How many signs do you need for an effective campaign?

In our last post on Yard Sign Campaign Strategies, we talked about how to come up with an effective strategy for placement of your yard signs and the arguments for and against them. Once a candidate has decided that a yard sign campaign is worth the investment, typically the next question is how many to get. The suggested number of yard signs purchased depends on a few things.

How well-known is the candidate?

The main purpose of political yard signs is name recognition; to get a candidates name on the mind of voters. While they are important to any campaign, yard signs are more critical to the success of a challenger‘s or first time candidate’s campaign, than to an incumbents campaign. Those candidates who are already well known throughout the community, whether incumbents or not, will not need as large of a yard sign campaign, due to their established name recognition throughout the community.

Will local pedestrians and drivers see the political yard signs?

The second variable for a candidate to consider when calculating their yard sign order is their district. If a district is too rural, voters often won’t see the signs, as there is typically too much ground to cover. On the other hand, if there’s not any ground to place the yard signs in, then it may be smarter to focus more on the distribution of rally signs for your supporters to put in their windows.

Finally, let’s crunch some numbers.

The good news is that there is a general formula recommended for order calculation. For illustrative purposes, we’re going to use a fictitious city council candidate with a district of 30,000 voters. The expected voter turnout for his district is 40% and he has a vote goal of 52%. To calculate the number of political signs needed for your campaign, multiply the number of voters, by expected turnout. Then, you’ll multiple the product of that equation by the vote goal. Political yard signs have been shown to increase name recognition by six to ten voters per lawn sign, so your final calculation is to divide by six. If your lawn sign budget is tight, you can divide by up to ten. The final equation for our illustration would look like this: 30,000 x 0.4 x 0.52 / 6 = 1,040 yard signs

Now, keep in mind that there are many factors you will need to take into account and adjust for in the equation. For example, in off year elections you will experience a smaller turnout than in presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections. You will need to adjust the equation for your district’s number of voters, expected voter turnout, and vote goal. Also keep in mind that the more names on a ballot, the more competition you will have for name recognition, and therefore the more yard signs needed.

The decision about a yard sign order comes down to how much name recognition is needed and whether it will be worth the cost or not.

Happy Campaigning!