The Everglades Trust has engaged over six million people on Facebook to fight for America’s Everglades. If that kind of influence surprises you, you haven’t met Kimberly Mitchell. A ferocious advocate in one of Florida’s most intense political battles, Kimberly is a force to be reckoned with.

Along with a small but passionate team, Kimberly has utilized the power of digital marketing to go toe-to-toe with the ruthless, and deep-pocketed, Big Sugar industry. Their success is equal parts strategy and pure, unadulterated effort.

In 2016, the Everglades Trust had a few thousand likes on Facebook and primarily posted footage of wildlife. Then Kimberly joined the Trust as Executive Director, and the tides turned.

At the time, Facebook advertising was making its way into the mainstream with increasing sophistication, and the slick, slimy political agencies contracted by Big Sugar were still getting a grasp on its power.

Grassroots environmental organizations began to wake up to a shift in the power dynamic: for the first time, they had the ability to organize and share information without the legacy media outlets whose advertising fees were largely out of reach. As the Everglades Trust prepared for battle, we had the opportunity to support them every step of the way.

We primarily work with clients through two models: comprehensive digital marketing management, and consulting. The consulting model is ideal for clients like the Everglades Trust, who already have a fantastic in-house team, and are ready to take their digital strategy to the next level. The Everglades Trust utilized designer and messaging expert Patty McNally to create all the graphics you see in this case study.

Our team provided weekly strategy calls as well as on-call troubleshooting to help the Trust construct a complex digital funnel and fully harness the power of their engaged audience. Our role was to strategize a digital marketing funnel, plan and execute campaigns, pull all of the moving parts into a single well-oiled digital machine, and provide an expert level of technical set-up.

Everglades restoration is a complex political issue, and absent a degree in Florida history, it can be difficult for the average resident to comprehend. To make matters more complicated, Big Sugar spends millions of dollars a year on propaganda campaigns around the state to make sure people stay confused, and therefore, politically paralyzed.

As we launched a digital consulting curriculum for the Trust, we focused on three strategic goals:

• Campaigns to increase reach
• Campaigns to provide education
• Campaigns to transform people into relentless advocates