Is it just me, or are you finding that politicians are spending a ton of money on printing this election cycle, too? I have opened my mailbox every day for the past month to find as many as eight pieces of direct mail paid for by either a party or a campaign. And I’m talking people running for the state legislature, as well as for national offices like in the Senate and Congress. Maybe it’s just an Illinois thing? Anybody else out there seeing this?
So here’s my question: Do you do any political printing? Why or why not?
I googled “printers who specialize in political printing” and found a site in Tampa, FL, offering packages specifically for political campaigns, complete with pricing, design services and full-service mailing capabilities. While the prices for the print seemed on the low side, the company charges $300 for design with two rounds of revisions, which is not bad money if you have designers on staff just waiting for work to do. And I’m sure it charges a going rate for the data management, barcoding, sorting, and all that good stuff.
The value of this kind of a discussion at this point is strictly in planning for the future. Obviously, it’s too late now for you to go out and start calling on candidates. The majority of the projects are already in the mail and I’m sure all future work for this cycle is already awarded.
So what do you do? I would start by developing relationships with your state parties. On the website for the Illinois State Democratic Party, not only are all the high up muckety mucks named on the first page, but you can find links to all the county organizations as well. If you are at all moved to participate, this is a great place to start, because working on a campaign might be a great way to introduce that campaign to your services.
Another tack to take is to call on political consulting firms. You can Google “political consulting”—along with your city or state—and find the websites of firms that help get people elected, along with working for issues-based causes, non profits and corporations, too.
Back in 1996 when the Democratic convention was held here in Chicago, the company I was working for billed more $100,000 to a small political firm in the year leading up to it, all in preparation for that event.
Politics. It just might be worth getting into the game, even if you have to get your hands a little dirty. Ha!
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