Campaign Walk Cards Are Only as Good as You Make Them
Walk cards are an important element to any field campaign. They give your canvassers something tangible to discuss at the doors and are a great way to introduce your candidate to voters. Unfortunately, a lot of campaigns create walkcards the wrong way. Below is advice on producing great political walk cards.
Cut the Copy
Just like a piece of direct mail, we recommend that you keep your campaign walk cards, which are even smaller than direct mail, short and concise. A 9 x 8 one-fold political walk card does not have nearly the available text space as, say, an 8.5 x 11 piece of direct mail. So when you’re writing campaign walk cards cut the copy, and then cut it again.
Sizing
Obviously, you can’t have a walk card be too big, as it would be unwieldy for a canvasser to carry around and use effectively at the door. To save money, many campaigns will produce a small, two-sided walk card. However, the best walk cards have folds. They will cost a bit more but will provide you with double the amount of surface area and, therefore more opportunities to give the prospective voter a proper introduction to your candidate.
Stick to the Big Issues
Your walk card is not a policy paper. Including too many issues in your walk card will prevent any of these issues from really reaching the voter. Feature only your core three or four contrastive issues and save the rest for your political direct mail or the “issues” section of your website.
Brand your Walk cards
Be sure that you are featuring your candidate’s name prominently on every side of the walk card in which there is text. Similarly, your walk card should include a logo. Your candidate logo isn’t something you should go nuts with, but having a strong logo is a nice way to brand your political communications and further allow your candidate’s name to sink in. And with candidate logos, simple is always better.
Use Bullet Points
We know you want to include a full bio of the candidate on the walk card. However, with very limited space on your walk card, that can’t (or rather, shouldn’t) happen. The full candidate bio should be reserved only for your website. In its place, one method we’ve used with success is a simple “Meet ______” section on the back of the walk card that includes 4 or 5 short bio bullet points about the candidate.
Powerful Headlines
Since walk cards are particularly limited on space, it makes your headlines and subheads all that much more important. Be sure that your headlines are pointed and concisely summarize your body copy in a few, eye-catching words.
Images!
As we’ve written many times, images can speak louder than words. This is particularly true on a tiny walk card. Where many walk cards go wrong is featuring only a boring candidate headshot. People like to look at pictures and having a few great shots of your candidate engaging with regular people will make all the difference.
Have questions about campaign walk cards or need one designed/ drop us a note.