IV therapy flyer: what to put on it and how to tell if it works

What goes on the flyer, top to bottom

Someone will look at your flyer for a few seconds on a gym counter or a hotel desk. In that time they need to know who you are, what you offer, where you go and how to book. Put the parts in this order:

1. Your business name and logo, large enough to read from across a counter.
2. One headline that names the service and the place, such as "Mobile IV hydration, we come to your home, office or hotel in Tulsa." Use your own town.
3. A short menu of the drips you want to sell from this flyer, each with its real price. Three or four is plenty. A full menu belongs on your website.
4. Where you go or where you are. A mobile business lists its service area. A lounge lists its address and hours.
5. One way to book: a QR code that opens your booking page, with the short web address printed under it for people who do not scan.
6. A phone number that takes texts, so someone with a question can ask without calling.
7. Who does the visit. A line such as "Every visit is with a registered nurse" answers the question a stranger has before letting someone into their home.

Leave white space. A flyer packed with every service and every logo is harder to read than one that sells one visit well.

Pick one offer and one page to send people to

Each flyer should do one job. A flyer at a gym might sell a recovery drip after a race. A flyer for wedding planners might sell a group booking on the morning of the wedding. A card you leave after a home visit might ask the client to book again or tell a friend.

Send the QR code to a page built for that one offer, with the same headline, the same price and the booking button near the top. If the code opens your homepage, the reader has to hunt for the drip they just saw. Our guide on landing pages and homepages explains the difference.

Print one version per place. The gym flyer and the wedding flyer can share a design, but each gets its own QR code so you can tell them apart later.

Make the flyer trackable with a tagged QR code

Print is easy to waste money on because nobody can tell what it brought in. A tagged link fixes most of that. Google Analytics explains that "By adding utm campaign parameters to the destination URLs you use in referral links and ad campaigns, you can view which campaigns refer traffic." The same help page says the values show up in the Traffic acquisition report.

Build the link first, then turn that full link into the QR code. A link for a gym flyer could look like this:

yoursite.com/recovery/?utm_source=riverside_gym&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=race_recovery

• utm_source is the place the flyer sits, such as the gym, the hotel or the planner.
• utm_medium is print, the same word on every flyer, so all of your paper shows up together.
• utm_campaign is the offer.

Write every value in lowercase and keep the spelling the same each time. Google Analytics treats values with different capital letters as different entries, so "Gym" and "gym" would split into two rows.

Some people will text instead of scanning. Print a short offer word for them, such as "Mention RACEDAY when you book." If you are the one answering texts between visits, add a "How did you hear about us?" question to your booking form, or keep one note on your phone and add a tally each time someone says the word.

Words that keep a flyer within the rules

To the FTC, a flyer is an ad like any other. Its health products guidance covers print, and it tells marketers to judge the "net impression" of the whole ad, including the product name and the images. So a drip named after an illness, or a photo that hints at a cure, counts as a claim even if the text never says it.

This has happened to an IV business. In 2018 the FTC brought its first case against an IV therapy marketer, a Texas and Colorado chain that advertised its drips as treatment for cancer, multiple sclerosis and heart failure. The proposed order barred those claims unless they could be backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence.

Describe what is in the drip, how the visit works and what it costs. Leave out what it treats.

Lines that describe the service: "Fluids and vitamins, given by a registered nurse at your door." "Book a group visit for your wedding party." "Prices include the nurse visit."
Lines to leave off: anything that says a drip cures, prevents or treats an illness, beats a hangover for certain or works better than seeing a doctor.

Small print does not rescue a claim. The FTC guidance says a fine print disclosure at the bottom of an ad is not clear and conspicuous. If a line needs a footnote to be true, rewrite the line.

If the flyer says free or offers a discount

A "free add-on with your first drip" is a common flyer offer. The FTC guide on the word free says that all the terms, conditions and obligations of a free offer "should be set forth clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer". On a flyer, that means the condition sits right next to the offer in the same size type, for example "Free vitamin add-on with any drip, first visit only."

Do not raise the price of the drip to pay for the free item. The same guide says buyers can expect that the seller will not recover the cost of the free item by marking up the item they have to buy. Our guide to running an IV promotion covers pricing the offer against your costs.

Add a review code to the card you leave after a visit

A mobile nurse can hand a small card to every client at the end of a visit. One side can carry the booking QR code and the offer word. The other side can ask for a review. Google Business Profile Help says "you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code." You create that link or code from your profile.

Keep the review side free of any reward. Google says offering free or discounted goods or services in exchange for reviews is strictly prohibited, so a line like "Leave a review for a free add-on" can get reviews removed. A plain line works: "Thank you for having us. If you have a minute, a Google review helps other people find us."

Where IV flyers get seen by people who book

Place flyers where people already plan for the moment a drip fits:

• Gyms, running clubs and fitness studios, near the front desk or the class schedule.
• Wedding planners, venues and bridal shops, aimed at the morning of the wedding.
• Hotels and short-term rental hosts, as a card in the welcome folder.
• Offices and HR teams, for a group visit before a busy season.
• Your own clients, as the card you leave behind after each visit.

Ask the owner or manager before you leave anything, and offer to come back to restock. If a partner asks for a fee for each client they send, talk with your medical director or an attorney first, because some states limit referral payments for health services.

How to tell if the flyer paid for itself

Give each flyer a few weeks. Then open the Traffic acquisition report in Google Analytics and look for your print medium. Each source shows the visits that came from that location's code and what those visitors did on the page. Add the bookings that came in by phone or text with the offer word.

Compare the bookings each location brought in against what you paid to design and print for it. Keep printing for the places that book. Move the rest of the stack somewhere new, with a new source name on its code.

When a flyer brings in clients, the same offer and page can become a Google Ad aimed at that town, because you already know the wording works. For the channels that come after print, see how to get more IV therapy clients.

Sources

• URL builders: Collect campaign data with custom URLs, Google Analytics Help
• Health Products Compliance Guidance, Federal Trade Commission
• FTC Brings First-Ever Action Targeting IV Cocktail Therapy Marketer, Federal Trade Commission
• 16 CFR Part 251, Guide Concerning Use of the Word Free and Similar Representations, eCFR
• Tips to get more reviews, Google Business Profile Help

Want us to do it for you?