A leaflet dropped into a letterbox lands on a pile that already holds bills, a supermarket circular and a letter from the council. A hanger on the door handle has nothing to compete with - it hangs alone, at hand height, and the resident takes it down before stepping inside. The same content, an entirely different route in.
This post is not about designing the hanger, it is about delivering it. About when it is worth investing legwork and time in a door round, and when it is better to drop a leaflet in the letterbox instead. Both forms make sense, just in different situations.
- A hanger reaches places where the letterbox is absent, or locked and shared by the whole building.
- It does not mix in with a pile of post, so the chance of someone looking at it goes up.
- It costs more work: somebody has to physically walk up to every door, so the area has to be compact.
- It pays off for a local service with a fixed address, a new venue and an offer for a single estate.
- With a wide catchment area and a low order value, the leaflet in the letterbox wins without discussion.
- One piece per door, clearly signed, nothing that resembles official correspondence - that is the minimum of decency.
The letterbox and the handle are two different points of contact
Before you compare the content, compare the place. A leaflet and a hanger reach the same person at a different moment of the day and in a different state of attention, and that changes almost everything.
- A shared letterbox in a block of flats - the resident opens it every few days and takes everything out at once. Your leaflet is then one of several pieces of paper, and the sorting happens over the bin next to the boxes.
- A letterbox by the gate - better, because there is less post, but the content still travels into the house in a bundle with everything else.
- The handle of the front door - the hanger is the only thing there. The resident has to take it down to get in, so it ends up in their hand for a moment. That moment is the entire advantage of this channel.
Approach it exactly as you would choose a leaflet for a specific place of handing out - we covered that in our post on how to adapt a leaflet to the place where it is handed out.
What you gain and what you pay for it
The door handle channel has one big advantage and one big drawback. The advantage is attention: the hanger competes with nothing and is physically in the way. The drawback is labour: somebody has to reach every door on foot.
An honest comparison with the leaflet in the letterbox
- The leaflet wins on reach - in the same time it covers many times more addresses, especially where the letterboxes stand together in one spot.
- The hanger wins on attention - it does not vanish into a pile, because there is no pile there.
- The leaflet wins on access - you can reach a letterbox even when the stairwell or the property is locked.
- The hanger wins on lifespan - it often ends up on the hallway table or on the fridge, instead of going straight into the bin.
If you are still putting your channels together, the wider view from our post on what really works in local advertising will come in handy. The hanger is one tool there, not a replacement for the rest.
When it pays off and when it does not
The arithmetic is straightforward: since a door round costs more time, it has to earn that back through a higher value per response or a better matched area.
- A local service with a fixed address - a repair shop, a garage, a clinic, a collection point. Someone on the next street is a genuine customer, not a random recipient.
- A newly opened venue - the nearest few hundred doors hold your first customers and it is worth telling them separately.
- Services that travel to the customer - a plumber, an electrician, window cleaning, garden care. What counts is that the hanger lands on the fridge and stays there until something breaks.
- A seasonal offer for one housing estate - snow clearing, an installation check, mowing, the spring clean-up after winter.
And the situations where it is better to let it go:
- A wide catchment area - if your customer could come from anywhere in the city, walking door to door is simply too slow.
- A low order value - the less each response is worth, the more responses you need, and this channel will not deliver them.
- An offer that needs longer explaining - a hanger holds one thought. The rest is a job for a leaflet.
Detached houses versus blocks of flats
This is the one factor that can decide everything, and it is often skipped at the planning stage. On an estate of detached houses a hanger only makes sense if you can walk up to the door. A gate, a fence, an intercom and a dog in the yard mean some addresses drop out - and the letterbox by the gate is what is left.
In blocks of flats it is the other way round. The letterboxes are gathered on the ground floor, so a leaflet is quick and cheap, but the flat doors sit behind a locked stairwell. With access, the hanger works beautifully - one staircase means a dozen doors in a few minutes. Without it, the choice is obvious.
Walk the route once without any hangers, carrying a notebook. Count the doors you can genuinely reach, not the flats on the estate. That number, plus a small margin, is your print run - usually far smaller than the map suggests.
How not to annoy the resident
A hanger comes closer than a leaflet, so it is easier to irritate somebody. A handful of rules is enough for the round to read as information rather than an intrusion.
- One piece per door - two or three read as littering and undo the whole effect.
- Make it obvious who left it - the name, the address of the venue and a phone number. An anonymous card on the handle breeds distrust.
- Nothing that looks like official correspondence - no stamps, no emblems, no words such as summons or notice. That is the shortest route to a complaint.
- Do not cover the lock or the spyhole - the hanger belongs on the handle, not in the way of getting in.
- Respect a no-advertising sign - you simply walk past those doors, with no exceptions.
- Watch the weather - a card soaked by the rain looks like rubbish.
How to plan a single round
A round that counts has a beginning, an end and a way of checking the result.
- Mark out the area on a map - compact, coverable in one outing. A smaller patch done properly beats half a district done in a hurry.
- Count doors, not flats - only that number, with a small margin, forms the basis for your print run.
- Settle on one reason to call now - one offer, one date, one number.
- Add a way of measuring - a separate phone number, a phrase to quote when ordering, or a question asked at first contact.
- Pick the time of day - an afternoon before residents come home beats a morning.
- Review it after two weeks - count the enquiries from that area and compare them with the print run. Only then do you know whether to repeat it next door.
For the round itself you can order ready-made door hangers with a hole for the handle, and for letterboxes and your own counter, classic leaflets. The best results usually come from combining both: hangers on the nearest streets, leaflets wherever reach matters. If your offer changes from season to season, see also when frequent updates in a small print run beat one large print job.
A hanger on the handle is not a better version of a leaflet. It is a different channel, one that buys attention at the cost of time. If your customers live nearby and a single job genuinely counts, that trade is worth making. If you are looking for them across the whole city - stay with the letterboxes.
