A door hanger service is a simple business idea to start, and might appeal to you if you are looking for a simple business idea and would love to spend a lot of your time walking door to door in various neighborhoods in your town.
You could also hire people to do the work for you as you expand your business, teens especially would be good candidates for this.
Have you ever come home and found a flyer hanging on your door knob?
You know, a rectangular or key hole shaped piece of paper with a cutout so that it fits over the door?
Well this is a door hanger, and many businesses and some organizations use this type of advertising to get their message out to prospective customers.
What are the advantage of using door hanging flyers?
1. The customer has to give them some attention, even if they are just going to throw it away they have to remove it from the door, and will probably read it on the way to the garbage can.
2. It’s a much more effective way to get an advertising message in front of a potential customer than hoping they spot your ad or flyer in a newspaper, or in a bundle of inserts and flyers in the local weekly shopper.
3. Printing a money-saving coupon or offer on the door hanger will give an incentive for the customer to come in and visit the business and hopefully make a purchase.
4. It can be more effective and cheaper than doing a bulk mailing based on a cost of $25 to $30 per thousand for a door hanging distribution.
5. You have less printing costs and paper costs. A door hanger is just a small piece of paper, versus the printed materials and envelope needed for a bulk mailing or the glossy insert or full page flyer needed for a newspaper or shopper.
6. It’s a more personal way to get your message or promotion out to prospective customers. Many political campaigns use door hanging flyers to get information about candidates out to the public and to remind people to vote.
7. A door hanger is better than leaving just a flyer on a porch or tucked into a door. On a windy day you will have flyers being blown about and littering neighborhoods, not a great way to build a good reputation or image with customers.
So how would you start a door hanger service?
You should set up a business presence first with a dedicated phone line and listings in phone and internet directories.
Next you should print up some professional materials about the benefits of your service, and begin visiting area businesses that might benefit from a door hanging flyer distribution.
Some of the most likely to benefit are any type of construction and remodeling services and local restaurants.
We’ll use a roofing contractor for example. You could offer to leave flyers in a local area at every house that looked like it needed a new roof.
Now this would be a more specialized delivery since you wouldn’t be going house to house, so you would want to charge a little more for the service.
Be sure the flyer has some sort of incentive coupon or promotion to entice the homeowner to keep the flyer and use the service if interested.
And in the case of our example with the roofing contractor, they should also offer to do free estimates on the flyer.
You should also contact any local and even national political campaigns and let them know about your service.
If there are other door hanger services in your area you may have to submit bids on a job, so it’s important to do some research and see what others are charging for the same services.
You want to bid enough to make a profit and yet be competitive too.
You will have to factor in your time, and your costs of paying others to help you if you decide to hire employees.
You could increase the scope and income potential of this business idea by offering the printing service too.
This is one of those small business ideas with very little start up cost, and it’s a business idea you may want to research further if you think there is an opening and a need in your area.
