How a Formby Indian Takeaway Generated 340 New Orders in 6 Weeks on a £1,100 Budget
A hyper-local leaflet campaign that introduced a beloved independent Indian takeaway to thousands of Formby households — bypassing third-party delivery platforms entirely.
The Challenge
The Spice Room had been serving fresh, authentic Indian food in Formby for over four years. Despite a loyal base of regulars and glowing word-of-mouth reviews, the owners were struggling to grow beyond their established customer pool. Like many independent takeaways, they were heavily reliant on Just Eat and Deliveroo — platforms that charged commission rates of 25–30% on every order, eating significantly into already tight margins.
Formby is a relatively affluent, close-knit community on the Merseyside coastline with a high proportion of family households and professionals who regularly order takeaways. The owners knew that thousands of potential customers lived within a mile of the restaurant who simply didn't know they existed. They needed a direct, tangible campaign to introduce The Spice Room to the neighbourhood — and a compelling reason for people to order direct rather than through the platforms.
The Solution
Hyper-Local Radius Targeting
Leaflet-Delivery.co.uk mapped a precise 1.2-mile delivery radius around the restaurant, identifying 6,000 households across Formby village, Freshfield, and the Altcar Road corridor. Every leaflet was guaranteed to land on the doormat of a household within a realistic ordering distance — no budget wasted on homes too far away to convert.
Full Menu Leaflet with First-Order Discount
The A5 double-sided leaflet featured The Spice Room's full menu with mouth-watering photography, a 20% off first direct order discount code ('SPICE20'), and a QR code linking to their own ordering website — deliberately bypassing the commission-heavy third-party platforms and directing every new customer straight to the restaurant.
Shared Distribution for Maximum Budget Efficiency
With a total budget of £1,100, Leaflet-Delivery.co.uk recommended shared distribution — delivering alongside a small number of non-competing local businesses. This kept the cost per household low while maintaining full coverage of all 6,000 homes in the target area, making the budget stretch as far as possible.
Trackable Results with Unique Promo Code
The 'SPICE20' discount code was unique to the leaflet campaign and required at checkout on the restaurant's own website. This gave the owners a precise, real-time count of every new order generated by the campaign — making ROI calculation transparent and unambiguous from day one.
“We were giving away 25–30% of every order to the platforms. Leaflet-Delivery.co.uk put our menu through 6,000 doors in Formby and within weeks we had 340 orders coming directly through our own website. The SPICE20 code made it completely trackable. We're never going back to relying solely on the platforms.”
The Results
Within 6 weeks of the leaflet drop, The Spice Room received 340 new orders using the SPICE20 discount code — a 5.7% response rate that significantly exceeded the owners' expectations. At an average order value of £28, the campaign generated over £9,500 in direct revenue against a total spend of £1,100 — a return of more than 8x.
Crucially, all 340 orders were placed directly through the restaurant's own website, saving The Spice Room an estimated £2,700 in third-party platform commissions compared to if those same orders had been placed through Just Eat or Deliveroo. Many of those new customers have since become regulars, ordering directly at full price — compounding the long-term value of the campaign well beyond the initial results.
Key Highlights
- 340 new direct orders from 6,000 leaflets
- 5.7% response rate — well above industry average
- £9,500+ revenue generated from a £1,100 spend
- 8x return on investment
- £2,700 saved in delivery platform commissions
Frequently Asked Questions
By directing customers to order through the restaurant's own website using the leaflet's QR code and SPICE20 discount code, every new order bypassed Just Eat and Deliveroo entirely. This saved the restaurant an estimated £2,700 in commissions compared to if the same orders had come through third-party platforms.
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