The short answer is, unless you employ a tracked distributor, you never really will know because the only way to check is limited.

The Random Property Check

If you contact a property that should've had one of your leaflets to confirm delivery, how far can you go?

Whilst selecting properties at random on streets where your product should have been posted is the most obvious method of checking up on the distributor, there's only so far that you can go before the resident may become unhelpful. 

Think about it....you are potentially asking someone, who may well have been busy when you knocked on their door or telephoned, if they have received a leaflet with content that doesn't interest them.

With this in mind, if the resident is unsure if they have seen the leaflet, can you really ask them to ask other members of the household without it being an inconvenience to them? Maybe you feel that the resident is a helpful sort and asking this question would be ok, but the other dwellers also say they haven't seen your leaflet either. Now what?

You surely won't ask them to check their CCTV to look out for the leaflet being posted?
 

The Probable Scenario

The majority of distribution companies will be operating with honesty & integrity, and in all likelihood your leaflet has been delivered to the property that you are checking but has "disappeared" by way of the resident not really paying attention to it and throwing it away.

However, this scenario is more likely to happen if you don't employ a dedicated distribution service. This is where your leaflet gets delivered along with a host of other leaflets. We've all had a pile of leaflets on our doormats and if the top one is of no interest, we generally throw the lot away, paying little or no attention to the content which results in us not being able to recall if we've received the leaflet or not upon being asked a few days later.

The Solution

Given that the only real method open to you for checking usually results in you basically having to take the distributors word that your leaflet has been delivered, you should only use a dedicated and tracked distribution service. This will be more costly compared to those that don't track or multi deliver many leaflets, but the benefits far outweigh the costs:

• Peace of mind through tracking
• Your message getting through clearly compared to it being mixed up with other leaflets
• Delivery based on your schedule, not when the distributor has enough other customers to make it financially viable for them