Black Friday is upon us and many companies are having special offers well before and after the actual date. Companies are doing whatever they can to stand out and catch consumer attention. One of these methods is with paper flyers or weekly offers and there, we at PinMeTo see an opportunity to save money, be environmentally friendly, and reach more potential customers all at the same time. Below are our 5 reasons why every chain should be creating digital flyers and posting them to their local store’s Facebook pages, either replacing paper completely or as a complement to traditional paper versions.

Quick summary:

• Reach more people - 1 in 4 Swedish households have opted out of paper advertisements

• Let your content go viral - Facebook posts to locations have 75% better engagement than brand page posts

• Be Green - 33% of consumers prefer eco friendly brands and paper produces 3 times its weight in greenhouse gas

• Be available - Digital flyers posted to Facebook will be carried around in your consumer's pockets

• Save money - Posting to Facebook location pages costs nothing but time

Reach more people - Consumers want offers in their Facebook feeds, not in their mailboxes

Today more and more households are choosing not to accept direct advertising mail. According to an article published by SvD, at least 1 in every 4 Swedish households have “ingen reklam tack” (no ads please) stickers on their mailboxes. That means that 1 in 4 individuals with purchase power will get missed, not just 1 in 4 Swedes. At the same time internet usage and especially mobile data use continues to grow (see figure 1 - mobile data usage, below). By digitizing weekly flyers and publishing them on local Facebook pages your business can tap into this trend and take advantage of people’s natural tendencies to access content on the go instead of fighting a losing battle for space in their mailbox.

In addition to reach, the idea of the quality of the view is also important to consider. People who have liked a Facebook page are considered “fans” of that page. Those fans are the ones who have a chance to see a post from that page in their newsfeed. According to a study by Buffer, nearly half of all people who like a page (42%) do so in order to receive a discount or offer. In other words, while people are asking not to get offers in their mailbox, they are taking action to receive them on Facebook!

Let your content go viral - Enable customers to be your salespeople

One of the best forms of advertising a company can have and one of the most powerful purchase intent influencers is word of mouth. One of the major differences between a paper flyer and a digital flyer posted on a Facebook page is the ability to tag a friend. It is far more likely that a person will tag a friend in a Facebook post if they know that person is interested in something than it is that they will call them up and tell them what they found in a flyer.

One of our clients, Redfellas, is using this behavior to achieve extraordinary results. Their strategy is simply to inform the customer and let people tag each other and spread Redfellas message for them (see figure 2 - Redfellas viral and organic reach below).

Not only is it extremely easy for someone to simply tag a friend in a post, but our data has shown that posts made to local pages perform up to 75% better than the same content posted to a brand page in terms of views, click, Likes, tags, and shares.

Be green - Eco-friendly is a big selling point!

While Sweden is a world leader in recycling, the process still costs time, money, and resources. According to this article by SightLine, paper generates three times its weight in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Why bother adding to the problem when your business can get the double positive effect of posting digitally? As more and more consumers prefer eco-friendly purchase options you have the ability to position your company as a one that is conscience of its environmental actions. A recent study published by Unilver showed that a full 33% of consumers are now choosing to buy from brands they believe are doing social or environmental good. This means that you can potentially boost sales while simultaneously reducing cost and waste!

Be available - Offers on Facebook are available around the clock for smartphone users

Global smartphone ownership is expected to reach 2.32 billion units in 2017 and in Sweden, Statista reported that 92% of all people have access to a smartphone at home. That trend is expected to continue to increase as smartphones approach 1 to 1 parity with the Swedish population as a whole (see figure 3 - Swedish smartphone users, below).

Combining this information with mobile data usage suggests that not only is smartphone ownership on the rise, but people are using their phones more and more as well. How this impacts the paper flyer versus digital flyer conversation is this: A paper flyer will end up in the trash or at best, on a countertop somewhere. A digital flyer posted to Facebook will be carried around constantly, always ready to be reviewed. Instead of having to print two sets of weekly flyers, one for home distribution and the other for in store display, you could post to Facebook and ensure that your flyer was carried around by your consumers all day long.

Save money - Skip the printing, shipping, and recycling costs

Whatever your current costs are for printing and shipping paper flyers the cost of Facebook posts is zero. Creating and publishing a Facebook post costs nothing but time and more than likely, you already have a team creating digital content that can be used directly instead of transferred to paper.

Summary

Creating and distributing digital flyers on local Facebook pages is less expensive, reaches a high-quality audience, reduces your company’s environmental impact, increases the vitality of your content, and takes advantage of your consumers' smartphone habits to ensure that your content is carried around with them all day. This leaves only one question: Why are you still trashing your own brand?