Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How much do you charge and how does it work?
A. Flyer Distribution Service quotes flyer delivery by the thousand. See the Specific Quotes by Region and Community page for how many flyers would be needed to cover your area and how much that would be-or see the General Rates / Contact Us page for the basic per thousand rates and the current specials.

Q. What advantages does doing flyer distribution through you offer?
A. This is low cost direct advertising. You choose the area and date of distribution. Delivery is guaranteed and inspected. You can tailor flyer distribution to fit a full marketing plan, or, as some of our clients have done, build an entire small business around it. There are several methods of distribution available, to help ensure your public is reached most effectively and conveniently.

Q. How soon can you get an order done?
A. We can start an order within as little as a day’s notice currently, but at busy times, a lead time or notice of as much as two weeks may be required. The time required for completion of a delivery depends upon the size of an order. For a ballpark estimate 1000 would be one day, 5000, 1-3 days, 10000, 2-5 days, and 100000, 4 days to 2 weeks. You, as the client, have the option of specifying the time frame for completing the distribution, within our capacity. All orders must currently be confirmed by telephone, and this is when the schedule can be worked out.

Q. What kind of flyer works best?
A. Most of our clients now use standard 8 ½ X 11 paper or the half sheet-8 ½ X 5 ½. The paper color is usually (black ink on) white or pastel yellow, blue, green or pink. Doorhangers are well accepted but cost more and take longer to print. Car insurance companies sometimes use business cards with success. For a dressy look, use postcard size and stock with color printing. Restaurants typically send out their menu. Make sure the flyer is easy to read and attractively designed. If you know by survey or experience what your customers like about your product or service, include that by all means.

Q. Do you do the printing too?
A. Presently we do not. We refer clients to Seda’s Printing, near us in Hollywood, at (323) 469-1034. Flyer Distribution Service will pick up your flyers there or at your business, at your request, for $4.00 to $7.00 extra depending on the distance to your business.

Q. What happens if it rains on the day or days the flyers are supposed to go out?
A. It is recommended that you instruct us in advance what you want us to do in case of rain. Many clients say that they prefer to wait on distribution until the weather clears. Office to office is still practical on a rainy day because the work is done indoors except for walking between buildings, where the distributor can still keep the flyers dry. Residential distribution can, at your discretion, still be done, as we deliver primarily to doors and they generally have at least minimal protection from the rain by the eaves of the house. We typically postpone car to car and person to person on rainy days, or dry days when rain is expected to develop during the day, to the next day or next business day that’s clear. You may call to give us your preferences.

Q. How do you stack up against the competition?
A. Flyer Distribution Service is a medium sized flyer company. We are one of the oldest flyer distribution services in this area. Others may have lower prices, but typically deliver several to a half dozen different flyers to a single door, while your flyer here goes out by itself most of the time, or with one other part of the way. We have the lowest minimum order, and the most flexible scheduling of any flyer company in our area. Our workers must pass unannounced inspection once or more times per week, and are bonded. Our distributors typically work here for years at a time. Many have served 5-10+ years. Our pay rates are competitive as well, and always over the equivalent of minimum wage.

Q. Do you have a license/is this legal?
A. We have our city business license in force and licenses for each city requiring them where we deliver frequently. Certain cities prohibit all distribution or only certain types; we are aware of each situation. Car to car, for instance, is prohibited in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Burbank, Van Nuys, San Marino, and South Pasadena.

Q. What kind of services do you offer?
A. Flyer Distribution Service delivers clients’ flyers to homes, apartments, offices, car windshields (or doors), and hands flyers out directly to persons on the street. A postering service is also available.

Q. What areas do you go to?
A. We serve the greater Los Angeles area, including the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, the South Bay area, northwestern Orange County and southeastern Ventura County.

Q. What schedule do you have for serving your areas?
A. We deliver 7 days a week and will deliver your flyers on whatever day(s) you choose, subject to availability. You may also choose whichever area you want, with 1000 minimum distribution per area (2500 minimum outside the L.A. basin and the Valley.)

Q. What kind of distribution/flyer works best?
A. Some types of distributions are obvious-car to car for car insurance, homes for handyman flyers, but otherwise there are no clear preferences. Restaurants do well with apartments, homes and offices, as do chiropractors and doctors. Professional services such as paralegal offices or law offices, go well in offices. The best flyers are easy to read, attractive/classy, and offer clearly better products, services and prices.

Q. What kind of results could I expect?
A. The results will depend totally on the flyer. That said, better results can be obtained with careful selection of the area(s) to be covered. Flyer Distribution Service has general demographic knowledge of the various areas. Typically, a business does best covering its local neighborhood regularly. Homes are where the better income households are. We cannot guarantee results, of course, but do inspect and guarantee complete distribution. Our regular residential clients have reported ½ to 1½ per cent response. Some clients have gotten no calls even on inspected, complete distribution of thousands of flyers.

Q. How do we know all the flyers got delivered?
A. The distributors are each inspected once or more each week, three or more per day, of a crew of 16 at present, on an unannounced basis. The area has to have enough streets covered, evenly and thoroughly, for the distribution to pass inspection. The inspections are marked on a map and kept for reference as needed. Should a flunked area be detected, the distribution is investigated and depending on the circumstances the delivery is rescheduled for completion or redone, per our guarantee. The distributors are bonded.

Q. Do you have references?
A. Yes, these can be furnished on request. Our regular clients have ordered on a weekly basis continuously for years at a time. Many others have monthly or annual regular distributions.

Q. What are your payment terms?
A. We accept company or personal checks or cash at the time the flyers are picked up; you may pay in advance with confidence, given guaranteed delivery. Currently, we also accept American Express Cards.

Q. May I see a copy of the records of the distribution?
A. Each distributor marks with a ballpoint pen the streets he covers and we save this record for a year. Each office to office distributor also lists each building address served, but not necessarily the suite numbers. These records can be relayed by mail or fax on request.

Q. Do you deliver my flyer by itself, or with a bunch of other flyers?
A. Your flyer will go out by itself most of the time, or with one other at the most part of the way. If we know there could be two deliveries in the same area, you may get a 25% discount by agreeing in advance to going out at the same time. In that case your flyer will still be placed separately on the door, as though there had been two separate deliveries made.

Q. How do you deliver to apartments? So many buildings are locked.
A. If the building is locked, we deliver 5 flyers maximum to the magazine rack in the lobby or to the gate if there is no access to the lobby. In many areas over half of the buildings are accessible, and then we deliver to each apartment door, slipping the flyer between the door and doorjamb.

Q. How do you deliver to homes?
A. In most areas that are flat we deliver to the door, slipping the flyer between the door and doorjamb. However, if there is a locked gate or threatening dog, we’ll deliver to the gate or garage door. In hilly areas, we will attempt to go to the door if it is reasonably close to the road, but more often we’ll need to resort to the gate, driveway gate, or garage door. You may request delivery to under the doormat, but we prefer to the door, as inspection of the area is thus made easier.

Q. How do you deliver to offices? So many prohibit “soliciting”.
A. We deliver during office hours to every possible building in the approved area. If building security asks us to leave, we simply will leave, and continue distribution next door. The clean casual appearance of our distributors greatly reduces the instances of being asked to leave buildings.

Q. How do you deliver to cars?
A. Typically we deliver to the driver’s side windshield. On busy boulevards it may be necessary to put it on the passenger side of the windshield. Some of our customer request delivery to the drivers side door, at the base of the window for business cards or between the door and door frame beside the door handle, for flyers.

Q. How do you do person to person delivery?
A. One flyer is given to each passer-by. We greet the person, hand over the flyer and acknowledge the person for taking it. A friendly (though ‘thick-skinned’) approach works well. If the area is busy we’ll just deal the flyers out like playing cards, very quickly.

Q. How do you do the postering service?
A. We visit each store along the business streets of a commercial strip area, asking each shopkeeper whether he or she would permit us to post up the poster in a corner of the front window, near the door, or at the end of the counter, where it would be visible. If it’s OK, the distributor will tape it up himself. The shopkeeper is told, if needed, that we must put it up ourselves in order for it to count for our client. The distributor then marks the address down in his record as having accepted the poster.

Q. What if I don’t have enough flyers to fill the order?
A. If we discover you didn’t give us enough flyers to finish the whole order, we’ll call you to alert you to the matter, and pickup more flyers at your convenience to finish the order, or carry the credit forward into a future order. We store any extra flyers discovered after carefully hand counting your stock, for a limited time. You may arrange to order distribution of the extra flyers or pick them up from here, or have us return them to you.