The Campaignguy Blog

DO NOT SKIP THIS BLOG POST! Not every voter is "your" voter. The key to winning an election is knowing who the voters are in your district, understanding your natural "base" of supporters, who thew "swing" voters are (and what issues they care about), and the cohort of voters who will likely not support you (for reasons of policy, party, etc.).  Why is targeting important? I have consulted on numerous political campaigns over the years.  There are four limited resources on a campaign: time, information, money and people.  The first is time.  Time is a resource that cannot be created.  You know exactly how many seconds there are between this moment and the close of polls on election day.  Throughout all of the campaigns I have managed or consulted, I have met many eager candidates who pledged that they will knock on every door in the district.   Well, unless the district is very tiny, or you have superhuman powers akin to Santa Claus, the likelihoo...

  In my last post, I discussed what value signs can bring to a campaign, but signs are not a campaign in themselves.   Signs can raise awareness, provide a show of strength, and they can reinforce your brand. But there are other questions that must be answered: Does it matter if I am running for school board or United States Senate whether I get signs? Who needs to see them? What should they say? How many colors should they have? What size should they be? How many political signs should I get? Where should I put them? Does it matter if I am running for school board or U.S. Senate if I get signs? The primary difference between a school board race and a U.S. Senate race is budget.   Senate races presumably have larger budgets than a local race, but they also have more territory to cover, geographically speaking.   So if the purpose is to raise awareness, signs can help in all sizes of race.   You budget will dictate if you can afford m...

How do you know if you need political signs for yards and lawns in your election? Many candidates wonder what the value or purpose is in the signs they see during a political campaign. As I got started in politics, I made sure that my candidates had a lot of signs.  The conventional wisdom was that the more signs you see for a candidate, the better the chance they have to win.  Right? Not really. Before investing in signage for your campaign, there are a number of items to consider. How many political signs should I get? What size should they be? How many colors should they have? What should they say? What is the purpose of the signs? Who needs to see them? Where should I put them? Does it matter if I am running for school board or United States Senate whether I get signs? Let me start with what I believe is the most important question: what is the purpose of political yard signs? When I was waging a "sign war" against other candidates, I wanted to flood the neighborhoods wit...