Political printing remains an effective medium for campaigning at all levels of office. If professionally designed and developed, a political marketing campaign can help a candidate in several ways, including:
- Building a candidate’s brand
- Personalizing the candidate
- Delivering persuasive information to voters
- Generating trust among voters
- Driving interest or support in the campaign
Political printing offers several more advantages. For example:
1) Political Printing Can Be Used with a Variety of Products
Commercial printers have the technology to create a full array of print products for an election campaign. This includes:
- Banners
- Yard signs
- Door hangers
- Flyers
- Brochures
- Posters
- Postcards
- Push cards
- Mailers and contribution envelopes
- Professional letterhead
- Thank you notes and cards
- Apparel, including hats and shirts
- Campaign buttons
- Promotional items like pens, key chains, tote bags and water bottles
In addition to the above, experienced printers also have design talent on staff. These professionals can develop a campaign’s logo and other brand marks using design practices that deliver maximum impact.
Expertly designed logos convey trustworthiness and professionalism – traits that all candidates would like to be associated with.
2) Professionally Printed Campaign Materials Provide Long-term Visibility
Radio and television marketing campaigns are defined by their short-lived nature. They blast their message in seconds and pass from memory just as quickly. As such, it’s easy for voters to tune them out. It’s fair to ask – is this providing the campaign with an acceptable return on investment?
Print materials are more likely to make a long-term impact on voters. Part of this is the added trust that comes with print. Another advantage is print’s longer-lived nature. After one person is done reading a campaign brochure or door hanger, they may set it on their desk, put it on a kitchen counter, or stick it on the fridge.
These print products will continue to raise campaign awareness weeks after voters initially receive them, and if your political marketing campaign includes apparel, it can reach voters wherever those hats and shirts are worn.
In this way, political printing provides ongoing value for candidates.
3) Print Campaigns Can Be Targeted at Certain Groups of Voters
Targeted marketing is extremely valuable for political campaigning. Most candidates appeal to certain segments of the voting audience. Some are more popular among older voters, while some perform better among younger people, for example.
There are many ways to divide a voting audience into targetable groups. If your campaign knows what demographics to go after, print campaigns can be customized and targeted to capture those voters.
For instance, push cards and brochures can be designed so that they emphasize your target audience’s most important issues. The campaign’s logo can be designed with this same idea in mind – using colors, typography and images that are more likely to appeal to a certain type of voter.
With print, this targetability can be taken a step further. Campaigns can choose which areas – down to the neighborhood – to focus print marketing efforts. Yard signs, door hangers and mailers are all examples of this in action.
Extracting maximum value out of every marketing dollar is an important measure of success for campaigns. Print supports this goal because it can be easily targeted at high value voting blocs. In short, print gives candidates the most bang for their campaigning buck.
4) People Give More Attention to Print Messaging
According to the USPS, the typical person spends 30 minutes looking through their physical mail. That’s a lot of time carefully considering everything in their mailbox – which could include your campaign’s marketing materials. Attention is a valuable commodity in political branding, and it seems to be harder than ever to get people to stop and focus on something. One of the best windows to capture that attention is when people are going through their mail – a perfect opportunity for political campaigns.
In fact, the USPS has studied the emotional impact of print mail on people who receive it. Its research compared brain scans between people who viewed a digital political ad, and those who viewed a print ad. When considering a print ad, brain scans indicated more activity in the parts of the brain associated with desire.
For politicians, this association is valuable. If your political marketing generates a positive emotional response, voters will be more likely to remember it on election day.
5) Print Messaging is Considered More Trustworthy
There’s something about holding a physical piece of print and having the time to carefully consider it. If people are given that time to review a politician’s platform before judging it, they’re more likely to view it with trust – or at least without snap judgment.
Think about the typical political TV advertisement. It’s quick, light on information and often negative. Viewers are given little time and guidance to formulate their opinion – which can push people into skepticism. Print isn’t pushy.
This may be why marketing research consistently shows a trust advantage for print. There are too many studies to count on this topic, and it isn’t confined to just political printing. For example, a study by MarketingSherpa found that consumers of all generations consider print ads more trustworthy than online ads when making a buying decision.
There’s no commodity more important than trust in political campaigning, and no form of marketing is as trustworthy as print.
Political Printing Can Strengthen Your Campaign’s Messaging and Branding
It’s worked for centuries and for thousands of candidates, and political printing can also work for your campaign. An experienced commercial printer can scale up your campaign branding strategy with an expanded range of print products and high-quality printing services.
