A guide to raising your name ID

At the heart of any political campaign is, in essence, a marketing solution. Instead of trying to sell chips or cookies, the product is the candidate, and the consumer is the voter. Like it or not most people vote the same way that they shop. While taste and quality is important, they’re more likely to choose a brand name that they recognize a majority of the time.

So, when it comes to Election Day and they get to the ballot, the majority of voters will vote for the candidate whose name they recognize the most. While most candidates understand the correlation between campaigning and marketing, many don’t understand that many of the techniques used to convince consumers to buy a certain good, can (and are) used by campaigns to persuade voters to choose a certain candidate.

One good example of this is repetition. Repetition is the key to raising name recognition and the ways of creating recognition are near endless. Every time a voter sees or hears your name is one more repetition. If they receive a mailer saying you’ll be in there neighborhood next week, that’s one. When you stop by and speak with them, that’s two and when you hand them a packet while speaking with them that’s three.

When a volunteer calls to ask about putting a sign in their yard that’s four, when the sign gets delivered it’s five and every time they and their neighbors see your name on that sign in their yard that’s one more. By utilizing, radio ads, newspapers, social media and traditional political marketing, you can build your name recognition. Once your name is known, it’s at that point that your name will start to be associated with the position you’re running for and the message you’re running on.