How to plan a door-to-door canvass or sample giveaway
A good canvass plan answers three questions: how many people, how many days, and which homes. The helper asks you the first two and works out the rest.
Start with households
People on foot care about homes, not sales. Balance the number of households so each canvasser has about the same number of doors to knock on. Walking neighborhoods are small, so census tracts or block groups usually fit best.
Leave out the wrong homes
Say a soap company wants to give samples of one brand, but not to homes that already buy its other brand. If you have store preferred-customer data, add that file and tell the helper which homes to skip. Territories are then built only on the homes that are left, and you download a list of those homes, one territory at a time.
Match the plan to your team
- Twelve people for five days? Ask for twelve territories, then make a fresh plan for each day.
- Volunteers who would rather start from their own neighborhood? Give the helper those starting places.
- Places that must stay together, like one apartment complex? Tell the helper to keep them together.
Before you send people out
Print the map for each team, and hand over the list for their territory. Remind everyone to follow local rules for canvassing and for contacting households.