Direct mail, letterbox drops and flyers: what actually works for trades
Every year someone declares direct mail dead, and every year targeted mail keeps pulling for trades. The catch is the word targeted. A letterbox drop of ten thousand identical flyers across a suburb is dead. Posting one specific, personalised piece to the handful of buildings or homes that actually need you is very much alive. Here is the difference between the two, and why direct mail still beats digital for this job.
Why letterbox drops and generic flyers fail
Flyer distribution and letterbox drops push the same flyer to a whole suburb, and a flyer that could have gone to anyone gets treated like it went to no one. It has no reason to exist in that letterbox, so it goes straight in the bin with the pizza menus. That is the mail people mean when they say mail does not work.
Why targeted mail wins
Now picture a card addressed to a specific building, quoting that building's own energy rating and what an upgrade could save, with your name and a QR code on it. It is not junk, it is a briefing. It reads as though you already assessed the place, because in a sense you did.
| Letterbox drop / flyer distribution | Targeted direct mail |
|---|---|
| Same message to a whole suburb | A specific message per building or home |
| No reason to be there | Their own rating or heat data on it |
| Binned in seconds | Reads like an expert already looked |
| You pay for thousands | You pay for the few worth chasing |
Direct mail vs digital ads
Online ads are great for demand that already exists, people typing 'aircon repair near me' at 40 degrees. They are poor at reaching a facilities manager who has not yet decided to act. Direct mail walks up to that person, on paper, with their building's number on it, and starts the conversation you could not start online.
- It lands in a physical space with far less competition than an inbox.
- It carries a specific, personal number that a banner ad never could.
- One won job usually pays for the whole run, many times over.
So do postcards still work? Yes, if each one has a reason to exist. That reason is the data, and the data is exactly what we build your mail from.
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