Flyers etc are not a great use of resources. For every thousand you hand out, you can expect 5-6 responses. Out of those responses, maybe 1 or 2 will become regular clients.
I hear this all the time, but it hasn't been my experience at all. In fact, we (2 therapists) get a ridiculous amount of business from our flyer, including regular clients.
We hang flyers in 15-30 locations at most, focusing on areas that meet our target market, and average 10-20 new clients per month, with at least a few per month becoming regulars. We live in a small city with a high turnover of population (people come, stay for a year or two, then leave), so we have to constantly add new regulars to offset those moving out of state.
We hang about 15-30 flyers around town, depending on the current business volume and season. We place them in locations frequented by people likely to have disposable income and/or chronic pain or injury. (We do structural and orthopedic work.)
The biggest problem with flyers is that most people make mistakes in the design phase:
Information architecture is key. The flyer needs to succinctly convey the very few points you want to get across. This is not a brochure. People are busy going to and from their daily activities, keep it short enough they can read it without even stopping. Tell them what you do and how much it costs. Don't try to explain the entire massage therapy profession on your flyer.
Now that you've got it down to maybe a few words, you should have plenty of room to make the font REALLY BIG. If I can't read the important parts from 20 feet away while walking past, it isn't very effective now is it? Unless your target demographic is very bored and enjoys reading random flyers to kill time. Mine isn't.
Color is key. Print that flyer on colored paper. Any good flyer location will probably have other flyers as well, make sure you stand out. The color choice should also reflect your business or the specific ad campaign. For example, we usually use a shade of blue or green, but have used red for Valentine's day specials.
Staple a professional business card to the top of the flyer. Any schmoe can print a flyer, but professionals have business cards. Nice business cards.
Tear-off tabs on the bottom with your business name, phone number, and website on the front of the tab. We also like to put whatever discount we're advertising on the back of the tabs. People will spot our flyer, think of a friend that can benefit, tear off a tab, and give it to them. It happens all the time.
This is what works for us, along with targeted Google advertising. I track metrics on aspects of our business, and our return on investment for the flyers is close to 1000%, whereas it is only about 300% for internet advertising.