Guest Column: Flyers: The Forgotten Child Of Retail Marketing

By Joe Thacker and Manu Sarna

By contrast, most CMO's would never describe flyers in those terms. Flyers are functional. Flyers are stolid. Flyers are, well, flyers. They are the forgotten child of the advertising family. Yes of course the flyer child is loved, but it will never receive its fair share of attention from the hard-working parents that make up the marketing department. It's not unexpected that the majority of retailers we have spoken to openly admit that they allocate a disproportionately low share of their time and effort on managing and optimizing flyers relative to their size of the overall marketing budget.

If a retailer's marketing department is the parent of all the different media vehicles, then TV ads are the charming first born post-graduate. Radio ads are the dependable college student.

Flyers are the one opportunity to talk with your customers and potential customers, not at them. Think of it this way: someone picks up your flyer, brings it to the breakfast table, opens it up - they're looking for a dialogue. They want to know more. It is an active decision on their part, unlike hearing a radio ad or seeing a TV ad, which are passive actions over which they've limited control.