The conventional wisdom is to do this on weekends and in the evenings when people are home from work. In reality, some significant number/percentage of people work some kind of shift work. If you go door-to-door midday on weekdays you will get a surprising number of people. A couple of weeks before school starts at the end of summer, you will also get all the stay-at-home moms in the middle of the day.
I hope your local Democratic Party can supply you with voter registration lists. They are incredibly helpful.
Pay attention to yard signs. It is my opinion that there's no point in knocking on the doors of those who have yard signs which indicate a right-wing belief and voting system.
Follow up the encounters with postcards. Send a postcard to every single person who said they'd vote for you, every single person that seems persuadable, and perhaps even those who are not at home when you knocked on the door.
If you have a good group of supporters, organize them to help you out going door-to-door. It is pretty effective when someone shows up and says "The candidate is a friend of mjine and this is why you should vote for him." After each one of these mass door-to-door things, give each participant a certificate that you've designed yourself, signed and dated. At least offer to feed them, or order pizza or something for afterwards.
If you have relatives who will help, they are also effective. ESPECIALLY a sibling.
Brand everything you hand out. Decide on some kind of logo or symbol and color scheme, and put it on EVERYTHING you hand out. Participate in local events such as 4th of July parades that take place in or very near your district. Don't waste time and energy on events that will have few or no potential voters for you.
If there is a community college or high school in your district, consider offering internships to students for some kind of credit. Sometimes high schools (especially public ones) won't do this for students participating in partisan electoral stuff. But community colleges are a different story. Find out who teaches history or political science at the CC and contact those teachers during the summer. Have an organized plan to show them why they should give students credit for working with you. [This is one thing I did not do, but would have had I run a second time]
Make sure the card you hand out at the door (or at any events you attend) is simple, summarizes who you are, a small amount of personal information, and three or four bullet points of what you stand for, what you will do once in office. You could also hold a "Meet the Candidate" thing in cofee shops, libraries, or the like within your district.
Everything you print up ought to have a union label on it.
I did all of the above when I ran for the Kansas State House in 2004. I lost, largely because I was up against a popular, moderate, incumbent Republican. But I did well enough that the Democratic party saw that the district was potentially winnable, and in 2006 the man who ran won, and won again in 2008. He lost in 2010 to a right-wing Republican in the awful right-wing Republican takeover of practicdally everywhere that year. I no longer live in Kansas, and I probably won't run for office where I now live in New Mexico.
Good luck to you!
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