[In our previous article about how to get far more name-recognition from your yard signs, we showed how a few simple tweaks can make your signs FAR more readable, and readable from further way. In this follow-up article, we’ll show how proper positioning can then give you double, triple, quadruple the voters reading your signs as they drive by. And while this may seem obvious after we demonstrate, it’s amazing how many candidates get permission to place a yard sign, and then the sign is placed so that it can hardly be read by passing voters!]
As we mentioned in the last article, most people (and marketing books) overlook the fact that before anyone can read your (poster, yardsign, advertisement, headline), you must first “CATCH THEIR EYES.”
And where you position a lawn sign upon a lawn can make a HUGE difference in how many people will see the sign, and therefore a huge difference in how much name-recognition you get from that yard sign.
Let’s Look At a House …
Here is a house in the middle of a block. Not a big house, not a tiny house. A very average house in the middle of a block.
Now, for some reason, many homeowners who agree to take a yard sign, and many volunteers who are out placing yard signs, seem to think they are labeling the house. And so the yard sign will often be placed as shown here …
Yard Sign Far Back, Facing the Street
Now, if it happened that a person’s car ran out of gas immediately in front of this house, boy this would be a great position for the yard sign. But that’s unlikely, right? In actual fact, people are driving up the street, usually at 30 miles per hour, sometimes faster. Assuming the frontage of this house is about 50 feet, when you do the math, you discover that the window of time when they are in front of this house is only one second.
And they can see the sign only if they’re looking to the side instead of watching where the car is going. Few wise drivers operate vehicles like this; it’s dangerous.
In fact, a driver is FAR more likely to see the sign when the house is still ahead of the car, perhaps one, two, or three houses ahead. Well, that’s good, because it means now he’s got three seconds or more to see it.
Let’s see how the sign looks from one or two houses away …
Yard Sign from Up The Road
Oops! You can’t read the sign from up the road.
You can’t see the sign until you’re almost level with the house, and to look at it then is unsafe driving.
A Better Position for a Yard Sign
So what if we changed the positioning of the yard sign?
What if we placed it closer to the street, and instead of “labeling the house,” we turned the sign so its face was aimed up and down the street. Like this …
Yard Sign Facing Up and Down the Street
Wow! This makes a huge difference!
Now, from either direction, the yard sign can be seen (and your name read) for perhaps four houses away. That means, considering drivers in both directions, that sign now has a readability window of seven to nine seconds.
When you do this, then your sign reaches out to seven to nine times more drivers.
It’s a small thing — changing the position — but when you do, the money you spent for that yard sign is working seven to nine times harder, to get you the name recognition that just might mean the difference in the election.
Bird’s Eye View
Bird’s Eye View Shows Good Position and Bad Position
Now before we go on, here is something you might find useful …
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Now back to getting far more voters seeing your yard signs ..
Adapting to Different Lots
Positioning often must be adapted to different sized and differently placed lots, and to account for trees or shrubs which could obscure the sign from oncoming drivers. Here’s an example of a house on the corner of the block …
A Corner House with Close-Placed Yard Sign
It looks pretty good, and perhaps the driver stopped at a stop sign here, or paused for cross traffic. Or perhaps the driver didn’t stop. So maybe the driver has time to see the sign … or maybe not.
Let’s see how it plays when the driver is approaching the house …
Yard Sign Invisible to Approaching Driver
Uh-oh. The line of shrubbery and a tree on the edge of the lot make the sign completely invisible; you can’t see the sign at all as you approach.
A Better Position for a Corner House
Yard Sign Closer to the Street, Placed Diagonally
That’s a lot better. Now the sign can be read easily, from several houses away. And, because it’s actually placed diagonally, it can also now be read by drivers on the cross street, from either direction.
Here’s what it looks like from above …
Bird’s Eye View of Corner House
Diagonally-Placed Yard Sign Versus “Labeling the House” Placement
One Caution
I chose these example houses to be houses without sidewalks. Now in theory, the closer to the street, the more visible the sign. However, in many jurisdictions, a grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street may not be legal. Although the home owner technically “owns” the lot all the way to the street, and although the home owner probably mows the grass between the sidewalk and the street, that grassy street may be considered “city property,” when it comes to yard signs.
Check the laws in your jurisdiction. If the grassy strip is off-limits, then back the yard sign position to behind the sidewalk.
One Freedom
Recently in a primary election in a small city not far away, one of the candidates put up a sign that was MUCH BIGGER than normal campaign signs. He was within his rights; he checked the law before he created the sign. He was thinking outside the box.
Boy, did it ever annoy the city council. Even as we speak, they’re mulling around how to make “oversize” campaign signs illegal as soon as possible. (As you might guess, the candidate is running on a “reform the city council” platform.)
Size matters.
The larger the sign, the bigger your name. The bigger your name, the easier it can be read far away. The easier it can be read far away, the more people will see it. And the more people see it, the more name-recognition you get.
Here’s the previously-shown house with a normally-sized campaign sign …
Normal-Sized Campaign Sign
And here’s what happens when we super-size it …
Great Big Old Honking Campaign Sign!
Wow! It can be read better, and read even further away.
It’s worth checking, to see if Humongous Campaign Signs are legal in your jurisdiction. Big Honking Campaign Signs? Big Honking Campaign!
🙂
Best wishes for Getting Yourself Elected,
— Arthur Cronos
WATCH THIS SPACE … Coming Next Week:
“How to Legally Display Your Yard Signs Weeks or Months Before It’s Legal to Place Yard Signs!”
This original article is from http://GetYourselfElected.com …
http://elected.adopsis.com/twice-many-voters-reading-signs/
