Do I need yard signs is probably one of the first questions new candidates ask themselves. The answer is a resounding YES! Are they the most important factor in winning your election–no, but they are essential in a winning campaign. Especially in local, and tight elections.
The “Ben Griffin” experiment
There was a study conducted by a team at Vanderbilt in 2011 where they made up a fake candidates and in a local election and put up a sign in a strategic spot where they figured a majority of parents would drive by going to an elementary school.
Three days after the signs were posted, the nearby school’s Parent Teacher Organization, which was cooperating with the professors, emailed the school’s parents a link to a short internet survey. Parents were asked to complete the survey in order to earn $5 per family for the school.
Survey respondents were asked to select their top three choices for the county’s at-large council seats. The seven options included the five actual incumbent candidates running for office along with two fictitious candidates, one of whom was Ben Griffin.
The professors found that nearly a 25% of the respondents who had driven by the signs for the fictitious Ben Griffin placed him among their top three choices for the at-large council seats. Meanwhile, only about 14 percent of the respondents in the control group (those who would not have driven by the fictitious candidate signs) placed Griffin among their top three choices. “The 10 percent difference is sizable given the small number of days we carried out the experiment and how unobtrusive the yard signs were,” Zechmeister said.
“Our study offers fairly conclusive evidence that, in low-information races, a candidate’s name recognition alone positively affects voter support,” said Zechmeister, who co-authored the paper with Kam.
Name recognition can be the difference between winning and losing.
As you run for office, you’re going to have to get your name out there. You need to make sure that people know who you are and what your campaign is all about. Yard signs are a great way to do that because they’re recognizable, they look professional, and they’re easy to put up in a short amount of time.
People will see your yard signs when they drive by or walk down the street. When they see them again later on in your campaign, their brains will recall seeing the sign earlier and connect it back with some kind of positive feeling toward either yourself or what your campaign represents. This can be enough for some voters who were unsure about voting for someone else but were swayed by being reminded about how much more familiar their name seemed compared with others’. This is KEY in local elections!
Another overlooked benefit of signs is rallying volunteers. People like to be part of the winning team. If they see lots of signs out, they will be more likely to spend time campaigning for you, and doing it confidently that they are a part of the winning team. NPR has a great article explaining this in more detail.
How do you get them professionally made, and out in your district.
So, you are convinced you need some yard signs. The question is how to get them made, and get them in people’s yards out in your area.
You can design a yard sign and several other political products from scratch or choose a premade template in minutes, and order them right from your Vottiv account.
The bottom line is that yard signs are a really important part of any local election. They can help build name recognition, and they can make a difference between winning and losing.
Head to vottiv.com for a 14-day free trial where you can design your yard signs, and get them ordered within minutes.
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