Audience targeting for leaflet distribution
Audience targeting for leaflet distribution matches postcode sectors to audience segments before a single leaflet moves. UK arts and tourism teams profile their bookers with Audience Spectrum or ACORN, model a drive time catchment, then choose run types to suit each segment. iDO delivers against that plan across 150,000 print points, GPS tracked.
Sugandan Balaji
How do you target leaflet distribution beyond the postcode?
Targeting leaflet distribution beyond the postcode means choosing rounds and venues by who lives or travels there, not by what fits neatly on a map. Audience profiling is a segmentation method that sorts UK households into groups by their cultural and leisure behaviour, so a print plan can be built around the people most likely to book.
The starting point is your own data. Booker postcodes, membership records and ticket sales are profiled against a segmentation system, which returns the segments that over index for your venue. Those segments are mapped back to postcode sectors, high streets and venue types, and that map becomes the distribution brief. iDO plans this way across 150,000 print points and more than 5 million brochures every month, the biggest print distribution network in the UK.
What are Audience Spectrum and ACORN?
Audience Spectrum and ACORN are the two segmentation systems most UK arts and tourism marketers use to profile an audience. Audience Spectrum, from The Audience Agency, groups UK households by cultural engagement. ACORN, from CACI, groups households by demographics, lifestyle and consumer behaviour. Both work down to postcode level, which is why they translate cleanly into a print distribution plan.
Neither system tells you where to put leaflets on its own. Audience Spectrum and ACORN give you a ranked list of postcode sectors and a description of the people in them. The distributor turns that ranking into residential rounds, racking sites and poster sites.
- Profile your own bookers first, then model lookalike sectors
- Rank postcode sectors by segment density, not by distance alone
- Match the format and the message to the segment, not just the area
How does drive time catchment modelling shape a print plan?
Drive time catchment modelling defines how far a visitor will realistically travel to your venue, and print distribution is then planned inside that boundary. A local venue works on a core of roughly 20 to 30 minutes. A day visitor attraction usually plans a 30 to 60 minute catchment, with a wider ring for day trippers and holiday stays.
Drive time beats a radius because a 20 mile circle ignores rivers, motorways and traffic. Once the rings are set, iDO treats them as separate jobs: saturation in the core, racking through the middle ring, and tourist information centre and hotel racking at the outer edge where visitors are already staying.
Which distribution run suits which audience segment?
Different audience segments are reached by different run types, so a targeted print plan usually mixes three or four. Families are reached where children already are. Commuters are reached in transit and on the high street. Culture visitors are reached at home in high indexing sectors and at other cultural venues. Day trippers are reached at their accommodation and at information points near the destination.
| Audience segment | Run type | Typical sites |
|---|---|---|
| Families | Ultra local leaflet blanket | Soft play, leisure centres, cafes, libraries |
| Commuters | Hand to hand plus poster sites | Station approaches, high street windows, gyms |
| Culture visitors | Solus door to door in profiled sectors | Residential rounds in high indexing postcode sectors |
| Day trippers | Brochure racking | Hotels, tourist information centres, other attractions |
How do you check the targeting actually worked?
You check targeting by comparing where the print went with where the bookings came from. iDO has invested over £250,000 in its reporting system: GPS tracked distribution, photographed proof of display and a live dashboard with geo located maps, so delivered rounds can be laid over booker postcodes sector by sector.
Add a code or a landing page per zone and the comparison gets sharper. iDO runs this from 60+ distribution centres with teams local to their own areas, and around 500,000 impressions a week on digital screens in barbershops, gyms, pubs and bars can be aimed at the same sectors to build frequency.
Frequently asked
- Can you target leaflet distribution by audience rather than postcode?
- Yes. Profile your bookers with a system such as Audience Spectrum or ACORN, rank postcode sectors by how strongly your segments appear, then brief distribution against that ranking. iDO delivers to the chosen sectors across 150,000 print points and reports the result on geo located maps.
- How big should a print catchment be?
- Plan by drive time, not distance. A local venue works on a 20 to 30 minute core. A day visitor attraction usually plans a 30 to 60 minute catchment, with hotel and tourist information centre racking beyond it for visitors already staying in the area.
- Do you need audience data before booking distribution?
- No, but it improves the result. Booker postcodes alone are enough to rank sectors. With no data at all, iDO plans from venue type and drive time, then uses the reporting from the first campaign to refine the next one.