How long will my door drop take to complete?

If your door drop activity is time sensitive, how do you gauge the length of time it may take to deliver your door drop items?

There are only two nationwide final mile distribution options, Royal Mail door to door and teams.

Royal Mail D2D has a fixed 6 day distribution period, Monday – Saturday.

Your item will be probably be received alongside addressed mail and possibly other promotional items, though none that are competitive. But some may be delivered on their own.

But whether you are dropping 5,000 leaflets in Stoke, or all 28+ million households in the UK, the 6 day cycle will apply to your activity. Your leaflets will not all be dropped on the Monday start date.

For large volumes, you can also stagger the distribution by postal sector over any number of weeks you wish, in a controlled, guaranteed manner.

Team distribution is more complicated and is dependent on factors such as whether the area/s being covered are urban or rural, the size and weight of the distribution item, the availability and subsequent capacity of the teams being used and the unpredictable weather.

A team may consist of three or four people working from a family sized car, but it can also be 8-10 people working from a transit van.

Some teams may work school hours, others may start early in the morning and work a full day.

Teams could drop 5,000 leaflets in Stoke in one or two days, but if you wish to drop to all 300,000 in the ST sectors just how long would that take teams? Certainly more than one week.

So if your door drop item is intended to drive footfall into a retail store event on a particular day, or to an indoor or outdoor event and/or generate website traffic to a limited timed offer, you need to think about how long your item may be in households before it triggers a response?

If your critical date is a Saturday, bear in mind that distribution may still be taking place towards the end of the week and even on the Saturday. So why not distribute the week prior to your critical date?

Your leaflet may of course trigger some immediate response/reaction, but JICMail data also clearly demonstrates that door drops are commonly retained for long spells before they are actioned.

As a consumer, whilst you may find the compelling offer on a leaflet received on a Friday of interest, are you able to take advantage the following day, having already made your family plans for the weekend?

Door drops have always been a flexible medium, but take advice from industry experts on the timing of your activity in relation to your critical dates.

Graham Dodd, CEO