DOM MORSE FOR CHARLOTTESVILLE SCHOOL BOARD
Electing Dom Morse to Charlottesville School Board using campaign consulting, branding & messaging.
Challenge
In 2021, Dom Morse declared his candidacy to run for the Charlottesville School Board as a first-time candidate. The Charlottesville City School Board is made up of seven members elected to at-large seats, and Morse was in a race with five candidates vying for three open seats.
As is the case with most local races, candidates are running small, grassroots campaigns with majority volunteer support. We needed to maximize resources in the most effective places to educate, engage and persuade voters to vote for Dom Morse for Charlottesville School Board.
Our Approach
To get Morse elected, we focused on three things:
Creating a candidate profile through branding, messaging and impactful policies;
Increasing visibility for the campaign through a strong social and digital media campaign as well as earned media; and
Building a communications infrastructure encompassing a website, social media presence, email list and campaign logo.
We did this by using traditional, digital and social media to establish name recognition and inform voters on Morse’s campaign platform. Our team:
Developed a candidate bio, stump speech and messaging for campaign materials
Updated the campaign website with a new logo, candidate bio and policy platform
Created “Vote Dom Morse” social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Wrote press releases and pitched stories to garner earned media
Completed candidate questionnaires and conducted debate prep
Designed graphics with voter information, canvassing events and Student Town Hall event
Ran three Facebook ads
Results
Our campaign was successful in helping elect Dom Morse to the Charlottesville School Board. Key wins include:
Earning a total of 16,500 impressions on Twitter from October 1 to November 2
The website gained a total of 4,239 views with the largest amount of views occurring in October
Successful message capture in earned media, especially after the Joint Parent Teacher Organization Candidate Forum - Charlottesville Tomorrow, NBC29 and Cville Weekly
Social media growth of followers, shares and engagement
Launching a robust and updated website