Killer Campaigning » Political Campaign Materials

Buying Political Campaign Candidate Business Cards

killercampaigning — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:39:18 +0000

One of the most often overlooked–and under-utilized–political campaign tools are candidate business cards. When you’re running for office in a local election, you’re bound to meet voters in places that you might not expect to . . . and at times when you don’t have your campaign fliers or other materials on you. That’s when political campaign candidate business cards come in handy.

Many new candidates in local elections think that business cards are only for elected officials, but that’s simply not the case. Buying a couple hundred of simple business cards that include your name, contact information, website address and the office you are running for is good planning, even if you don’t end up using all of them on the campaign trail.

Armed with campaign business cards in your wallet or purse, you should always be on the lookout for potential voters when you’re out and about in your district. Whether it’s at the grocery store, the library or the gas stati0n, don’t be afraid to politely ask people if they are residents of your district. If they are, let them know you are running for office, hand them a business card and tell them you’d appreciate it if they would vote for you.

Keeping political campaign business cards with you is good for more than just handing out to potential voters, though. They’re also good for posting on bulletin boards at local shops and other venues, too. Although this isn’t a great political campaign strategy by itself, posting your card in public places does help build name recognition if done in conjunction with other methods.

Buying business cards for your local election campaign is much cheaper than you might think. In fact, I order all of my business cards from VistaPrint, which actually gives them to you for free if you pay for shipping (extras like glossy sheen cost a few dollars more). You can quickly design the cards yourself on their website, and you’ll have them at your door within a few days.

Local Election Map: Political Campaign Precinct & Ward Maps

killercampaigning — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:20:42 +0000

In a local election, your political campaign is the journey; election day–and victory–is your destination. And just like with any trip you take, running a successful political campaign is made immeasurably easier with a good map . . . in this case, maps of the precincts and wards in your district or city.

One of the first things you should do when you decide to run for local office is get your hands on an up-to-date, detailed map of that shows the boundary lines of precincts and wards. If your local political party leadership is worth its salt, then they should already have copies of a precinct map to give all of their candidates. If not, you can always get them from the city engineer’s office or your county board of elections.

When I’m involved in a local election, I always like to take my precinct map and get it blown up as large as I can. I then go and get a couple of dozen copies made, since you’ll likely be using it both for your own planning and to hand out to campaign volunteers if they do door-to-door canvassing for you.

If you’ve done your homework ahead of time and identified which precincts are likely to deliver you the most votes on election day, then you can use your election boundaries map to highlight exactly which streets and neighborhoods are contained in these precincts. As you visit these precincts during your door-to-door efforts or literature drops, you can cross off the streets you’ve already visited and keep track of where you need to go next.

I’m a pretty visually-oriented person, and having a clear picture of exactly where I’ve been and where I need to go next helps me out immensely as a political candidate. I also get a lot of satisfaction out of crossing off streets that I’ve visited on my map and watching as it gets filled in progressively over the course of the campaign season.

If you want to get really detailed, you can also use highlighters to color-code the precincts that are most important to your campaign and differentiate them from precincts that you aren’t going to concentrate as many resources in. You might decide to knock on doors in your most important precincts two or three times during the course of your local political campaign, and only hit the less important precincts once.

Regardless of how you use them, no serious campaign should be without local election maps showing the boundaries of wards and precincts in your district. After you’ve studied them long enough, you’ll learn the precinct boundaries like the back of your own hand . . . which makes you an even more effective candidate for public office and, eventually, a more effective elected official.

Local Election Analysis: Analyzing Political Campaign Results

How to Win Any Election: the Local Political Campaign Guide

killercampaigning — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:15:16 +0000

I’ve never recommended any pre-packaged political campaign plans or guides here on Killer Campaigning, although I’ve had several people approach me about promoting their “how to win your local election” products. The problem that I have with most how-to books for new political candidates is that their tips just aren’t thorough enough; it’s tough fit all of the advice you need to win a local election into one package.

I admit that I haven’t read every book, guide and plan out there that claims to show political candidates how to win a local election, but I did check out quite a few of them before I ran for office myself. Most of them won’t teach you anything that you couldn’t learn right here on Killer Campaigning, but there is one that actually maps out the exact same steps that I personally used to win my first local election.

Joe Garecht’s How to Win Any Election Kit is without a doubt the best single political campaign advice product that I’ve ever seen, and it’s a resource that I’ve personally used. In fact, I use it so often–both in my own campaign planning and here on Killer Campaigning–that I have the entire kit in a folder right on my computer desktop (it consists of a HUGE amount of templates, advice and pre-written plans and fundraising letters).

Joe Garecht isn’t just some bozo who worked on a couple of political campaigns–he’s America’s foremost expert on winning state and local elections. He’s consulted and managed some of the biggest names in politics, and he’s quoted frequently in the media–including The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Hotline and Roll Call.

As someone who has run a political campaign for local office and won, I can tell you that the How to Win Any Election Kit has everything that you need to build your campaign from the ground up. Even if you’ve never run for office before, Joe’s kit will show you exactly what you need to do get on the ballot, gather a team, and start your campaign.

Like I said, this kit contains a MASSIVE amount of information. In addition to the 178-page “How to Win Any Election” E-book, you also get a master’s class on advanced tactics to build political momentum; a professionally-written sample campaign plan; sample fundraising direct mail letters; a sample political press release, and more.

I’ll let you go check out the How to Win Any Election Kit over on Joe Garecht’s site yourself, and I’m sure it will end up helping you as much as it helped me. Don’t forget: if you’re a candidate in a political campaign, then campaign consulting items like Joe’s kit are legitimate campaign expenses, and can be purchased from your campaign funds!

Polling Places & Minimum Distance for Political Campaign Signs, Candidates

killercampaigning — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:09:17 +0000

If you’ve never run as a candidate in a local election before, you might not know that many states have a law that doesn’t let you do any political campaigning whatsoever within a certain distance of polling places on election days.

If I remember correctly, that minimum distance is 50 feet here in Ohio. This means that a local election candidate cannot put up political campaign signs, hand out campaign literature, greet voters, or have any volunteers wearing political campaign shirts within 50 feet of the polling place.

The county boards of election are usually very strict about this rule, too. Even if you want to come inside the building where voting is being done to use the bathroom at some point during election day, you need to cover up all political campaign shirts, buttons and stickers that you might be wearing.

Luckily, in my county (Lorain County, Ohio), the Board of Elections does a good job of marking exactly where that 50 feet is by putting up small flags at the maximum distance the night before the election. Since many local election candidates put up political campaign signs around the polling places on the night before election day, this helps them stay outside of the “no-campaigning zone.”

So, is this a good rule or a bad one? Frankly, I don’t even think it’s worth discussing one way or another. It is what it is, and if you’re a political campaign candidate then you need to make sure that you and your volunteers are following it by staying the minimum distance from the polling places.

Besides, to tell you the truth, there are plenty of other things you should be doing on election day that don’t involve hanging out at the polls. The vast majority of people who are showing up to vote have already made up their minds, and seeing some guy standing there with your t-shirt on isn’t going to sway them one way or the other.

If you want my advice, be sure to put up some of your campaign signs around the polling places the night before election day, and don’t be afraid to spend a couple hours in the evening greeting voters as they come to the polls. But the majority of your time on election day should be spent contacting your likely voters and making sure they get out to the polls in the first place.

Anyway, make sure you check on your state’s laws regarding how close you are allowed to put up campaign signs and greet voters at the polling places. Getting too close to the polls with a campaign shirt on might not get you thrown in jail or anything, but it is pretty unprofessional and tacky.

Ultimate Guide to Local Elections & Political Campaigns?

killercampaigning — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:12:48 +0000

David, a Killer Campaigning fan from Nevada, wants to know where he can find a foolproof guide to winning political campaigns and local elections. I don’t think he will like our answer, but his question brings up some great points:

“Hi I’m a fan from Nevada who hasnt but is thinking, about running for political office on a local level. My question is this, where can I buy or get my hands on something like the ultimate guide to winning a local election. Do they even make this kind of political campaign guide, if so please tell us what the best one is to purchase, thanks in advance and great site.”

Thanks for the question and the compliments, David, but I’ll be honest with you: there really isn’t such a thing as an “ultimate guide” to winning a local election or running a political campaign perfectly. There are some great campaign resources out there–including Killer Campaigning and several other election strategy websites–but a list of political campaign secrets that are guaranteed to win a race for you just doesn’t exist.

Here’s why: because the real secret of winning a local election is hard work, and if you aren’t a candidate who is willing to campaign as hard as you can, then no advice is going to change the eventual outcome on election day. A well-written guide to winning political campaigns might help you add direction to your election effort, but it isn’t going to turn a lackluster candidate into a great one. Unless you add hard work into the mix, any recipe for winning a campaign is going to be the wrong one.

That brings some more advice that anyone who is running for local office needs to keep in mind: when it comes to election books, political campaign strategy guides and the like, be careful what you spend your money on. There are some great resources out there that can help you learn how to win a campaign–I’ve bought a few myself–but make sure you do at least a little bit of research before you purchase any election materials, especially online.

If you do find a political campaign book or guide online that catches your interest, dig a little deeper and find out more about the author and the website where it’s being sold. If some simple research proves it to be a legitimate tool for winning a local election, then don’t be afraid to make the purchase. But if you aren’t sure about the author’s qualifications or the legitimacy of the website, then it’s best to move on to a safer alternative.

To reiterate, there really are very useful political campaign guides out there, and they can work wonders for focusing your efforts and providing valuable checklists. But don’t buy anything unless you plan on adding a whole lot of hard work to the recipe, and be careful about who you buy anything from online.

Political Campaign Supplies: Buying Local Election Products

killercampaigning — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:25:21 +0000

Let’s take our focus away from more advanced local political campaign strategy for a moment and touch briefly on a far simpler–but still important–topic.

If you’ve worked or volunteered in more than a few local elections, then you already know what kind of supplies and products you need to buy and keep on hand to keep things running smoothly. This post is meant for new political candidates and campaign managers who might need a few pointers on what supplies to stock up on before you hit the campaign trail.

While I could list dozens of different supplies that any good candidate needs to have, I’m going to focus on the three that I use the most: Sharpie markers, thank-you cards and stamps.

Pens and paper are a given, and you probably already have them anyway. In my opinion, though, one of the most useful political campaign supplies you could buy for a local election is a Sharpie marker. Sharpies aren’t just good for jotting down an occasional note; they’re also the best tool you could possibly have for scribbling quick thank-you notes and messages on campaign door cards. Especially on glossy fliers or brochures, a Sharpie marker stands out like a regular ink pen won’t, and there are many different colors available to personalize your signature. (Strangely, Sharpie markers were also one of the most valuable tools I learned to carry around as a soldier in the United States Army; but I digress.)

And speaking of thank-you notes, that’s another political campaign product that you want to make sure is in plentiful supply in your office. If you aren’t going through thank-you cards like crazy, then you simply aren’t running an effective grassroots campaign. Luckily, you can find bulk packages of simple thank-you cards for a few bucks at five-and-dime stores; there’s no reason to get too fancy with them.

While much of your political campaign direct mail will probably be paid for with a bulk mail permit, you should still keep plenty of stamps on hand in order to cover any random thank you cards, voter letters, and other items that will need to be delivered over the course of the campaign. Believe me, no matter how many stamps you buy in advance of your campaign, you will still end up running to the post office to pick up more.

If you’re an incumbent politician, experienced campaign manager, or have done election volunteering, I’d love it if you would let the Killer Campaigning readers know what some of your favorite, must-have campaign supplies are. I don’t like to be without my Sharpie markers, but are there other vital tools that you can’t do without on the campaign trail?

Political Campaign Disclaimers for Local Election Candidates

killercampaigning — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:08:50 +0000

One common mistake made by new candidates in local elections is not including their political campaign committee disclaimer on materials that are paid for from their campaign fund. Let’s take a quick look at political campaign disclaimer requirements to make sure that you don’t run afoul of election ethics laws in your state.

A printed political campaign disclaimer is simply a sentence included on campaign materials that states what campaign committee paid for its creation, the name of a representative from the campaign, and the address where they can be reached. While it may seem silly to some first-time local political candidates that they have to include their campaign disclaimer on even the smallest materials, the law is in place to ensure a couple of important things.

The first reason that political campaign disclaimers are important is because they help keep track of all materials that are paid for by a specific campaign committee, and help identify mistakes or violations in campaign finance reports. Secondly, political campaign disclaimers help identify exactly who funds election materials that might present false, slanderous or inaccurate information about political candidates.

Making sure that your election materials follow the rules when it comes to political campaign disclaimer requirements is pretty easy to do (keep in mind that the election laws may be different in your state, and make sure that you do research to find out the specific campaign disclaimer rules that apply to your race).

On printed materials like yard signs, flyers, brochures, literature, mailers, door cards, post cards, hand cards, newspaper and website ads, and any other political campaign trinkets, you must make sure that your disclaimer is printed clearly. It doesn’t have to be huge, and in fact it’s often better to make sure that your campaign disclaimers is small and doesn’t take away from your material message.

In my case, I simply have to include “Paid for by Vote Van Treuren, Phil Van Treuren, Candidate, 171 Harris Street, Amherst, OH, 44001″ somewhere on my campaign materials. This political disclaimer includes the name of my campaign committee, the name of a representative of my campaign (in this case, the candidate himself), and the address of record for the campaign committee.

As I mentioned before, the election ethics laws might be different in your state regarding disclaimers, so please check them out before following my specific advice.

Another option would be to include the name of my campaign treasurer or chairman instead of the candidate’s name on my disclaimer. In fact, many political candidates make an effort to get a well-known incumbent politician or trusted local figure to sign on as their campaign treasurer, since it will ensure that their name will be included on their disclaimer.

Always ere on the side of caution when it comes to your political disclaimer, and try to include it on any materials that are produced by your campaign if at all possible. While many local political opponents might not notice or care if you don’t include your disclaimer on one small flier or sign, there are always adversaries out there who will gladly file a campaign ethics violation report against you for the smallest infraction.

Political Campaign Buttons, Stickers, Balloons, Trinkets?

killercampaigning — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:38:19 +0000

Let’s focus on what I think is one of the most useless things that a local political candidate can spend money on during election season: political campaign trinkets.

Just to be clear, I consider any kind of novelty item that you print your name on and give to voters for free to be a political campaign trinket: pens, notepads, balloons, buttons, stickers, calendars, fly swatters, fans, hats, pins, magnets . . . the list could go on and on.

If you want to buy cheap political campaign materials like these, online or elsewhere, you might want to reconsider what you’re spending your money on.

The misconception that political campaign trinkets help local candidates win elections stems from a similar phenomenon as the campaign billboard obsession. Namely, a lot of unbeatable incumbent politicians and shoo-in candidates buy loads of silly campaign trinkets, so new candidates think that they need to do the same thing to win.

To reiterate: yah, these shoo-in candidates win re-election time and time again while handing out endless amounts of lame campaign junk to people at the county fair and local spaghetti dinners. But the fact is that they would win whether they handed out cheap campaign garbage or not.

Handing out political trinkets is yet another example of the kind of lazy campaigning that makes you feel good about yourself (“hey, everyone is taking a flyswatter with my name on it!”) but that does very little to win a majority of votes on election day.

And the money you waste on the campaign junk isn’t the only problem with this kind of strategy, either. If you’re purchasing trinkets, then the odds are that you’re planning on distributing them at places where you simply shouldn’t waste your time if you want to run an effective local campaign.

It might be fun to stand around and shake hands at county fairs and spaghetti dinners, but it’s certainly not the place to do any effective campaigning. The real gains are made in neighborhoods, knocking on door after door, making phone calls, writing letters . . . and similar difficult, labor-intensive tasks.

So please, skip the campaign trinkets and spend your money on more effective materials, like targeted direct mail printing and postage.

Then again, if you do buy a bunch of trinkets for your campaign, you’ll have plenty of cool stuff with your name on it to play with after you lose your race.

No related posts.

Campaign Flyers, Door Cards, Brochures, Literature?

killercampaigning — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:24:21 +0000

Regardless of where you live, odds are that you’ve gotten some sort of professionally printed paper on your door from a local political campaign candidate asking for your vote. Depending on which part of the country you hang your hat, however, you might call those printed campaign papers any number of things: fliers, door cards, post cards, handbills, hand cards, lit, literature . . . the list could go on.

I’ve lived in several different places in the United States, and I’ve always gotten a kick out of how a common object’s name can change depending upon which state you visit. In one city, you wear sneakers to go jogging. In another, they’re tennis shoes. In still another, they’re called running shoes.

It seems that political campaign literature (yah, that’s what I call it) has even more unique local monikers than sneakers do. As a former political consultant and campaign manager, I’ve heard them called everything from handouts to brochures to ten other things; I’ve seen them spelled “fliers” and “flyers” (the grammatically correct spelling is “political campaign fliers” by the way, not that it matters much).

So, what exactly is my point in this article, and how can it help you win your political campaign on election day? Good question. If you’re serious about being a great political candidate, then odds are that you’re going to do a lot of research online about how to run for office–and odds are that you’ll see similar methods and strategies called labeled with different names depending on who is advising you.

The most effective grassroots efforts will be called “candidate neighborhood canvassing” by some and “door-to-door campaigning” by others (I call it the later, personally). “Political donations” and “campaign contributions” are the same thing, too. So are “political campaign yard signs” and “election lawn signs.”

Get the picture? The point here is that it doesn’t matter what you call something in political campaigning, as long as you use it effectively and it helps you win your election.

Campaign flyers, brochures, hand cards, door cards, post cards, literature . . . who cares, anyway? Pick a word and stick with it. Here’s what’s important: “hard work” is called “hard work” everywhere, and it’s the most important factor in every political campaign, big or small.

Stakes & Wickets for Political Campaign Yard Signs

killercampaigning — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:05:15 +0000

Political campaign yard signs are the cornerstone of many local elections for office, and candidates often devote a large chunk of their campaign budgets toward purchasing them. Although Killer Campaigning has cautioned in the past against relying to much on yard signs, they are a resource that every candidate needs to have in some degree in order to run an effective campaign.

We’ve discussed political campaign yard sign design in past articles, but haven’t devoted much time to an equally important element: yard sign wickets (or stakes, depending on what you call them). Without stakes and wickets, political campaign yard signs become pretty useless, as they can’t be placed in any yards at all.

First, let’s recap the two different types of campaign yard signs and the benefits and shortcomings of both. The first type of yard signs are constructed of corrugated plastic, or Coroplast. These are, by far, my favorite type of yard signs to purchase. They hold up to the wind and rain, look better, and last longer.

The downside is that corrugated plastic yard signs they are slightly more expensive to purchase. In the long run, though, I personally think they save you money, since there will be more left to pick up and use for the next election after your race for office is over.

The second type of yard signs are made of folded cardboard, poster board or plastic bags. They cost much less to purchase in bulk, but look a lot cheaper and get destroyed and ripped easily in the wind and rain. Many political candidates still use these types of yard signs because of the affordability factor, but I’m not fond of them.

The type of stakes or wickets you use depends upon what type of yard signs you purchase. Corrugated plastic (or Coroplast) yard signs are usually supported by wire H-Frame stakes that insert directly into the sign and allow you to use a horizontal cross-bar to step on and push the wire directly into the ground more easily.

Another new type of metal stake for use with corrugated plastic yard signs simple single metal stakes that are purportedly even more resilient and strong than H-Frame wickets. (A company called CampaignPros has developed a variation of the single stake called The Beefy Stake that they claim is the most effective yard sign stake on the market).

If you decide to go with cardboard, poster board or plastic bag yard signs (which I don’t suggest), the you will have to buy U-Frame stakes to support them. The U-Frame wickets allow you to simply slip your cardboard sign over the frame and push it into the ground, but I have found that they bend and get uprooted much more easily.

Remember: if you run a good political campaign, they type of yard signs you use will have little to do with whether you win or lose. You can run a winning campaign regardless of what kind of yard signs, stakes and wickets you use, but you’ll quickly discover the positives and negatives of different designs.