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We trialed a new “Trip-or-Treat” promotion for the Halloween season for one of our largest clients. As a transportation demand management (TDM) program and government-led initiative, this client promotes all the sustainable ways to get around the District of Columbia to commuters, multi-family buildings/residences, hotels, schools, and employers. To reach their residential audience, we created the “Trip-or-Treat” communications to promote Halloween-themed lobby events during October, where the client will come on-site to provide free trip planning assistance and candy. Though sent to a limited number of subscribers, these timely and targeted emails garnered a 200% increase in scheduled lobby events for the month. Based on this promotion’s success, the client plans to do more themed lobby events around various holidays throughout the year.

Cherry blossom season, which is also peak tourist season in the District, draws thousands of visitors to see the flowers in full bloom. Every spring, we assist our TDM client in the creation of a custom guide to the local Cherry Blossom Festival events, and then share this with commuter and hospitality audiences. As one of the most sought-after seasonal attractions, any related content tends to get a lot of traffic. In this case, one of our hospitality emails heavily surpassed the client’s average email performance as you can see in the table below. While national observances are definitely advantageous, this goes to show that localized events can positively impact your communications too.

Another great example is Theatre Week in the District of Columbia, which takes place in the fall. This observation marks the launch of production season by providing discount tickets to live shows, a kick-off concert, and dozens of free events and workshops. We shared an email with the client’s hospitality audience that included a custom flyer to promote the festivities and travel options to visitors. And again, this email exceeded the client’s average open and click rates.

Our client’s 2021 fall bike campaign serves as just one great example that illustrates the effectiveness of using segments. In this case, we strictly focused on engaging with active participants from the past three bike campaigns to move them through the stages of travel behavior change, rather than trying to reach the general commuter audience. As part of the marketing strategy, we sent multiple emails with specific resources and weekly surveys to the bike audience. These email results heavily surpassed the client’s average open rate by as much as 65% and the average click rate by as much as 76%. See results presented in the table below.

We also used this approach for the client’s 2021 winter bike campaign. In this case, we segmented the audiences based on past versus new bike participants and created a workflow to automate the emails. * These emails performed exceedingly well, each garnering over 60% open rates. Details in the table below.