Flyering

My lead image is a photo of some of the flyers of investment properties that is usually given to us when we are at a mall before. I took a photo of it last month when I saw it while I was cleaning my study table and posted on a different platform. 

My topic for today was inspired by @Ruffa when she mentioned about giving out flyers as part of her awareness campaign for Bitcoin cash (BCH). Because of it, I instantly remembered my past jobs with it. 

When I tried to shift to a different career but is still food related, I was offered to be a local store marketing coordinator in one restaurant. Just by the title of it made me think that the salary would be good but I was wrong. LOL. Probably because I was too honest when they asked me about my previous salary. They had only given me a little increase. During that time I only have a few knowledge about marketing because I only had one Marketing Management subject when I was in 3rd year college. I think it was on our second or third term. I can only remember the 4 P's of marketing and SWOT analysis (strength, weakness, opportunities, threat) but I know I got a 3.5 in that subject and 4.0 was our highest grade. Our professor was really good as she have explained everything very clearly. I know we were also divided into groups of 4 and had asked us to make a business plan. I think ours was a restaurant on an island since 3 of my friends or groupmates were beach lovers. Then the best business plan in our class was a catering business during a wake at a funeral. That time no one has done it yet and when I have experienced it after a decade, I rememberedy classmates' business plan. Our professor was convincing my classmates back then to push that business but they didn't do it. 

Going back to being a local store marketing coordinator. My task back then was to increase the sales of the store by doing client calls, text brigades, email blasts, distributing flyers, installing banners and tarpaulins, check the other competitors and think of a promo or a marketing strategy. It was very overwhelming for me especially when I was assigned to a branch that was situated in a residential area with a lot of restaurants nearby. 

My first assigned store was inside a mall so I didn't really have to exert a lot of effort since it was easy to attract people but I still did some flyering. My branch manager was very hands on that she helped me how to tap other potential clients. She knew that I didn't have much idea on marketing. Once a week we went to different condominiums, subdivisions, hotels, churches and events place that was still part of our 5km radius. We would leave flyers with the hotel and condominium concierge. We do mailbox inserts in subdivisions which was approved by their association. We would hand out flyers to people who just came out of the church and some people that we came across when we were walking. Imagine we didn't have to do it but our branch manager wanted to increase our sales even more. 

With regards to giving out flyers inside the mall, you would have to request from the mall administration before you can hand out any flyers. They would give you a permit and it is indicated where you will be stationed. There are other malls who doesn't allow the distrubution of flyers so they have a standee with flyer inserts by the entrance or beside the concierge. That was during my time so I don't have any idea how it is nowadays. 

With my second assigned store, like I have said that it was situated in a residential area with lots of restaurants nearby. So competition was really tough. Every week our sales was going down even if I have already done everything that I could. Facebook wasn't in the picture that time so everything was done through calls, texts, emails, tarpaulin, banners and flyering to increase our store's awareness. 

Then when I was already in a different company, I was then again chosen to be the store marketing ambassador because of my marketing position in my previous job along with one of my workmates. During lean hours, we would go out to do flyering along Katipunan all the way to UP Diliman. Yes, our target market were students. The flyers that we had distributed were serialized and they had to present it to the store when availing the promo so we were able to monitor how many came back. It was a good strategy. Unlike in one company that I have worked with. In my opinion, I think distributing flyers is about 5% effective. 

Honestly, what do you do whenever you see someone distributing a flyer? Do you ignore the person or you accept the paper that was being held to you? Then what do you do after? Fold it? Crash it or throw them away after reading what was written in it? Honestly, even before I have experienced how hard it is to distribute flyers, I do get those flyers but there are times that I just ignore the person. Why? Because I already have an idea what he or she is holding and I am not interested with it especially I know that I can't afford to buy what the person was promoting. Plus I know that when I entertain them, they would let me fill up a form for me to receive future calls, texts or emails about their products. Nope, not interested. It is my mom who usually entertains them even if she knows that she can't afford it. She likes looking at the flyers of condominiums and cars. 

But I hope that next time you would see someone distributing those flyers, accept it. Who knows maybe it will come in handy for you in the future. Handing out flyers is really tiring. Imagine you have to stand there for hours distributing it. When I was the store ambassador, we can't go back to the store until we haven't finished distributing every flyer that was given to us. Someone even accused me and my co-store ambassador of throwing those flyers in the trash can. He sure did made a story about the 2 of us. Little did he knew that we actually enjoyed distributing flyers because we get to eat whenever we passed by an affordable food stall. LOL. Yes, we did that whenever we were on marketing. 

In your opinion, do you think companies should still hand out flyers to the people? Not only does it cost a lot of money in printing those flyers but it only ends up in our garbage and can possibly be a great contributor to pollution don't you think? Other than calls, texts, emails,l and other social media platforms, how can we increase awareness for a particular product? Through word of mouth and social media platforms are the top effective marketing tools that I can currently think of. The probability of reaching the number of people may be the same or twice more the number when you do flyering. I don't know how my previous company is doing now in terms of their marketing but I am happy that I was able to experience distributing flyers before.