Promoting Community Engagement with the New Albany Bucket List Pass

Bandwango recently collaborated with the city of New Albany, Ohio, to launch the "New Albany Summer Bucket List Pass." The pass aimed to drive community engagement by showcasing a wide array of local events and encouraging residents and visitors to participate actively. This case study delves into the strategy, execution, and results of the campaign, highlighting how Bandwango's technology facilitated the promotion of community events and enhanced the overall experience for passholders.

Bailey Wood, a representative from New Albany, articulated the campaign's purpose: "The goal of the campaign was to promote community engagement in community events."

Unlike traditional gamified passes, the New Albany Bucket List Pass focused solely on providing a place to promote all summer events across New Albany. It aimed to showcase a diverse range of events that were typically promoted individually by various organizations. The campaign intended to increase community participation in these events by spreading awareness and incentivizing engagement.

Bandwango's technology played a pivotal role in the success of the campaign. According to Bailey Wood, using Bandwango's technology was a seamless process for both creating the pass and ensuring ease of use for residents. The passholders experienced the user-friendly interface, making it convenient for them to discover, register for, and attend events.

Bandwango's customer service also played a critical role. They swiftly addressed issues such as location discrepancies and passholder check-in problems, enhancing the passholder experience and satisfaction. The integration of email and SMS communication options allowed for timely reminders, ensuring that passholders remained engaged with the community and attended events.

The campaign's promotions focused on leveraging Bandwango's communication tools effectively. Text and email notifications were employed to encourage passholders to continue using the pass. These notifications also reminded passholders that regular check-ins at events earned them points, potentially leading to winning prizes, including gift baskets!

It's noteworthy that no paid or earned media was utilized to promote the New Albany Bucket List Pass. Instead, social media was utilized during the initial launch, shifting focus to other channels later on.

Campaign performance: 

The campaign yielded promising results:

• Sign-ups: Since its summer launch, the pass garnered 179 sign-ups, showcasing strong initial interest from the community.
• Check-ins: The campaign witnessed 46 check-ins so far, indicating that passholders actively attended events to earn points.
• Marketing Opt-ins: Impressively, 77% of sign-ups, translating to 138 customers, opted into external marketing communications. This valuable data could be harnessed for future promotional efforts.

While the campaign's future remains uncertain, it has already succeeded in enhancing community engagement. If continued, the New Albany team envisions increasing marketing efforts throughout the campaigns to encourage more sign-ups. The SMS communication channel's effectiveness in driving continuous pass utilization will be further explored.

The New Albany Bucket List Pass campaign effectively achieved its goal of fostering community engagement through diverse local events and succeeded in bringing residents and visitors together to participate actively in New Albany's vibrant community. The campaign demonstrated how strategic collaboration between a destination marketing organization and a technology platform can significantly impact community involvement and create a foundation for future initiatives.