Marketing Toolkit

It is important to build awareness, a positive image, and support among the broad community — including non-riders as well as potential riders.

Effective methods for promoting awareness, image, and support fall into two general categories — non-paid communications channels and paid advertising. This section will describe a variety of ways that you can “get the word out” about your services. Remember, you don’t need to do all of these. Select the strategies that are the best fit for your community, target audience, and resources.

There are many non-paid ways to build visibility and educate the public about your transit system. These include conventional news media, social media, and outreach efforts. While these strategies do not require a budget, they do require staff time to implement. Select those that are most appropriate for your community and system.

Public speaking is the ultimate low-cost marketing tool. Targeted, personal, and persuasive, it is an inexpensive opportunity to meet with your community, educate them about transit’s role in the community, build support, and expand your email list.

We’ve put together some transit statistics you can add to your presentations, brochures, handouts, or advertisements to help demonstrate the many benefits of public transit.

While public speaking can be used in a variety of ways, it is especially powerful as a tool for communicating with non-rider target groups such as decision makers, gatekeepers for potential rider groups, and other stakeholders in your community.

Solicit opportunities to speak to:

• Community leaders/decision makers (i.e., your City or County governing body or your Board of Directors)
• Social service coalitions or staff meetings
• Civic organizations (i.e., Rotary, Kiwanis and Soroptimist)
• Business/employer groups (i.e., the Chamber of Commerce)

Your presentations should be tailored to the group you are addressing. For example, if speaking to community leaders, focus on the benefits of transit to the broader community, like creating a mobile workforce, connecting customers with businesses, and serving the needs of those unable to drive. If speaking to human service organization staff, focus on how transit can serve their clients and show them how to use your website or Google Transit to plan trips.

These days, there are many channels for communicating news about your system and services. These can be used together to reach a variety of target groups. Below are information and a few tips for each of the non-paid communications channels.

• News releases
• Radio Public Service Announcements

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Videos
• Website posts
• Email blasts

To use these communications tools, start by creating a news calendar for your system. Think ahead six to 12 months about the newsworthy things your system will be doing that you want to let people know about. These might include:

• Service changes or new services
• New vehicles or facilities
• New passenger information tools
• Special event services
• Tie-ins with local events (such as the County Fair)
• Public meetings
• Promotional activities (free-ride day, holiday food drive)
• Milestones (100,000th rider, or 10-year anniversary)

For example, promotion for a “Stuff-the-Bus” holiday food drive:

• News release about Stuff-the-Bus event, how to participate, and how the donations will be used
• Public service announcement distributed to local radio stations
• On-board posters to encourage riders to participate
• Facebook post with information and encouraging fans to participate
• Tweets about location of bus and hours when donations are being accepted
• Video of event to post on your website, Facebook or YouTube afterwards

Update the calendar periodically to reflect changes and new story ideas. For more on the basics of social media and rural transit, view the following National RTAP Resources:

• Leveraging Social Media Technical Brief - a how-to for social media, updated in May 2018.
• Social Media Best Practices Article - innovative examples of how to use social media from five rural transit agencies, released in July 2018.
• Social Media 101 Webinar Recording - a presentation by subject matter expert Susan Bregman of The Transit Wire, from September 2013.

Articles about your system in local publications, as well as on radio and TV stations with local news coverage, can increase awareness of public transit and educate residents about what it has to offer. Making sure that local media are provided with a regular stream of information can increase news coverage about transit services. Click here for guidelines to writing a news release.

Local radio stations will often accept public service announcements to read on the air. These announcements need to be provided to the station as 15- or 30-second scripts. If they are time-specific (e.g., promoting service to a special event), be sure to note the dates you wish them to be aired. Click here for guidelines to writing a radio script.

Facebook

Twitter

Videos

Website Posts

News releases which are sent to the news media also can be posted on your website, possibly linked from a “What’s New” button on your home page.

Email Blasts

A great way to connect with your community is by participating in local events. Many transit systems staff a bus display or information table at Senior Fairs, Health Fairs, Job Fairs, Earth Day Events, College Registration Events or other relevant activities where one of their target markets will be.

There is also the opportunity to sponsor events that build visibility and create news value. These types of events include:

• Stuff-the-Bus holiday food drive
• Ribbon Cutting Event for new vehicles or facilities
• Launch Event for a new service
• Earth Day Celebration (possibly a free ride day)
• Dump the Pump Day

Media Advertising

The use of paid media advertising is often the first thing that transit systems think of when they consider marketing. And while it may be the strategy that requires the least staff effort, it is not generally the most cost-effective of available strategies. Media advertising offers immediate, but fleeting, visibility, since ads only run as long as you keep paying for them. If you use paid media, it is critical that your message and your “look” are consistent over time and from one medium to the next in order to maximize impact.

The usefulness of a specific advertising medium corresponds to how well its audience matches your target market. If you consider paid media advertising, look to local media that reach residents within your service area.

To create the greatest impact from your advertising, focus your resources for paid media around key time periods rather than dispersing them throughout the year. In this way, the advertising will have enough visibility to increase awareness. Resources might be focused on:

• Service changes or introduction of a new service
• Introduction of new passenger information tools (such as Google Transit)
• Earth Day in April
• Dump the Pump Day in June
• Try Transit Week in September

These last three are national activities that encourage people to try transit — either for the environmental benefits or to save money. Tying in with them will allow you to capitalize on national coverage occurring at the same time.

Advertising media should be selected with an understanding of the groups that you want to hear or see your message. For example, you might create posters for advertising on buses to let current riders know about a change in the service on a specific route, use television or newspaper ads to build awareness among a wide audience, and use a youth-oriented radio station to promote a summer youth pass.

A wide variety of media advertising channels can be used to promote public transit. These include:

Transit advertising is advertising inside buses, on the exterior of vehicles and at bus shelters. One of the beauties of transit advertising is that the space comes free-of-charge; your only expenses are in production costs.

With a simple, colorful and low-cost poster displayed inside your vehicles, you can update current riders about a service change, promote an event that includes transit, or remind them of the affordability and availability of your various fare media.

Utilizing the exterior of your vehicles and bus shelters, you can build your brand and raise awareness of the system throughout the community.

Transit advertising also can be a source of revenue. Many systems sell advertising on the exterior of their buses. Keep in mind, however, that if you sell your ”packaging“ to advertise another product, you lose the opportunity to use the vehicles to build visibility and a positive image for your own services. Also take into consideration the staff time and expenses of actually selling and maintaining the transit ads. You may find that using your vehicles to build your own brand and ridership is a better use of the space.

Use your vehicles to build and enhance your brand and image

Another form of transit advertising is advertising bus shelters. Many transit agencies contract with transit advertising firms to construct and maintain bus shelters on their routes, in return for the right to sell the ad space. This can be an effective means of securing bus shelters, an amenity highly valued by riders. As part of the contract, firms will often agree to allow the transit system to advertise in unsold shelter panels. This can be a highly visible advertising medium.

Updated March 10, 2021

Newspapers are losing readership in urban areas, but they have a broader reach in rural areas and small towns. When your budget permits, newspaper display advertising is an excellent strategy to use to promote transit in smaller communities. Unlike classified ads, which are text only, display ads attract attention with design elements such as graphic illustrations, photos, and various font sizes and styles. A display ad in your local newspaper can support the content of your news releases and heighten their impact.

Two effective uses of newspaper ads are:

• For testimonials, which let potential riders see that people like themselves are already using transit.
• For providing updated service information, because you can include route maps or schedules to help readers see what the service offers.

Your newspaper sales rep will assist you in determining the size and placement of your ad and may offer production assistance, as well. You can design your own ad, using these newspaper ad templates.

Example of a 3-column x 10"
(approximately 1/4 pg.) color newspaper ad

Many publications also have online editions where you can place banner ads to help build awareness or to expand your news presence further.

Radio

If there are local radio stations that serve the communities within your service area (rather than stations from a larger market outside your service area), then radio advertising can be a good way to build awareness and promote ridership.

Radio advertising offers the advantage of targeting drive-time audiences. Captive in their cars, these drivers may be very interested in a better way to travel. Different radio formats may allow you to target different audiences. For example an easy listening station might reach an older audience, while a rock station will communicate with teens and college students.

Keep in mind that radio commercials are fleeting. You’ll need to repeat the same message over a period of time for people to remember it. And you won’t be able to convey the kind of detailed information (such as routes) that you can in a print ad. You can encourage listeners to call or visit your website.

Television advertising can be very effective in building image, as it allows you to show transit in action serving various types of riders. However, the growing numbers of cable and satellite stations have given television audiences so many viewing choices that reaching your target markets can be very costly, as you may have to use several stations.

Production costs are considerably higher than for radio, though your local station may provide low or no-cost production services.

If your area has local television affiliates or a cable provider who sells commercial time specific to local subscribers, then television advertising may be an option for promoting your system. Generally speaking, the most effective time to purchase advertising for your system will be during local news programs.

The ability to target geographically, by zip code or postal carrier route, makes direct mail an appealing option for transit marketing. It means you can provide information that you know is relevant to the reader based on where they live. Another advantage is the capacity to provide detailed service information, such as route maps, schedules, and even a free-ride pass.

To be read, however, a direct mail piece has to be compelling enough to capture the recipient’s attention immediately — before it is discarded. Generally a post card or brochure that is not in an envelope and has a bold message has the best opportunity to make an immediate impact.

A service that offers mailing lists can assist you in identifying neighborhoods or districts that you want to target and methods for mailing. The US Postal Service offers a product called USPS Every Door Direct Mail, which allows you to send a flat direct mail piece (of almost any size) to every address in an area at a very low cost.

You can also develop your own lists for targeted mailings to gatekeepers and community leaders, or any other groups you want to reach.

Unlike broadcast or online strategies, a direct mail piece that is not discarded immediately has the advantage of being seen when it arrives and a second time when it is picked up to be used or thrown away. If it captures the reader’s attention and provides valuable information, it may be kept for future reference. The extra impression it makes when seen a second time or third time can be an awareness-builder.

Attractive posters displayed around town on bulletin boards and in windows can create low-cost exposure for your service. Posters measuring 11” x 17” or 8-1/2” x 11” flyers are easy to produce and effective in building visibility. Small quantities of posters usually can be printed digitally at low cost — either in-house or at a local print shop.

If using posters as a communications tool, be sure to update them regularly and remove out-of-date posters.

A small one-color poster.

You can reach markets of every description with online advertising. Banner ads on community websites and websites featuring community news (i.e., the community newspaper and local television affiliates) are ideal vehicles for your message. In using banner ads, the biggest “bang for your buck” depends on creating messages that are consistent with your other promotional strategies and encouraging readers to “click through” to your website to find out more about your system.

Color online ads provide clickable links to your website.