I’d started writing a blog about door drop planning tips and timings, when on Black Friday, a BT Infinity leaflet fluttered through my letterbox along with my mail.

Nothing stunningly unusual about that, BT are quite regular door drop users.

What caught my eye was the leaflet headline “Save up to £400 in our Black Friday event. No need to push or shove”.

It was 2.00pm on Black Friday.

I appreciate we are increasingly living in an “instant” world (and BT Infinity should in theory help that!), but if I wished to take advantage of the offer, perhaps I only had 10 hours left?

And I had to get back to work!

Later, on closer inspection, I discovered the offer expired on Monday 27^th – but I had to open the leaflet to discover that option.

But, my point is that a Black Friday offer only arrived on Black Friday.

That’s not the fault of Royal Mail door to door who delivered within their nominated time frame.

Perhaps the delivery met the timing requirements of whoever planned the activity, but personally speaking it did not work for me.

I would have needed the weekend to read and understand the T & C’s for BT Infinity – which take up a third of an A5 page!

Always assuming I live in an Infinity enabled area in the first place, which I would need to spend time on determining apparently!

My blog was always going to be about allowing consumers sufficient time to consider and take advantage of promotional offers.

Achieve that by understanding the constraints of the distribution service/s you may be using.

Royal Mail D2D is a 6 day cycle, Monday – Saturday – and it rarely overruns.

Team daily/weekly capacity is variable by area – compare Coronation Street to leafy suburban areas and houses with long drives, and at this time of year, think weather as well.

If you are looking to distribute 100K in a week in one town/city, then RM D2D will meet your brief.

In most areas of the UK, London possibly excepted, 100K in a week means in my eyes 5 or 6 solus teams possibly working 5 days each, to even get close to completion.

And I’m not convinced that level of resource is widely available.

That doesn’t mean to say there are not people out there who will promise otherwise; but can you be sure they will meet your requirements?

So why not build in some flexibility at the front end; drop a week earlier and/or adapt your copy?

To my mind, the BT leaflet could have worked as well (or better), without even changing copy, if I had the luxury of a week to consider their offer – and read the T & C’s!

But if you are promoting a one day event of any sort, is it not better to give your target audience plenty of advance warning rather than just a day or two – particularly if it’s a weekend event which might require some planning time to be able to attend?