Why Campaign Signs Are A Better Choice
Some people would like to give campaign signs a bad rap. They deride political signs as clutter, an annoyance to look at and make a town "unsightly" for a while.
But, there are very good reasons political campaign signs are one of the best ways to spend the precious resources of a campaign. Here are a few reasons:
- Yard signs are cost-effective. Compared to direct mailing costs, campaign signs are cheap! Today, if a campaign is going to do direct mail, they need to do full color - because that's what everyone is doing. Plus, the cost of full-color direct mail printing has come down over the last few years, while one and two color printing has gone up. If you're printing literature, you might as well print full color - but it's all expensive. So, instead of spending 50 cents per mailer on a household (and you'll have to mail them several times to be effective) you can knock on a voter’ s door, introduce yourself and ask if the voter would like a campaign sign.
- Campaign signs give you visibility. Ever see a billboard? Of course. But that's what your campaign signs are - little billboards. Every time you get a new yard sign location, you've got a new marketing center helping your political campaign. Your campaign signs will work for you from the time you put them in the ground until Election Day. If you're able to generate many yard sign locations, like 2 or 3 per block, there will be a strong undercurrent of chatter about your campaign.
- Political campaign signs are an implied endorsement. It's pretty safe to assume that if someone is hosting one of your campaign signs in their yard, they will vote for you. Not always the case, but how many people take yard signs for people they don't like? Not many. So, if you know there are 2.3 voters per household and you get 350 signs out, and you need 2,200 votes to win, you're nearly half way there – AND – even some people who vote for you will not take a campaign sign.
- Campaign signs are affordable. There are many ways to get your message out. You can buy radio time, air TV commercials, send out direct mail, hold fund raisers, buy billboards and pay people to stand on the street corners. All of these activities cost money, often lots of money. But a political candidate can buy campaign signs for as low as $1.00 or $2.00 a piece. When you add up total impression, dollar for dollar, you'll always get more value per 1,000 voters with political campaign signs.
Although no political campaign can win with just one technique, it's important to remember that campaign signs are a great way to get your name in front of the largest number of people for the lowest per voter cost.
