Door hangers remain one of the lowest costs per household in local marketing, and one of the least reliably executed. The economics are excellent when the distribution actually happens and terrible when a third of the bundle ends up in a skip, which is common enough that verification, not creative, is the real discipline of this channel.
Distribution fraud is the norm rather than the exception in this channel. Build a programme that assumes it and measures around it.
A door hanger is read while walking from the door to the bin. That is the whole design brief. One offer. One deadline. One way to order, large. Your name and the fact that you deliver, both legible from arm’s length.
Resist the menu. A full menu on a door hanger is unreadable at that size and dilutes the single offer that would have produced a response. If you want a menu in the home, mail one.
Door-to-door distribution is regulated inconsistently and enforced unpredictably. Some municipalities require a permit; many prohibit anything placed in or on a mailbox, which in the United States is a federal matter rather than a local one; gated communities and apartment blocks often prohibit it outright; and no-soliciting notices should be honoured whether or not they are legally binding where you are.
The cost of getting this wrong is disproportionate: a complaint or a fine attaches to your brand name in a small trade area, and the goodwill damage outlasts the campaign.
Never put anything in a mailbox. In the US that is a federal offence, and it is also how you turn a $200 door drop into a story about you.
Door hangers are at their most effective as a fast, local, tactical response: a new competitor opening nearby, a store re-opening after refurbishment, a delivery zone extension, or a grand opening. They can be printed and walked within a week, which no other physical channel matches.
As a standing monthly programme they decay. As a tactical instrument aimed at a specific street-level event, they remain excellent value.
Well-executed door hanger drops in a receptive trade area typically produce 0.5% to 1.5% redemption. Below 0.3% across multiple routes, suspect distribution before suspecting the offer. That is where the failure usually is.
Own drivers on shift are cheaper, more reliable and easier to verify, but they cost you delivery capacity. A common pattern is own drivers for tactical drops near the store and a verified vendor for larger route programmes.
Door hangers get handled and read; loose flyers on a step are often ignored or blown away, and pushing anything through a letterbox raises different local rules. The hanger costs slightly more per piece and is worth it.
Keep reading
Saturation mail versus addressed mail, carrier route selection, the formats that get kept, and the honest cost per incremental order.
Audience & dataDrive-time trade areas, radius maps that lie, penetration by carrier route, and how to stop paying to advertise to people who will never be delivered to.
Growth & new storesA week-by-week opening plan: trade area saturation, soft opening, capacity protection, and converting opening-week traffic into a customer file.
Growth & new storesResponding to a new competitor, capitalising on a closure, and the targeted plays that take share without starting a price war you cannot win.
marketing.pizza runs all of it, every night, across every store you have.