Campaign yard signs. If you’re a political candidate, you know exactly what they are. If you are a voter, you can’t find your way clear of them. They seem to be on every lawn, every street corner, church, busy intersection, and polling place. For you on both sides of the equation, do you realize there is an absolute reason for this? It’s because they are a very critical part of success for those running for office, and they can absolutely sway an election in one direction or the other. There are multiple different outlets where candidates can advertise. The political yard sign, while seemingly antiquated in the digital age that we live, is a trusty, highly effective way to earn name recognition, get a message spread, and to earn an unparalleled cost-per-impression benefit.
Political yard signs are nothing new. They didn’t just pop out of the grass like recently planted seedlings-turned-cherries. In America, this tradition has existed for centuries, dating back to John Quincy Adams in the 1820s. Adams wanted to earn a competitive edge over his opponent in his presidential campaign run. He was able to persuade supportive townspeople to put up his signs in their yards. It worked, and Adams became the country’s sixth president.
Name Recognition:
When November rolls around, and Donald Trump faces off against Joe Biden, the people of this country will, in mass, know who the candidates are. Commercial ads will be more than plentiful, they’ll be crammed down our throats. We will have a decisive idea of who we’re going to vote for. But what if you’re a local candidate looking to earn a seat on the city council? Your advertising dollars may be few. Your name is not well recognized. And, you might even have just decided to enter the political arena for the first time – you’ve been a lawyer or a small business owner, and no one has ever even heard of you. How do you effectively get your name out there?
Yard Signs and Exposure:
One savvy way to do it, and on a tight budget, is buying cheap political yard signs. They can be had for just a few bucks. Purchasing campaign signs cheap draws the eyes of people driving in their cars every day. With all those viewings of your corrugated plastic yard sign, your vote totals increase dramatically. Research has shown that each one of those political yard signs earns anywhere from six to 10 more votes. If you purchase 100 lawn signs, that gets you upwards of 1,000 more votes. On the local level, a thousand extra votes can be the deciding factor as to whether or not you end up in office. Remember in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush won the presidency in large part due to the minuscule amount of 537 more votes than Al Gore in Florida? Let that number marinate in your mind for a minute, then think about the ramifications of what 1,000 more votes can do for you.
When to Put Up Your Political Yard Signs:
One thing you want to put on your to-do list if you’re running for office — order political yard signs. Put a plan into place. Note it on your calendar. Get it on calendars of your campaign team. The point is, yard signs are a valuable part of every campaign. Your opponents will have them exhibited all over town, so you can’t be left out of the race by not earning crucial name recognition.
Ordering Those Cheap Political Yard Signs:
There is no real tenet as to when you should put up your campaign signs. But the general rule of thumb is to have them put up no earlier than eight weeks prior to the election, and no later than four weeks leading up to the day ballot boxes get stuffed. If you distribute those pieces of corrugated plastic that sit on wire stakes too early, you may end up being forgotten as time goes by. Putting up and displaying signage too late, and you’ll have missed out on vast amounts of exposure. The Wall Street Journal reported that custom yard signs can be seen by as many as 25,000 people per day. More numbers for you. If you plant just one lawn sign two weeks after your opponent…you’ve lost out on potentially 350,000 impressions. Oh, and guess what? You can’t place campaign signs around town without having ordered them. Planning is of the utmost importance when placing your political yard sign order. In a campaign utopia, you would start the ordering process about two months before you need them.
Time to Put Them Up:
Be extremely conscious of the amount of time it will take for your team to get those lawn signs placed around town. Time is a precious commodity during campaign season, so plan for the lengthy amounts of hours it will take to get your signs distributed. Click here for information on very important ordinances about political yard sign placement.
Text Amount on Yard Signs:
Here’s a good place to start. If you even think you have too much text on your yard sign, then you do. It can be hard to pull back on the reins of providing as much detail as you can and want, but too much detail takes too long to read. Nike uses only three words for its ultra-successful brand: “Just Do It.” Seems to have worked out pretty well for that company.
Its net worth is nearly $40 billion. To put it bluntly regarding your lawn sign…brevity is better. You also want to make sure at least one third of your sign is blank space. More blank or white space means more legibility. It means people who drive with a lead foot can still take in your message when buzzing by. Click here for more information on best practices on how to create a resonating message on yard sign advertising.
https://www.goodguyssigns.com/blog/how-to-advertise-clearly-on-a-yard-sign/
Additionally, easy-to-read fonts are important. Arial, Helvetica, and Times New Roman are all good, distinguishing fonts to use. They are fonts people are used to seeing on their cell phones, in emails, and in texts. So, there is a familiarity that instantly connects your signage and viewers’ minds.
Choosing the Right Political Yard Sign Background:
There is some real psychology and some understanding of what color schemes will suit you best and draw the eyes of drivers as they pass by. Read on, so voters will read your sign at an optimal level.
Let’s start with Darth Vader black. You see Vader in that all-black outfit. He is menacing and powerful. We use the word ‘menacing’ because that’s what the color black can convey. However, it also gives viewers a sense that you’re authoritative. It’s a fantastic text color on a sign, but you should really think twice about using it as a background on political signs. Remember way back in the day…TV shows and movies always portrayed the hero wearing white. White is associated with innocence and purity from a psychological perspective. White is a good choice for a background on your political yard sign. It is also the most used text color on campaign lawn signs. For an effective background color, you can go with red. Two reasons are the fact that it gives off an appearance of warmth, and that it also displays power. Those are a couple of good traits to get across to voters. Click here for all the best background color options.
Political Sign Design & Color:
We make the smooth transition from background to the importance of political yard sign design and color. Using bright, rich-colored lettering against a white background draws the eye. It’s a clean, crisp look that really stands out. It will give you instant name recognition. Light colors look washed out and are difficult to see, even up close. Imagine driving by that kind of look at 50 miles per hour. That election sign is now wasted. If you absolutely feel like you want to go with a lighter color, combine it with a darker color ink. Yellow ink pops nicely when in combination with navy blue, for example. Big, bold lettering and a brief message are important for design. A long slogan or complex design will have people driving by trying to read a sign that’s now—unreadable.
Be Consistent:
Utilizing the same color and design with your marketing helps voters remember you much better. It keeps getting you that name recognition. Consistency is key to your campaign brand and message. You can buy campaign signs cheap, but be cognizant of the importance regarding yard sign color and design.
The Tangible Effects of Political Yard Signs:
If you’re a candidate seeking office, utilizing cheap political yard signs is a highly potent way to go. There is a tangible aspect to these little corrugated plastic rectangles that has a lasting impression. Think about going the route of a TV or radio ad…the cost can be high, and your message is gone in 30 seconds into the ether of nevermore. Election signs planted in the grass live there for a long time. They are in the faces of people driving to and from their houses. Your name is imprinted on their brain when they arrive at their job. They’ll talk to co-workers about you, and your name recognition therefore grows organically. Who doesn’t like free advertising? All your policies, all the changes you want to make, all the great things you want to do for your constituents…fantastic. But first, you have to get elected. What works? A couple social media posts that get bypassed after an hour, or are never seen? However, those big, bold white letters against a dark blue background are clearly visible, frankly unavoidable…that’s how you get it done. That’s how you stay embedded in the minds of voters.
The Psychology of Voters:
Two very influential people understand how buying political yard signs can absolutely alter the outcome of an election. They are: political scientist Mel Kahn and psychologist Irving Kirsch. Both have thoughts on how the investment in yard signs produces a ton of voter turnout you wouldn’t get otherwise.
What Kahn Says:
Mel Kahn has been a political science professor for 50 years. On political yard signs, Kahn states, “People don’t vote for persons whose name they do not know. And so, it’s a way, at the grassroots level, of establishing name recognition.” As mentioned earlier in this article, Kahn says that for each yard sign posted, it earns a candidate six to 10 votes. Doing the easy math, if you put 5,000 cheap campaign signs out there, that comes to 30,000 to 50,000 votes. You think that might be able to swing an election in your favor?
What Kirsch Says:
Kirsch hypothesized that people who see a candidate’s name on political lawn signs are recipients of a placebo effect and classic conditioning. The placebo effect can change the behavioral strategies a person pursues. Classic conditioning can affect earlier stages of information processing. So, when people drive by and see political campaign signs, that first name recognition might stick in their minds, and perhaps they vote for that candidate.
While neither of these extremely smart men’s theories are absolutely proven by testing, they didn’t make it to their elevated stations in life by being stupid. So maybe the smart decision by candidates looking to win an election would be – put up political yard signs.
Political Yard Signs Work:
What if I told you that some people who do research on political yard signs say that kind of advertising only increases your vote total by two percent? Sure doesn’t sound worth investing in those 18×24 pieces of corrugated plastic. But, there’s a deeper dive into the process that can gain candidates a competitive advantage over opponents.
Let’s Do Some Voting Math:
Since 1984, the use of coroplast campaign lawn signs has more than quadrupled. So, that two percent goes along with it. If you’re running for office, and it’s a tight race during the election, that little two percent can go a long way. Think about this: In a 1910 contest for Buffalo, New York’s congressional district, Democrat Charles B. Smith snuck by incumbent De Alva S. Alexander by a single vote, 20,685 to 20,684. How’s your two percent right about now?
Low Information Voters & Election Impact:
“The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.” -Aristotle
The famous Greek philosopher was way ahead of his time. His knowledge and insight into the human persona are legendary. With this particular quote, he nailed it in regard to the political spectrum and something that continues to play out over 2,300 years after he died. Aristotle was referring to the fact that people should be informed, not conform, as it pertains to knowledge. Unfortunately, lack of knowledge is something that continues to disrupt so many facets of daily life in the world. Here, we focus on disruption in the political arena.
Low Information Voters:
Wikipedia defines low information voters as people who may vote yet are generally poorly informed about political issues. The phrase was coined by American pollster and political scientist Samuel Popki in 1991, when he used the phrase “low-information signaling” in his book The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. The thought behind the term was based on the fact that millions of Americans went to stuff ballot boxes not having a clue as to the necessary information needed to make an intelligent choice. That’s where political yard signs can seriously come into play for candidates running for office.
Three Words and 130 Characters:
Most voters are not consuming dozens of hours of political programming each week. Hard copies of newspapers are dwindling by the second. We live in a country where the standard amount of time spent focusing on messaging entails a mere three words—”Just Do It.” Political yard signs are meant to be brief, like the famous Nike slogan. It’s a prime way to reach people who don’t take other avenues to learn about candidates. Our lives are 130 characters on Twitter. Corrugated plastic yard sign verbiage is even shorter than Twitter, so it’s highly effective.
The Bandwagon Effect on Elections:
The bandwagon effect is a very real psychological phenomenon when it comes to voting in elections. People are social creatures. With the advent of social media, voters post who they will, or who they have voted for. Those on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc will determine to vote for whoever their friends, or those who they’re following “tell them to.” They take cues from those they want to associate with or be like. People will either consciously or subconsciously, mark their ballot for a candidate based upon what others are doing. In the past, the bandwagon effect often started with public polling. With polls often coming out multiple times a day as an election neared, results were often water-cooler topics that bent opinion and amplified the bandwagon effect. Going along with what the rest of the group is doing exacerbates the bandwagon effect, where people feel they’ve ensured themselves inclusion and social belonging. Click here to find out about two global tests that proved the bandwagon effect theory.
The Power of Images to Influence Voters:
The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words continues to hold true in this age of digital messaging, as well as on the old standard political yard sign. The power and transcendence of images lie in the fundamentals and fabric of human nature. We have become innately wired to notice, remember, learn from, and respond to visual elements. Here are some key stats when it comes to the average consumer:
-65% of the country’s population say they are visual learners
-94% of articles with relevant images get more views on average
-10% of information is recalled three days after hearing it. Adding a picture boosts that number to 65%
When drivers pass by your lawn sign at 45 miles per hour, they get a glimpse of you, a fleeting glance. There is no second chance to make a good first impression. If you don’t catch potential voters’ attention in those quick seconds, you will have failed. Therein lies the power of imaging on lawn signs. Can family and pets be a critical role in playing on voter emotions to evoke a positive response toward a candidate? You better believe it. Click here to find out why.
In Conclusion:
For many politicians, election yard signs are the pieces of advertising that either have them holding office or not. There are a multitude of facets that go into a campaign run for a political position, but ye’ old yard sign is more beneficial in a cost-per-impression aspect than any other media outlet. To achieve the most voluminous results, the process of preparing, purchasing, designing, and placing of signage is nothing to take lightly. The many cogs to the engine of political yard sign marketing need to come together and work as one, analogous to the very campaign team vying for a seat at the political table.
