Is leafleting a horror or a joy?
Of course when you are the sharp end of actually handing out leaflets door to door it is a very different look than being sat in an office planning it. It takes a couple of minutes to mark lines on a map of where you want covered - leaflet distribution in Ipswich by proxy and then another bit of thought as to what sort of houses would be best. When you look at a map on the wall you don't see the actual effort invoved in doing the job however. Take a row of terraced houses - the front doors are all close together which makes the leaflet distribution a breeze. The volume deliverable per hour is vastly different when compared to a more residential area in a village out of the town - like Woodbridge or Stowmarket.
For a start you have a 30 minute drive in the van just to get there (we don't get paid till we start). Then the houses are further apart and have longer drives. Very nice if you live there but the simple fact of the matter is to distribute leaflets in a place like that can take 3 minutes a leaflet (assuming all the houses are "suitable" whereas it can be 15 seconds on a good terraced row. So few companies take this into account when wanting 5,000 leaflets delivered - they assume 5,000 leaflets = 5,000 leaflets wherever they are to be distributed to and that is incredibly not true. On the above figures you can see Stowmarket (which has around 5,800 houses maximum) takes 12 times as much effort (at least) as a housing estate in Felixstowe! But does anyone expect to pay 12 times as much to cover the area?
There are compensations though - I will admit as a leaflet distributor that walking the streets of Needham Market or Claydon can be so much more enjoyable than Colchester or Brentwood. If the weather is good, birds singing and people are friendly then it's no chore at all - a great way to keep fit, see the sights and get paid at the same time. After all what do many people do when they are on holiday - well not deliver leaflets for sure - but it can be enjoyable work. We get breaks where we can have a picnic and sometimes lunch in some great restaurants or pubs so it isn't all bad. Now when the weather is poor and the streets are mean I'm happy when the day is over. But despite what is often promoted or complained about I'd say the majority of days out in the East of England - or Suffolk anyway - are fine and pleasant. As Billy Connolly once said - there is no such thing as the wrong weather - only the wrong clothes. How true that is. As a distributor of leaflets I can assure you that wearing the right clothes for the day and good footwear is absolutely essential or you are going to suffer unnecessarily with blisters or cold. No need for that - it's not as if clothes are very expensive and Door2Door provide decent overalls and leaflet carrying trolleys.
The outdoor life isn't for everyone, perhaps only for a minority, but I'd much prefer to be outside even on a wet day than stuck in an office - I feel more in communication with the world around me that way. So there is joy in leaflet distribution Ipswich.
