Phil Van Treuren blogs about political campaigning on Killer Campaigning.

Campaign brochures from local political candidates are something that most of us are accustomed to getting in the mail around election time, and frequently they fit the same mold: too much information jammed into too small a space.

In the last decade, I’ve seen dozens of variations of the same ineffective theme from candidates on many levels.  While aesthetics might vary, this kind of campaign literature always has two things in common: it includes an overabundance of text, and it gets tossed in the garbage before voters read even a small portion of it.

In political campaigning, much as in other forms of marketing and advertising, there’s an old adage that can help you create memorable, effective literature: the more you write, the less they read.

Does that mean that your campaign literature should only include one sentence about your qualifications and agenda?  Not at all.

But it does mean that you should focus what you do include on the central themes of your campaign, and forgo the rest.  While you may think that voters will be impressed with a long list of every civic organization and club you’ve ever been a member of, this type of information is rarely digested by the average reader.

Instead, design your campaign literature using short, to-the-point paragraphs that can be quickly read and comprehended by everyone.  I’ve always recommended that candidates focus on no more than three distinct concepts in their campaign literature, devoting only a few sentences to each topic.

Make your writing brief, interesting and relevant.

If there’s more that you want to let the voters know about, then touch on it in a future mailer or door card.  By boiling down your message and writing less on your campaign literature, you’re making it more likely that the voters remember the most important qualities about you as a candidate.

*Guest Writer