This is the first post in a series of seven inspired by the third episode of the current series of The Apprentice on BBC. These business ideas are aimed at anyone wanting to start a business on a budget of £200 or less.
One business opportunity is to set yourself up as a leaflet distributor. It’s a service that many businesses need, just look at the number of leaflets that come through your door from free newspapers, insurance firms, local takeaways, restaurants, or property developers.
Typically most businesses expect to pay between £25 and £40 per one thousand leaflets depending on the area (terraced houses versus widely distributed properties). The main cost of distribution is your time and some travel to the target area if you can’t walk there. It should be possible to deliver between 200 and 400 leaflets per hour depending upon the area.
The £200 startup budget would be used to get some leaflets and business cards printed and a cheap pay as you go mobile phone, you can then approach local businesses and offer your services, providing them with the mobile phone number to contact you.
You can run this business totally by yourself or scale it up by employing other people to do the deliveries for you and concentrating your efforts on sales and marketing of the service. A simple scalable business, all for under £200.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Good business idea, I’ve done some research into this area as I’m looking at doing some leafleting for my Utility Warehouse business, Piggy Bank Savings.
From my research, you can get 1000 leaflets dropped for as little as £20, however they will be dropped with other leaflets, or you can have them dropped individually for about £35 / thousand.
While it’s possible to get £20 per thousand when dropped with other leaflets it can be a false economy as they are more likely to be binned without being read.
Hi,
Im very interested in the leaflet distribution business myself, I tried it about 6 years back, and was scared by the response I received after posting 500 leaflets to shops and companies locally advertising my business.
Whilst posting, a carpet shop immediately offered me me £75 to deliver 5000 of their leaflets (£15 per thousand at that time! When I reached home the phone rang, a Balti house wanted me to deliver 20,000 of their leaflets locally, and another carpet shop wanted 2000 delivered.
The calls kept coming, but being a one man band I started refusing jobs, I was scared by the sheer volumn that my leaflets pulled in.
I hope this will encourage you rather than scare you off.
I now have a couple of freiends who like the idea, and so we might take up the challenge again.
Rob.
Anyone who thinks that they can deliver leaflets at a rate of 400 per hour is in cloud cuckoo land. Realistic numbers are more in the region of 120 per hour but even this figure is optimistic over an 8hour day, 5 days a week. In order to conform to National Minimum Wage rates you should expect to pay a single distributor about £45.00 per day. A bona fide distribution company would charge around £70.00+ per 1,000 for a genuinely solus distribution. If you are happy to share with other items then this cost can be reduced significantly but ask all the right questions at the enquiry stage or you may end up disappointed.
Chris
Are there any laws to get past regarding putting leaflets through peoples doors?
I am not an expert on laws to answer the question above posted by Matt. May I leave my comment that leaflets dropping through people’s doors is a way of marketing products or services on a budget while the consumers have the choice to use or bin the advertisement.
All advertising needs to conform to ASA standards - ie. legal, decent, honest and truthful. There are commonsense restrictions on what you can put through a letterbox such as samples containing nut traces, or any other ingredient regarded as potentially harmful to a child or animal. If in doubt contact the ASA.
I deliver my own leaflets fo my own business, and it is NOT easy, unless you ere pretty fit and have a good battery in your ipod give it a miss, it is mind numbing, repetitive and dangerous!!… (at least 1 in a hundred houses will have a stealth dog…the ones that dont bark or move until your finger is in sight!!)
I recently started as a leaflet distributor and i have just completed my first order of 5000 leaflets. This took me and my husband 2 days to do, i charge £35 per 1000 leaflets. In my opinion this is a great business to get into. Its a repeat business as well as gathering new business.
Hi Sam,
I am delighted with your news, im glad you have d
tried this very interesting business.
£175 ain’t bad for two days work I reckon.
Take no notice ofsome of the comments on this
blog, some people want money for doing nothing!
When establised and proven yourself, up your
price a tenner per thousand, your customers will pay willingly pay the extra … as they can afford
it for a good and reliable service.
Keep me posted. All the best for 2009.
Rob.