work from them.

Door hangers - Same as customtinting, not the same volume thou. It's called cloverleafing. We hit two or three houses or either side and across the street from the home we are doing. Sometimes it seem like we end up doing a whole subdivision, not quite, but close.

I have stickers made with my logo and business# and go to new and old plaza's at night and stick it neatly on the front door and have gotten great results this way! And yes i have gotten phone calls with businesses that are already open that have complained!! But so what!!! I got an 800 sq.ft. comm.job doing that along with many others that were smaller and they wont forget you cuz they have to peel your sticker off there front door! It's a little hard core but i'll ask 4 forgiveness before i ask for permission!

I do door hangers when in a neighborhood/shopping center tinting. We ask if the owner thinks the neigbors would mind then hit 10 or 15 of the closest houses. Customers usually tell us where to stay away from. Typically, we get an estimate or questions while hanging the ads.

I also do mailers. The packaged kind with about 10 other companies targeting the same customer. No competitors, just people in home service area: carpet cleaners, furniture stores, upscale local businesses. It's expensive, but I've always gotten my return. The mailout is done by Black Tie Productions. They go out quarterly to about 50,000 homes: new, expensive, location.