What is the ROI of Yard signs? As a political consultant, I have spent a lot of time writing about the tools we use in campaigns for persuasion, base building, and GOTV. The place of Yard Signs in the toolbox of campaign strategy is a topic that comes up in every training I run. The questions candidates and managers wrestle with yard sign cost vs. its value? Using yard signs is really a strategic question. How big an area are you running in? Is this a low information or high information race  The ROI of a yard sign can be  low to begin with, but once you calculate the time a yard sign program costs, the true ROI diminishes even further.  A yard sign program can take away from other things you really have to do in a campaign.  Bottom line, it’s a huge time commitment. Every hour you or a volunteer spends on yard signs is an hour away from something else in the campaign. One sign takes on average 5 minutes to confirm, 5 minutes to assemble, and 10 minutes to place.  So, 2000 yard signs will take you 666 hours of volunteer time. If you multiply that by $15 an hour you come up with a value of $10,000.  Add that to the cost of a sign and you have a total of $18,000 for 2,000 yard signs. Now Calculate the cost of a door knock. If you are looking to knock 2000 doors and you knock on 20 doors in an hour, that’s $20.30 volunteer value per hour. Here are the true costs for a volunteer sign program   $0.30 for literature, $15 for an hour of volunteer canvassing, and $5 to recruit a volunteer to canvass. That's an actual cost of $1 per door and $9 per yard sign. So, tell me which you should be spending your time on?  If you spent the same amount of time organizing volunteers for door knocking as you do for yard signs, you will make a real difference in persuading and turning out voters. At best with a sign program, you will increase name ID without any persuasion.   Is it worth it?   Have questions on the costs associated with yard signs?  Ask them here: