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Writer's pictureJulie Boake

Boring flyers suck.

You need to stand out

Last week, while getting my mail, a flyer was discarded and sitting on the ground. This is not the first time I have seen discarded flyer, I think many people are bored of them, careless pulling the mail out of the tiny little boxes and figure its not all that important.


>> its important to spend money on the medium (flyer design) and the media (mailbox promotion). Without both it may be wasted money.



I picked up this flyer, it was a safe shade of blue, in fact, such a safe shade that your brain would not likely even acknowledge the blue shade. Calming perhaps.

The layout struck me, and I was impressed that they utilized both sides (many businesses cheap out and miss this huge opportunity) this was probably the first time I did not want to see something on the other side.


Let's start by saying that there was a lot of money spent to put this in everyone's mailboxes, we're talking thousands, and this place has a stunning location and there is definitely the population to support this company locally. I appreciated that they took a team photo, that is a great start, and not only shows us transparency of who we are dealing with but its proven that we like seeing a person's face. Huge applause for that.


bad flyer front side

But ... and there are some BUTs.


  1. The typeface on the front is all caps, typically used for YELLING at people, its a strange choice on a flyer and contradicts the soothing blue shade. There's a spacing between the letters that is intentional but feels uncomfortable. (like a person with wildly wide-set eyes)

  2. The callout bursts are interesting, again all caps!

  3. They want to show social credibility (800 5-star reviews on Google) which would have been more effective to show the actual stars (people can scan better), but made me wonder what their overall rating was

  4. The second call-out was to remind us to use our benefits. With 6 weeks to go its funny that I would be looking for a new dentist and focused on using up my benefits with them. -- this would have made more sense to existing customers.

  5. I do appreciate their self-control and not overusing the exclamation marks.

  6. On this side, they highlighted what they do, emergency appointments, Invisalign, extractions, all things all dentists do (or we believe they all do) but nothing to show why we should choose them to do those things vs anyone else. This is the case of highlighting the benefit, not the why.


(in no effort to shame the flyer creators I have blocked out the discerning features below)

bad flyer back side
  1. The first thought was 'hello blocks' and the blocks are not evenly spaced, not with even borders or an organized layout. This is one of those moments when you feel slightly uncomfortable but cannot explain why.

  2. Did you catch that we are now using a mixed case typeface and a different font completely and the spacing of it is quite normal? (ps the contact info is the same typeface as the front).

  3. The white boxes remind me of PowerPoint when people want to use logos and images but they dont have the right files so they use blocks, this would have been better on an all-white background (which would have also represented clean, and teeth - this is a dentist).


As a consumer, think about what would make you switch dentists, is this it? Better care, more comfortable setting, convenient appointment times, a more gentle hand, or a kick-ass cleaning tech? I dont want a rush extraction, the 'general dentistry' and 'children dentistry' sound like keywords they want to use to get the website ranking something like 'providing exceptional care for general dental work and gentle care for kids' might make us feel like they are talking to us and not a bot.


Overall I would be curious how effective this will be as a campaign. Less than 5% is quite normal and that is with a compelling design.I would hate to find out this was a wasted effort because it does cost so much to do these types of mailbox promotions.



Julie



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