How to plan a print budget for a local campaign
Print and mail are usually the biggest line in a local campaign's budget. Here's how to decide what to buy, in what order, and what to cut when money is tight.
The short answer
Build the budget from your plan to reach voters, not from a list of products. Work out how many households you need to reach and how (doors, mail, signs, events), turn that into quantities, then price the quantities. Protect the money for voter contact in the final weeks first, and cut nice-to-haves before you cut mail or canvassing.
We've left dollar figures out of this guide on purpose: print, paper and shipping costs move, and current prices on our product pages are always the real ones.
Step 1: know your numbers
You need three numbers before you can budget anything:
- Households in your district. Your supervisor of elections or county election office can give you registered-voter counts by precinct, and the USPS EDDM route mapper shows household counts by carrier route.
- Votes needed to win. Take the expected turnout from the last comparable election and work out what a winning share looks like.
- Weeks until Election Day, and when early voting and mail ballots start.
Step 2: plan voter contact in layers
Most winning local campaigns stack three layers, roughly in this order of priority:
- Mail to the households that matter. Mail reaches people who don't answer the door. Decide how many drops you can afford (one introduction, one issue piece and one get-out-the-vote piece is the classic set) and whether to mail every household with EDDM or only likely voters with a targeted list.
- Canvassing. Door hangers and palm cards for every door your volunteers can reach. See palm cards vs. door hangers for quantities.
- Visibility. Yard signs, banners and early-voting site gear. Signs build name recognition; they don't persuade on their own. Size them with how many yard signs you need.
Step 3: turn the plan into quantities
Write each item as a quantity times a reason:
- Mail: households per drop × number of drops
- Door hangers: doors you'll knock × number of passes
- Palm cards: expected conversations + events and early-voting days
- Yard signs: supporter yards + permitted corners + 20 to 30 percent for loss
Then check the price breaks. Print gets cheaper per piece as quantity rises, so rounding up to the next tier is often the better buy, as long as you'll really use the extra.
Step 4: put it on a calendar
A budget is also a schedule. Mail has the longest lead time (printing, post office drop and delivery), so its dates go on the calendar first and its money gets set aside first. Our campaign print timeline and the order-by dates on the products page show when each order has to go in.
Keep a reserve for the last three weeks. Reorders for door hangers and signs, plus a final mail drop if the race is close, are where campaigns most often run out of money.
What to cut when money is short
Cut from the top of this list first:
- Novelty items and extras (buttons, extra banner sizes)
- A second sign wave, if supporter yards are already covered
- Glossy brochures, if palm cards can do the job
- Mail drops to areas you can canvass on foot
Protect, in this order: the final get-out-the-vote contact, canvassing materials for every volunteer shift, and at least one mail piece to every household you can't reach in person.
Ways to stretch the budget
- Bundle by phase. Our Kickoff, Door-to-Door and Election Day packages cost less than buying the same items one by one.
- Order early. Rush production and expedited shipping cost more. The order-by dates exist so you never pay for panic.
- One design, many pieces. Approve one photo, one name treatment and one disclaimer line, and reuse them across every piece. Fewer revisions mean fewer design hours. See disclaimer basics.
- Plan reorders, not one giant order. Buy what the next phase needs, then reorder from real usage.
Quick answers
How much should a local campaign spend on print? It depends on district size and how much you can raise. Most local campaigns put the largest share of their budget into voter contact (mail and canvassing materials). Price your exact plan on our product pages, which always show current prices.
What should a first-time candidate print first? Palm cards, a first wave of yard signs and business cards, ideally the week you announce.
Is mail or yard signs a better use of money? Mail and canvassing reach voters directly; signs build name recognition. When money is short, protect voter contact first.