Transcript GO Communications Toolkit Marketing Campaign

GO Communications Toolkit
Marketing Campaign
APTA 2014 Ad Wheels Award
Submission for 3–B
Promotional Campaign
Category
June, 2014
GO Communications Toolkit Marketing
Campaign
Company Bio
• A division of Metrolinx, GO Transit is the regional public transit service for
the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, with routes extending to
communities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe. We carry 65 million
passengers a year.
• Since May 1967, GO Transit has evolved from a single GO Train line along
Lake Ontario’s shoreline into an extensive network of train lines and bus
routes. Since service began, more than a billion riders have taken the GO
Train or Bus – to get to work or school, to go home for the weekend, or for
leisure activities and day trips. GO provides our passengers with a safe,
fast, reliable and comfortable service to downtown Toronto and other
urban centres.
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Passenger Charter
• In November 2010, GO Transit unveiled our Passenger Charter, a set of five
promises we make to our valued customers. These promises are made by
every GO employee to ensure that every customer has an easy and
delightful experience on GO:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
We will do our best to be on time
We will always take your safety seriously
We will keep you in the know
We will make your experience comfortable
We will help you quickly and courteously
• The promises are backed by 8 Key Performance Indicators that make up
GO’s monthly “report card.” These are accessible to the public 24/7 via
GO’s website.
• GO has been focused on consistently delivering on our promises, providing
exceptional service, making necessary improvements to service, and
keeping passengers informed of progress.
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GO Tools
Over the years, we have introduced several innovative tools that provide
convenient options for customers to keep updated on status of service:
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2.
3.
GO Mobile Application (app)
On the GO email/ text alerts
GO Tracker
Satisfaction of communications by an organization is a key driver of overall
customer satisfaction, second only to reliable service.
It’s the lack of awareness and usage of our tools that had limited the degree
of satisfaction around communications. Our objective was to change that.
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1 . On the GO Alerts
• Introduced to customers in 2005 to provide service updates directly to
their email inboxes.
• Customers can subscribe to specific stations and lines, allowing for a
customizable experience.
• In January 2011, On the GO was made available in Short Message System
(SMS) format on mobile devices.
• Since 2010 the number of subscribers to this tool has flat lined even
though previous efforts were made to raise awareness and driver
subscription.
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2. GO Mobile Application (APP)
• Developed in partnership with Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone
(DMZ), the GO app was first launched in November 2012
• It provides users with schedules, departure information and arrival alerts
on Blackberry, iPhone or Android devices.
• GO Mobile app is continually being updated to reflect feedback received
by customers.
• With 521,309 downloads as of February 28th, 2014, GO Mobile is the third
most downloaded transit-related app in North America.
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3. GO Tools - GO Tracker
• GO Tracker is a mobile-enabled web application that displays real-time,
active GO Train trip information relevant to the user.
• It is accessible on the customer’s computer or mobile device.
• GO Tracker was released in September of 2012.
• In 2013, this tool had the highest rating of satisfaction, but yet the lowest
awareness of the information channels. The people who use it, love it.
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GO Tools
• With each release of a tool, marketing efforts were put forward to drive
customers specifically to one tool or another.
• Traditionally, the greatest effort was dedicated to increasing the number
of subscribers to On the GO alerts, since we learned that customers who
were proactively informed of service delays were more likely to score GO
higher in customer satisfaction.
• Previously, we had not actively packaged and promoted the individual
applications in one collective, complimentary set of self-help tools for
customers to use for service information.
• Not only did we shift how we promoted our tools with this campaign, but
we also shifted who we promoted these tools to.
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Market Research
• Through the use of customer panels and a professional market research
firm, GO identified seven unique segments of riders, ranging from a
predominately female, well-educated segment that constitutes 26% of our
total riders to our student segment of 9% who are predominantly bus
riders.
• Our research puts us in touch with not only who our riders are,
demographically (age, education, income etc.), but also gives us insight
into why they travel, what they like to do while traveling and how they
want us to communicate with them.
• We now know that 77% of our customers have a smartphone and the
majority prefer digital communications.
• For this campaign, these customer insights allowed us to target
customers who were more tech-savvy, with a robust customer toolkit
campaign, rather than a one-off subscriber driven promotion.
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Campaign Objective
The overall campaign objective was to raise awareness of the various tools so
customers could choose which tool works best for them. Focused objectives
of this campaign were to:
 increase number of subscribers to On the GO by 500
 increase number of downloads of GO Mobile app by 10%
 increase number of unique page visitors for GO Tracker by 25%
 increase customer satisfaction with communications by 2% by
February 2014
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Measurement
• Prior to the campaign launch, we set benchmarks and identified how to
measure the success of the campaign.
• By using Google Analytics, we are able to track our website activity to
determine the popularity of GO Tracker amongst riders. The number of
downloads of the mobile app and the subscribers of On the GO alerts are
tracked through third party vendors, by assessing the weekly
download/signup numbers we were able to set a realistic goal for this
campaign.
• GO Transit has a 7,000+ person strong volunteer panel of riders, called the
“Let GO Know” on-line panel. This panel is routinely engaged in providing
information through surveys and focus groups.
• We also have a Customer Service Advisory Committee of 10 riders who
meet with GO 4-6 times a year to provide input on services and programs.
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Measurement - continued
• Our Research and Business Solutions department conducts an annual
Communications Survey that tracks our customer satisfaction. This team is
instrumental in working with our rider panels and committees to ensure
that all programs and services are delivered as expected and put measures
into place to make adjustments where required. Their goal is to
continually increase the overall customer satisfaction score.
• GO Transit’s success can be directly traced to the fact that we have such
an engaged customer base keeping us informed and providing excellent
feedback. This played a large part in GO Transit earning the 2013
American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) prestigious award for
Outstanding Public Transportation System.
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Project Planning
• Our primary target audience was the younger, tech-savvy segments who
are primarily bus riders. This segment is difficult to reach through the
conventional media that our larger segments typically respond to.
• The use of technology to deliver this campaign combined with a new
“hip” approach to the creative execution via the use of illustration,
resonated with the primary target audience and delivered the projected
results.
• The GO tools were promoted as a way to be “in the know before you go”
with GO Transit. Our marketing activities consisted of a three phased
approach.
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Three-Phased Approach
1. Teaser campaign launched the week of September 16, 2013 to intrigue customers
and inform them that something fun and interactive was about to happen at their
main hub, Union Station, in the next week.
2. Three day activation held at Union Station led by an energetic and outgoing event
team who knew they had to get their message out loud, clear and quickly to a
rush-hour crowd of commuters. Riders were led to an Apple Store-like set-up,
where another team member would set up the customer with an On the GO alerts
account, help download the Mobile App in a flash and/or show them how to
access the GO Tracker page from the website. For riders too rushed to stop a
handy book mark was provided outlining all of the online information readily
available. The team reported 1800 media-rich consumer interactions which fed
into the final results of the campaign.
3. Sustainment campaign –customers were reminded to continue to use these selfhelp tools before starting their journey. The branded campaign followed our
customer wherever they were so the campaign would stay top of mind, in trains
and buses, in stations and at major bus terminals and hubs.
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The Creative
• GO has undertaken a brand refresh and for the first time explored the use
of illustration to bring a campaign to life. This campaign was the first time
our customers saw us in this new and invigorating light.
• The goal of the playful creative was to intrigue and delight GO riders. The
featured character, “GOrdon”, exuded Old World charm which produced a
very nice contrast with the modern-day suite of tools promoted. The
combination of old and new appeals to our customer segments who are
proud of the GO Transit heritage and are appreciative of GO’s continued
efforts to offer technology based solutions and communication upgrades.
• The creative was consistent throughout the campaign building recognition
of GOrdon as the ambassador for the GO Toolkit. We will continue to
leverage GOrdon in future campaigns to build awareness and brand
affinity.
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Key Results:
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Increased traffic to gotransit.com/goapps from an average of 500 unique visits per day to
3,000 during the campaign, have sustained an average of 2,000 per day post campaign .
Web traffic to the GO Tracker site increased by 75% and maintained as such, exceeding our
projected target of a 25% traffic increase.
Mobile App downloads increased by 25,000 or 32% as compared to average monthly
increase of 17,000, exceeding our target of a 10% increase in downloads.
1300 new On the GO alert subscribers, a 43% overall increase, as compared to 739 average
subscribers per month. Since the launch, we’ve acquired 6,400 new subscribers to On the GO
alerts.
Increased customer satisfaction with GO communications to 75% from 68%
Primary target segment’s overall awareness increased by 7%, usage increased by 3%
Remainder of segments’ overall awareness increased by 4%, usage increased by 3%
For the first time, Contact Centre call volumes decreased by 3%, even with a 5% growth in
ridership. Traditionally, call volume and ridership increase at the same rate.
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Key Results
• Due to the overwhelming success of the 2013 campaign, we will execute
the campaign again in 2014 to engage new riders, and re-confirm our
commitment to these tools and keeping our customers in the know.
• The use of technology to promote the use of our toolkit resonated with
our primary target audience and that is where we saw the success of the
campaign. The human element, through the event team, made those
members of our secondary and tertiary audiences more comfortable with
the technology and instilled a willingness to experiment.
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Web link to the Toolkit
http://gotransit.com/public/en/schedules/goapps/web/goapps.aspx
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Station Poster
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Kiosks
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Electronic Board
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Event Team
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Banner
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Stanchion Signs
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Sustainment Poster
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Thank you
www.gotransit.com