Where do you leave fliers (residential)?
Under mat.
Rubber-banded to doorknob.
Under a rock.
Slid into the doorframe.
Door hanger (the type with a cutout).
Other?
news paper box.
The areas I target are ones that have a sort of community mailbox, so we are stuck leaving them on the doormats.
I hate them. We have been placing them between the door and frame. Our next round will be direct mail so won’t have to worry about that.
My service area also has all community mailboxes and there are no newspaper boxes. The weather is too good here! 
Has anyone run into HOA’s that don’t let you distribute fliers? My area is ruled by HOA’s and I’m not sure what the various rules are.
HOA’s are tough, I live in one and they are sticklers about what can and can’t be done. The best way to get into a community is to befriend someone that lives there, attend a meeting, share what you do, work the angles. It’s tough, but the payoff is huge. You get into a community and your name spreads like wildfire. The other avenue would be direct mail, which we all know is expensive and the average return, if the flier is good, will be 1-2%, 3% if you’re a marketing genuius 
HOA’s also provide lists of trustworthy vendor that you can see about getting on, however it’s all about the connection between you and the person in charge of that! Good luck, and let me know what comes of your efforts.
Cortezaero,
I actually met with three HOA’s today. While I don’t have the longevity in the industry that most here do (as previously posted I am new to the industry, but not to business) I actually look at the HOA as an opportunity. In the three meetings I had today I was able to sell the HOA on a community service. If a majority (based on our cost of doing business, and what I require in margin, I knew that I needed at least 70% of the units) of the homeowners bought off on the proposed package it would save all participating HOA members on their window cleaning service.
As the HOA is managed by elected homeowners, though day to day management can be outsourced (in which case I would make a request to speak at the monthly HOA meeting, thereby addressing the homeowners themselves and not a middle man) I have the opportunity to appeal directly to their lifestyle, and more importantly, their wallets.
I then offered them an opportunity to pick between a quarterly, bi-monthly, and monthly plan on a term of 1-3 years, with additional discounts available for frequency and length of agreement. This provides me the opportunity to lock up 3 communities totaling nearly 150 units at least four times a year for a minimum of one year. Couple this with referral bonuses, the time/cost savings over a route stretched over a larger geographic area, and the ability for add on sales to accounts where we already have a relationship and you can see just how beneficial HOA’s can be.
If you look at the HOA as the preferred method of selling the entire community you may find that one sale can turn into 70 pretty easily.
Good luck.
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I like where you’re going with this. Are the HOA’s you work with for condo/townhomes or freestanding homes?
Both, today’s was one single family home development that had roughly 70 units, and then two smaller upscale townhome/condo developments, one 54 units, the other 25 or so. The HOA for the single family home’s was a much easier sell as these are your typical 2 car, 2.5 kids, upper middle class family’s so the idea of saving them time and money was a no brainer. The townhome/condo developments were a bit tougher, but I focused on the lifestyle aspect, and got traction pretty quickly.
Good luck!
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Door hanger on the door is your best bet, imho.
But…you could always leave the first 1000 or so on mailboxes. It saves so much time, and if the post office asks you to stop then do and there won’t be any problems. I did over 10k this way with no post office complaints… (did get a couple calls from homeowners, but they would’ve been upset if it were on their door too)
If you are just doing a 8.5 x 11 copy, you can purchase door hanger bags from www.Uline.com. Fold it in half down the middle and stuff your flier in there. It makes it a heck of alot more easier to distribute them and they stay out of the weather. The item number for the bags I use is S-9923. With the bag thing, it gives you so many more options other than just cramming them into something so they wont blow away.
Steve
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In the mail with a stamp.
i order clear baggies w/hole in top and slip flyers/invoices, etc inside and hang on door or mailbox flag. not allowed to put anything inside mailboxes (federal offense is what I was told)
Mail it.
I always find Door Hangers get the best response for residential Window Cleaning. However, these are more expensive to buy and can be tricky (in Canada at least) to get delivered.
Normal flyers get a pretty good response, just make sure you don’t leave them in a batch of o load of other flyers. In the dooe works well.
Good Luck,
My wife and I just put out 500 today and will do another 500 later in the week. What we did was as many as we could in the newspaper boxes and the others were rolled in rubber bands and banded to the door knob. We have had issues with the wind blowing them around so we have been using the rubber bands. Works great but takes a little more prep before we hit the street. We roll them, put them in trash bags and put them out. Took about 3-4 hours for the 500 we did today. We are still low budget and can’t afford the door hangers, but I like the idea of the sticky door hangers.
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Last week I followed a landscaper around the area. We were both handing out fliers. He had his in a baggy with a door knob hole. He had a post card sized advert inside. Looked like a good way to do it. I’ll look into that.
