A poorly designed door hanger is destined for the same fate as any poorly designed direct marketing piece: the wastebasket or recycling bin. So, it follows that, like any type of marketing piece, in order to be effective, a door hanger must be well designed. And when you put a well-designed door hanger onto local doorknobs, your phone rings, your shop is full, and you might have to start a waiting list.

Here are five tips you can use to create response-getting door hangers:

1.) Use a bold image.

Like with any marketing piece, nobody is going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out something that isn’t clear. This includes the graphic image you use. So make sure it’s something that can be identified at a glance. You want to the recipient to see the image and know what it is as they are walking towards their front door from 10 feet away. Before you send your door hanger design to print, do the ten-foot test: pull up the design on your computer screen, cover the screen with a magazine or book, have a friend of family member stand 10 feet away and then pull the magazine/book away for a few seconds. Can they tell what the image is? If not, choose another image and test again.

2.) Ensure the image makes sense.

Not only does it have to be recognizable at 10 paces, it’s also got to relate to your business. If you’re a travel agent, you might choose a shot of the Eiffel Tower or people in swimsuits on a beach. If you’re a pizzeria, naturally, it would be pizza. If you’re a plumber or mechanic, if could be a wrench. Anything that visually represents the product or service you provide goes a long way in delivering an effective marketing message.

3.) Remember the target.

While door hangers are a more general type of marketing method, you can still create a certain level of personalization by ensuring that they get hung on the right doors. For instance, if you ran a building and office cleaning service, you would not put your hangers on residential doorknobs. If you’re a pool cleaner or gardening service, you would not hang your hanger on apartment doorknobs.

4.) Do you have a call to action?

Just because it’s a door hanger doesn’t mean you’re “off the hook” about having a call to action. As with any kind of marketing (except the really lame kind), you must make it clear what you want the owner of the doorknob to do. If you want them to contact you, say so and include a phone number and/or URL. If you want them to visit your shop, say it and include the address and business hours. If you’re offering a discount or other deal, indicate for how long it’s in effect. This way, people know what you want them to do.

5.) Don’t cut corners.

One aspect of your door hangers that is very easy to control is the overall product quality. You can have a friend, family member, or employee proofread your copy to ensure there are no errors. You can choose glossy stock, which produces crisp text, brighter images, and no chance of smudging. It costs a little bit more but the higher quality also says that your business is high quality: sharp, detail-oriented, and trustworthy.

All you have to do now is choose a neighborhood to do a door hanger campaign and then log on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei where you can choose from many design templates to create a high-quality door hanger.

If you’re wondering how door hangers work with postcards-one helps the other. Give Opportunity Knocks a ring at 1 (866) 319-7109 and we can tell you all about it. We can also handle the design and mailing, if you’d rather just…hang out (buh DA boom).