What a brochure is for, and what a leaflet is for
They are often confused, but their jobs differ.
A leaflet brings in new people. It is handed out on the street, dropped in letterboxes, slipped into other orders. The reader sees it for the first time and decides in seconds, so the rules of a direct-response ad apply: one offer, one action.
A brochure helps someone already interested. It is given after a consultation, put in the bag with a purchase, left on the counter. People read it at home while comparing options. Detail belongs here: prices, the stages of the work, answers to common objections.
The most common mistake is handing out a brochure as a leaflet. Nobody on the street reads six pages of company history, and the run goes in the bin together with the budget.
Three ways to track
The tracking mark goes on before printing. It cannot be added afterwards.
A promo code. A separate code for each run or distribution point: "PARK10" for leaflets near the park, "OFFICE10" for the business centre. The cashier or manager records the code on every receipt or order. The most reliable method, but it depends on staff discipline: if codes aren't recorded, the tracking disappears.
A QR code with a UTM tag. The QR leads to the site with a tag in the link, for example ?utm_source=flyer&utm_campaign=park. Analytics then shows visits and enquiries from that specific run. It works only if the customer actually acts online. If your customers phone, the QR code captures a small share of the response.
A dedicated phone number. A number published nowhere else, or a tracking number from a call-tracking service. Every call to it came from that run. For businesses where customers phone, this is the most accurate method.
They can be combined: QR for those who act online, a promo code for those who walk in.
A worked example with illustrative figures
The figures below are illustrative, to show the logic, not market prices.
A café prints 2,000 leaflets with a promo code. Printing costs UAH 3,000, distribution UAH 2,000. UAH 5,000 in total. Over a month the code is used 40 times, 25 of them by new customers who were not in the database before.
Cost per new customer: 5,000 / 25 = UAH 200.
Then comes the same comparison as for any channel: does a customer recover those UAH 200 in margin over the first purchases? How to calculate this without fooling yourself is covered in the article on cost per customer. If a new customer costs UAH 350 in Google Ads, the leaflets by the park are the cheaper channel and worth repeating. If UAH 120, the money is better moved.
The promo code won't catch everyone: some people come without the leaflet in hand. So the real return is somewhat higher than the counted one. But for the decision "repeat or not", that imprecision is small enough.
What a brochure needs so that people finish it
- A cover with the customer's problem or the result, not a half-page logo.
- What you do and for whom — in the first lines, not on the last page.
- Prices, or at least a range. A brochure read at home without prices loses to a competitor's that has them.
- The stages of the work: what happens after the call.
- Answers to the two or three objections you hear most.
- One contact for action, and a tracking mark.
Company history, mission and values can go without loss. They are read by people who have already bought.
Our position
For a local business, print is often cheaper than online, because competition for attention in a letterbox is lower than in a social feed. But only on two conditions: the run carries a tracking mark, and the first run is small — so that the decision on the second one is made on data, not on a hunch.
The position does not hold for a business with no physical location or local tie: an online shop delivering nationwide with leaflets in one town will get a result too small and too unrepresentative to act on.