Digital Management: Statewide Proposition Campaign

Show Me Victories (SMV) and Braxton Payne served as the Digital Director for the Proposition A campaign in Missouri to repeal the “right-to-work” law. We Are Missouri was the “no” on Prop A campaign committee that led the charge to repeal “right-to-work.” Our SMV team had been working with labor organizations in Missouri since 2014 to fight the passage of “right-to-work.” We had built a footprint of over half a million online users using existing assets through organized labor.

During the signature-gathering phase, our team created graphics, toolkits for partners, developed a paid and organic digital messaging strategy to not only grow our audience but keep our current users informed. On August 19, 2017 Missourians turned in 310,567 signature (100,126 were needed) to put right “right-to-work” on the ballot. SMV secured the contract with We Are Missouri in January 2018 in preparation for the pending election

The We Are Missouri campaign transition over the following months into the “No on Prop A” campaign. Prop A’s email strategy was part of their overall digital strategy that was managed by SMV this included fundraising, voter outreach, and social motivation. The campaigns email list consisted of close to 70,000 email addresses. These emails were both collected through online ads and with email swaps from other organizations. Show Me Victories sent regular email addresses to our overall list and to a small list of allies for them to push out their own content organically on their pages. During the campaign we had over 500,000 emails opened.

The campaign had a stand-alone Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to promote the no on Prop A message. Show Me Victories managed the page on a day to day basis. Over the course of the campaign, the social media pages grew by over 950%. The organic strategy was to post regular content and answer questions from voters.

On August 7th, voters of Missouri sent a clear message. With a victory of 67.5% to 32.5% voters repeal “right-to-work.” Missourians sent a clear message by winning 99 of our 114 counties in the state. A state that just two years ago elected Trump by 19% with Trump winning 110 of our 114 counties.