All-in-one Leaflet Service

Consumer marketing research or instinct! Which is your poison? Do you decide your leaflet distribution campaign and design your leaflets after compiling careful studies of buying behaviour, focus group feedback and analyses of questionnaires, or do you make your decisions based on your instincts? 

The best laid plans go awry.  If we liken the habits of potential buyers to the weather and how it performs to expectations, we would ensure an umbrella wherever we go regardless of the outlook.  No matter the amount of study of the high and low pressure belts, the wind forces gathering, cloud formation, and the clever data collected by weather satellites in space stations miles over our heads, we have one of the most inaccurate predictors of mother nature.  In England, in 1987, a hurricane hit a startled nation who had been assured that very night would be a calm and peaceful night, and instead listened whilst clinging to their beds as roofs caved in and cows were lifted to meadows miles from their own pastures.  Our own inability to forecast our weather patterns leaves scientists with egg on their faces more times than they care to mention.  So when predicting your advertising strategy, and planning to launch a leaflet distribution campaign, maybe you should listen to your heart and think with your own head.  Your leaflets will probably be no worse off to carry a design that, while up-to-date, is one that you like yourself. Good leaflet distribution might just as well be the result of a thoughtful consideration of who is likely to want your services, given your knowledge of what your services provide.  A report on consumer habits regarding services similar to yours may not carry your wisdom and may not be useful for your leaflets production at all, nor would it predict if consumers simply don’t want another similar service. All things to think about!

When the Tsunami hit the Eastern coast of India at the end of 2004, locals in the area said they should have listened to the birds and animals who had left the shoreline and ventured inland a few hours before, whilst the people had less than five minutes and suffered as a result.  Instinct seems to win out in an uncomfortable number of times!  That’s of course assuming we have finely developed instincts that are based on intuition and knowledge. So plan your leaflets using your own mind alongside any consumer research that you may call upon, as you don’t want to lose the instinct you were born with and which should be working in your own interests.

Trevor Carthy

MD – Allhomes.ie