01What print can still do, and what it cannot
Two myths sit at opposite ends of this question. One says print is dead. The other says a stack of flyers builds awareness that pays for itself. Neither holds up once you count. On the first: INS reports that in 2025, 95.1% of people aged 16 to 74 in Romania use or have used the internet, with 99.0% of those aged 16 to 34 and 88.7% of those aged 55 to 74 (figures as reported by AGIR's Univers Ingineresc, January 2026). Having ever used the internet is a low bar and says nothing about who looks up a dentist on a phone, but it does mean some of your customers are unlikely to find you through search. On the second: awareness you cannot trace is a hope, and hope is a poor basis for a print budget. We have not measured print for any client, and print is not in any plan we list.
- INS 2025: 95.1% of people aged 16 to 74 use or have used the internet; 99.0% at 16 to 34; 88.7% at 55 to 74
- Having used the internet once is a low bar, not a measure of who searches for you
- Print reaches people at your counter, your door or in the delivery bag, where no search happens
- Print you cannot trace is a guess, in either direction
02How to make a piece of print answer for itself
Give every piece one job and one way to count. Put one offer on it, not a menu. Point it at a web address that exists for that piece alone, a QR code to a page or a short path like yoursite.ro/flyer, so the visits are easy to attribute. Add a code word the customer says at the counter, and ask every new customer how they heard about you, writing the answer down. Fix the dates in advance: a start, a stop and a day you review. Then do the sum before you print. If a run costs 1,000 RON and a first visit leaves you 250 RON of margin, you need four new customers to break even. That is an illustration with round numbers, not a benchmark, so ask the printer for a real quote and use your own margin. Check your city council's rules before leaving flyers on public property. They differ by city and we have not checked each one.
- One offer per piece, and one web address or QR code that exists for that piece alone
- A code word said at the counter, plus the question 'how did you hear about us' written down
- A fixed start, stop and review date
- The break-even sum before printing: run cost divided by margin on a first visit
- A counter card with the QR code for your Google reviews gives print a clear job
03When print is the wrong tool, and where PROOF48 fits
Print is the wrong tool when your customers already search for you at the moment of need. Someone with a burst pipe or a broken tooth is more likely to open a phone than check a letterbox, so a verified Google profile and a fast site do that job; our local SEO checklist for a one-location business covers it. Print also fails when it is cold, wide and has no offer: 1,000 flyers dropped with no target and no address to count them by. And it is a poor first spend if your site cannot take a booking, because the QR code lands on nothing. PROOF48 does not print or distribute anything, and print is in none of our listed plans. What we build is the page the print points to. A landing page falls inside our 48-hour offer, websites run 500 to 2,500 EUR, and you pay after you see the preview, only if you want to keep it. You own the code, the domain, the hosting account and the content. If you need a flyer drawn, hire a print designer.
- Wrong tool: customers who search at the moment of need, cold wide drops with no offer, a QR code that lands on a page that cannot take a booking
- PROOF48 builds the landing page the print points to: inside the 48-hour offer, websites 500 to 2,500 EUR, paid after the preview
- We do not print or distribute flyers, and we measure no client's print results
A salon site with a page per service and a booking flow
SCP Shine & Style, a beauty salon in Sector 3, Bucharest, has a site PROOF48 rebuilt with a page for each service, each with its own copy and media, and a booking flow that points to the salon's live booking platform. That is the shape a page behind a flyer's QR code should have: the service on the card, then booking. The site was not built for a print campaign and we have no print results to quote. We do not publish the salon's booking counts, because we do not measure them.
See the build: SCP Shine & StyleQuestions, answered
Do flyers still work for a local business?
Some do, and the only honest way to know is to count. Give the piece its own web address or code word and a review date. We have no print results to quote for any client.
Is a QR code on a flyer worth adding?
Yes, if it opens a page for that one offer that works on a phone, because that is what makes the piece traceable. A QR code that opens your homepage tells you little, and one that opens a page that cannot take a booking wastes the scan.
How many flyers should I print?
We cannot give a number, because it depends on your margin and your area. Do the break-even sum first: the run cost divided by the margin on a first visit gives the customers you need. Start with a small run.
Does PROOF48 print or distribute flyers?
No. We do not print or distribute flyers. We build the website or landing page the print points to.
Where PROOF48 fits
Print earns its place when it has one offer, one address of its own and a date to review. Without those it is a guess. INS counts 88.7% of Romanians aged 55 to 74 as having used the internet, so some of your customers are reachable on paper and not by search. PROOF48 prints nothing. We build the landing page it points to, inside the 48-hour offer, paid after the preview.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.