In a merger vote or proxy contest, soliciting the institutional vote typically relies heavily on direct engagement with a small number of large shareholders. Mobilizing retail investors is a different story.
The average retail holder is rarely plugged into proxy filings and the minutiae of annual meetings. The key to winning the retail vote is by reaching them on the platforms they already use and succinctly outlining why and – not to be overlooked – how they can vote. Many retail investors have never voted their shares before, so it's important to provide the answers to their common questions: what is this vote about, why should it matter to someone with a modest stake, and how can they cast it in less than five minutes from their phone.
Why Retail Doesn't Turn Out
Retail isn't a voting bloc with a single set of motivations. It's thousands of individual holders each with their own relationship to the company. Some follow the company closely and read every page of the proxy. Some hold a few shares as an afterthought and never open the notice at all. Many retail investors believe their holdings are too small to matter, or find proxy materials complex (or boring), or see companies as focused primarily on institutional shareholders. The result is a level of apathy and cynicism that keeps them from engaging closely with the company.
Overarching structural barriers, such as street-name ownership and broker intermediation, make it hard for retail holders to find information on the company and even harder for companies to reach retail holders in the first place. Additionally, without a relationship manager or any prior contact from the company, an urgent solicitation push in the middle of a vote feels more like a stranger asking for a favor.
Between these barriers that cause ambiguity and the lack of communication causing distrust, the result is chronically low votes from retail investors.
Meeting Retail Halfway
When retail is large enough to swing a result, companies should spend time understanding this part of their shareholder base well before a vote is even on the calendar. While they can be crucial in proxy contests, engaging the retail audience extends beyond just get-out-the-vote efforts. Including retail engagement as part of a full-scope investor relations strategy is crucial for being able to reach retail investors when they are most needed.
Monitoring conversations online to understand retail sentiment, and responding authentically, can mitigate some of the distrust and keep them engaged. Active retail investors, the ones most likely to have a view and to shape how others vote, tend to show up across various social platforms: Reddit threads, Discord servers, StockTwits, WeBull, InvestorsHub, and to a lesser extent, X and TikTok. Understanding who the credible voices are, and which communities are substantive rather than purely speculative, takes more time than the weeks before a vote deadline usually allows.
Sticking with the distrust theme, these communities are exceptionally savvy at flagging disingenuous engagement. What tends to work best is transparent, authentic outreach. This includes straightforward information, video explainers, simple visual summaries, and a direct link to the voting portal. All of these typically perform better than dense physical mailings. Those same channels also double as an early warning system for confusion or misinformation before it spreads.
The most successful retail-targeted campaigns are those that show up consistently and coherently across the channels the audience already inhabits, so the brand feels present rather than intrusive. This means the same campaign idea needs to flex across organic social feeds, targeted ads, message boards, and a creator's YouTube – each tactic doing a different job, but all reinforcing the same message.
It's important to note that this form of outreach does not replace the mechanics of a traditional campaign (i.e. broker search, NOBO outreach and phone banks). Rather, they provide a complementary strategy to win an audience that's easy to lose and hard to win back.
At Collected Strategies, we help our clients reach their retail audiences with surround-sound content and a digital-first strategy that reaches investors with clear, strategic messaging grounded in research, social monitoring, and data-driven engagement.
Sarah Abdeshahian is the Vice President, Digital Communications at Collected Strategies, where she leads a team that advises clients on digital strategy, including social media development, paid media campaigns, sentiment analysis, web design, and more. She has extensive experience supporting clients in developing their brand identity, amplifying messaging, and mobilizing audiences ahead of key votes. She can be reached at sabdeshahian@collectedstrategies.com.
Dylan O'Keefe is a Vice President at Collected Strategies, where he works closely with management teams on messaging, investor and media relations, and positioning through complex situations and crises. He has advised companies across a range of industries on friendly and contested transactions, as well as public and private shareholder activism campaigns. He can be reached at dokeefe@collectedstrategies.com.
