Good-bye to a great friend: Alan Locke

December 15th, 2009 3 Comments

Alan LockeAlan Locke, the founder of Winning Campaigns, passed away on Sunday morning in Florida, after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Before he created Winning Campaigns, Alan Locke was Vice President of Operations and Consultant/Director of Political Training at Campaigns & Elections magazine in Washington, DC for eight years. He was previously the publisher of Business Magazine, a chain of business-related magazines with circulation in excess of 100,000 in the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Alan was a great man; wise, funny and sharp.  He loved politics and campaigns. 

Alan spent a lot of time with his advertisers on the phone.  He was always ready to talk shop, answer questions and give his take on things – and he always has a different take on things.  He kept his personal politics to himself, but would let an opinion slip, just at the right time.  Alan was genuine and was always good for a few minutes of laughs on the phone.

Thanks to a good friend for many good memories.

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How are some political candidates wasting thousands of campaign dollars?

December 14th, 2009 1 Comment

The color of your campaign logo is a very important part of planning your campaign.  And, some political candidates waste thousands of dollars by making purchases without considering the costs associated with their decisions.  To prevent wasting money on your political campaign, start with some basic planning.

Campaign logos can be one, two, three or full color.  No matter what you choose, the number of colors used will directly affect the cost of your campaign signs and other campaign supplies.

So how many colors should you use?  What do you want your campaign logo to look like?  How much money do you have to spend?  What percent of your budget will be used for purchasing print collateral, signs and other campaign supplies?  Answering these questions first provide guidelines to follow.

No matter what color or colors you pick, you’ll also be using white, as most printing is pressed on white substrate.  A substrate is the material you print on; in campaign sign printing, our substrates are usually poster board, corrugated plastic or polyethylene. 

Standard screen printing colors are your lowest cost option.  Most printers charge between $50 and $100 for color-match, so a standard color will save you some money.  As a side note, no printer can guarantee an exact color match.  If they do, they aren’t being straight with you.  Many printers usually run 100% accurate, but since color is a perception issue, color guarantees can’t happen.  That shouldn’t sway you from picking a set of colors, then using them in all your print work.  In fact, picking the right colors for your campaign is important and sticking to near-perfect color throughout all your campaign materials should be your goal.

Often first-time candidates want to “stand out” and try to do so by getting cutesy.  It doesn’t work.  Voters don’t respond to odd.  They like what’s seems comfortable; so use what feels comfortable, predictable but add a surprising twist – something interesting.  This of course is a fine line.  What’s in good taste to one person is in poor taste to another.  Be memorable without being strange – people are already suspect of anyone who wants to run for political office; don’t reinforce the stereotypes.

Stand out because you have clean design, good use of color and readable type.  Of course you won’t get that by using a cookie-cutter “design online” type campaign printer.  You need a high-quality logo, designed by someone who’s either worked in politics and knows what works, or a graphic artist who is capable of good, clean work.

Good one-color usage: Your artist can make a great looking one color logo by using text, reverse type (also known as knockout type) and a simple graphic element.  Use one-color printing when you’re screen printing and use full color when you’re off-set printing (brochures, post cards and door hangers).

Good two-color usage: Use one color as your main color and then use the second color as a supporting color.  Again, use a single, simple graphic element.

Remember, a political campaign rarely has any excuse to use three color screen printing.  You’re wasting money at that point.

To select your campaign colors, consult an experience political printing expert.  Look through a Pantone color chart or swatch book to pick the appropriate color.  And, utilize the standard colors of your screen printer.  This will ensure you’ll get the closest match of color in all your campaign printing and political materials.  If possible, print all your campaign materials with the same printer.  Screen printers generally use the same ink brand and colors consistently.  Fire Red will be Fire Red today or in two years; it will always look the same.

When choosing your campaign colors, be sensible, be creative but don’t let vanity or pride get in the way.  Your political campaign contributions are precious and you cannot afford to throw away money on extras.

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Political Fundraising: What “gift” should be sent to campaign contributors?

December 7th, 2009 2 Comments

A candidate asks: “I’d like to send donors a gift to say ‘thank you’ for their contribution; something flat that can fit in an envelope, any suggestions?”

It’s appropriate to want to properly thank a campaign contributor for their monetary contribution to your political campaign. And, it’s likely that as the candidate, you want to express your gratitude by thanking with a gift. It makes sense.

So, wouldn’t this be a great opportunity to send the contributor a gift? The answer is absolutely not. People have done this before and it doesn’t get the reaction you’d think.

Contributors would rather get a personal, hand-written note from you. A sincere and warm note will mean more to them than a gift, and it will demonstrate your campaign is a good steward of your contribution dollars.

Sending the potential contributor a “gift” will only feel like “stuff” to them. They’ll feel like they are throwing their money away, which will kill your response rate. No, it won’t make them feel more “obligated” to send a check.

But, when you’re raising money for your campaign, it’s absolutely necessary to send a follow up to the potential contributor. Let’s assume you’re making phone calls (“dialing-for-dollars”) and someone says they’ll send you a contribution of $100.00. At that point, it’s a pledge, and you need to follow through and make sure it materializes.

Therefore, after you’ve ended the phone call, you must write a thank you note telling them you appreciate their contribution; this should be a hand-written note on either note or greeting style card.

You also need to include an envelope that’s addressed back to you that has the postage already paid on it. In other words, a self-addressed stamped envelope. This technique will increase the response rate dramatically. You may also want to put in a response card as well. Remember, people don’t want to waste time, so make stapling their business card to the response card an option.

If someone is contributing to a political campaign, they’ve usually been around long enough to know that a candidate needs to save their money for voter contact programs. That means they want to see you spend your campaign money on signs, door hangers, direct mail, postcard, get-out-the-vote efforts, early voting and absentee programs, door-to-door, fundraising and other activities that gain your campaign votes.

A contributor will appreciate diligent spending of campaign dollars more than a gift.

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Google Maps for tracking your political campaign yard signs

December 3rd, 2009 5 Comments

Google Maps for tracking your political campaign yard signs
By Phil Van Treuran

Phil Van Treuren publishes daily political campaign tips at Killer Campaigning.

Individual yard signs might not cost much, but add them all up and you’re looking at a pretty hefty political campaign expense. In smaller local campaigns, yard sign costs frequently eat up most of a candidate’s budget, making them all the more important to keep track of (especially if you plan to use them again in future efforts).

The options for tracking the locations of hundreds of yard signs used to be pretty sparse: Excel spreadsheets were as high-tech as it got, and many campaigns didn’t even go that far. While writing down your yard sign locations is still a great backup, I’m going to let you in on a cool secret that helped me track every sign in my successful city council race: Google Maps.

If you’ve ever used Google to search for a local business or location, you’re probably familiar with Google Maps. Google has mapped the entire United States (and the entire world, for that matter) from a bird’s-eye perspective, and lets anyone with an Internet connection see an overhead view of just about any spot on the globe.

But here’s a little-known bonus that political candidates can find in Google Maps: it also lets you create and save your own overhead maps complete with virtual thumbtacks marking hundreds of separate locations.

You can see the potential for yard sign management already, I’m sure. The process is really simple: just sign up for a free Google account, go to the Google Maps application, and click on the link that says “my maps.” Another click on “create a new map” will allow you to do just that; simply type your city into the search box to find local neighborhoods, and start laying down the placemarks where your yard signs are located.

I’m going to assume that you can figure out the rest and won’t get too technical. For an example, here is the map that I created to track my yard signs in Amherst, Ohio.

Google Maps has a lot of potential for other political campaign uses too, including supporter tracking, donor tracking, houses to avoid . . . you name it!

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4 Unique Uses for Your Political Campaign Signs

November 30th, 2009 No Comments

We’d like to welcome guest blogger Joe Garecht from LocalVictory.com.  Joe helps local candidates win elections.  He always has a great point of view.  If you are a candidate who needs some guidance or a second opinion, visit Joe’s site at www.LocalVictory.com. 

4 Unique Uses for Your Political Campaign Signs
by Joe Garecht from www.LocalVictory.com

Yard signs are a “must have” for any political campaign, no matter how small or large.  Signs raise your name ID, reinforce your message, and excite your supporters to get out the vote on Election Day.  The simplest way to use your signs is also the most effective: find supporters to place the signs on their lawns and street to show widespread support for your candidate.

If you’ve got some extra signs, here are 4 other unique and effective uses for your political campaign signs:

1.   Sign-Waving
Grassroots campaigns can show lots of energy and generate lots of buzz by holding well-planned sign-waving campaigns throughout the district.  Find volunteers who are willing to commit two hours during rush hour or on a weekend afternoon to stand at a well-travelled intersection waving your campaign signs and handing out literature.  Your best bet for maximum buzz is to send volunteers out in groups of 3-5 to wave signs together on the same corner.

2.  Election Day Jump
Every campaign likes to place signs at the polling places on Election Day.  This year, if you are in a district where the signs won’t get “stolen,” get a jump on your opponents’ by having volunteers go out to the polling places the night before (11pm or later seems to work best) to place your signs in the best positions (and in large numbers), then have your poll workers arrive early the next day to make sure your opponent doesn’t move your signs to make room for his or her own.

3.  Mass Placement
Do you have a supporter who owns lots of properties in the district?  What about a real estate developer who has a bunch of apartment buildings or commercial office buildings in your town?  Ask him or her for permission to place a number of signs on each property.  For example, if you have a supporter who owns 10 small apartment buildings in the district, ask for permission to place 3 yard signs on each… this is a great way to get up 30 signs by only making one ask.

4.  A “Regulars” List
Have you run for office before?  Are you an incumbent running for re-election?  Consider starting a “regulars” list of supporters who agree to allow you to place yard signs each election without needing to ask for permission first.  Some campaigns start each cycle with a list of 100-200 homes whose residents have agreed to always permit the placement of signs.  Send out a postcard to this list one week before you place the signs reminding them that they gave permission and telling them that the signs are coming the following week (and giving the homeowner a number to call to cancel that permission).  Then, go out and place your signs.  This is a great way to get a huge number of signs up as soon as the campaign begins!

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Should campaigns advertise online?

November 20th, 2009 No Comments

I thought we’d kick off the first blog posting with something that “tech savvy” campaigns or candidates might consider.  Should a political campaign “advertise” online.  First, we should define what “advertising” is in this question.  Advertising would be the act generating impressions or clicks from paid online mediums.  Okay, that was quick.  Now let’s walk through some of the fragments of online advertising to see how they apply to a political campaign.

You’ll find a lot of young (and novice) campaign workers who’ll advise the candidate so do a large spend on their online program.  While it’s true pretty much anyone running for office should have a website, there are probably better ways to get your online message out than spending tons of money.  (Side note: don’t bother with a website if you’re not going to develop some decent content and use some sort of template – or better – that showcases you in a good light.  I’m talking to the County Board type races.  If you do it, pay someone a set fee to create and maintain your web presence.  There are affordable solutions, just search “campaign websites” on Google and you’ll find some good options.  Small campaigns shouldn’t be trying to reinvent the wheel.  Large campaigns better offer a high quality online presence or you’re toast in the digital war.)

Having said ‘clicks,’ I would advise most campaigns to do a PPC campaign on Google and Bing.  (Why Bing?  55+ use it as their primary search platform and that’s who votes.  They often “google” with a little g their search on Bing.)  The reason why is because the cost of a PPC for an entire campaign, geo-targeted would be lucky to break $30.  There just won’t be that much search volume.  In a small state’s gubernatorial race, you’d be lucky to spend more than $500 total on PPC.

Stay away from banner advertising.  I be clearer: don’t ever buy a banner ad.  If site owners are energized about your campaign and would like to donate, fine.  But don’t waste time and money on banners.  They just don’t work; they never have, they never will work and while the mainstream media has tried on several occasions to convince us otherwise, it’s money down the drain.

“Social networking”  is the next topic.  It’s a dumb name, but no one has created a better label.  This would be Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter and a million others.  Small campaigns can basically ignore social networking; the juice is not worth the squeeze.  While it all sounds good, it takes up too much time you can be using for knocking on doors.  Larger campaigns however would be crazy not to utilize the buzz platform.  And, it’s all about buzz.  Usually it must be authentic to work.  Although I’ve seen complete fabrication chat pick up steam.  A large campaign should you LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Anything else will likely not reach far enough.  All of these vehicles are free.  Use them, but be careful, not fully understanding the audience each speaks to can backfire and do so quickly.

What about a paid ad on Facebook?  Sure.  Go ahead.  Again, you’re not going to reach a large spend with it.  But, make the ads issue or event related.  This takes a lot of time, probably will energize your base and drive the opponent crazy.  All sometimes worth it, just depends on the race.

Paid directories: No.  These are worthless.

Search engines: Submit your site (domain name) to the major search engines.  Make sure you create good meta information to the spiders know how to index you.  (People have said that meta is dead, but I beg to differ…but it’s great for those of us who still use rock-solid meta in our work.)

Youtube.com: It’s free to post your vids on the tube, so have at it.  Again, their paid options couldn’t cost a large campaign so if you have the time and people resources, have at it.  Some smaller campaigns trying to act large (for whatever reason)  will post tons of video to YouTube.  Dumb.  Just put out those videos that will accomplish a specific goal.  To date, no political campaign has properly used YouTube – no, sorry kids, not even the big O.  (Crowd shutters.)  YouTube is growing up, but the full potential is far from maturity.  The next campaign who uses YouTube properly will receive deep rewards.

Email: Most larger campaigns with any grasp of digital are smart enough to collect email addresses and then send “periodic updates” to their list.  But, few campaigns know how to use email effectively.  Email should be used very carefully with end-result in mind.  The email should have something to say, be available in text and HTML and be professionally done.  A political campaigns email program should be planned out from beginning to end.  Even those “emergency” emails should be written months in advance, playing into the over-all strategy.  Email marketing in a political campaign should be segmented as well: know who you’re mailing what message to.  Your email program should be planned and funded; both easy to accomplish.

While marketing your campaign online can feel like a lot of work, setting priorities and creating goals will help reduce the confusion and stress.

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Welcome to the CandidateSigns.com blog!

November 12th, 2009 1 Comment

We’re excited to add a blog to the free information about campaigns, politics and campaign signs here at CandidateSigns.com.  Make sure you bookmark this is, sign up for the newsletter, follow us on Twitter and become our friend on Facebook!

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