Bars in NOMA Have Top Performing Saturday

Campaign Overview

Washington DC may be defined by its historic attractions, but its craft beverage scene is yet another reason to visit the capitol! The NOMA (North of Massachusetts Avenue) Business Improvement District proved that visitors and locals should add NOMA’s Beer Trail to their weekend plans after a full day of enjoying America’s history.

Turns out, a lot of patrons were already bar-hopping to establishments located along DC’s Metropolitan Branch Trail on their own. One of the bar owners noticed this trend and thought of an idea to make it an official event.

The NoMa BID Metropolitan Beer Trail launched on May 13, 2022 and had over 2,200 check-ins and over 2,600 redemptions in the first weekend! Those who completed the trail received a free t-shirt presented by NOMA.

The pass included seven locations, all boasting quality craft beer! These locations included:

• City-State Brewing Co.
• metrobar DC
• Red Bear Brewing Co.
• Right Proper Brewing Co. – Brookland
• The Dew Drop Inn
• The Eleanor
• Wunder Garten

Campaign Strategy

The goal of the NOMA Beer Trail campaign was:

1. Create awareness for the NoMa neighborhood and all participating restaurants
2. Make NoMa magnetic and incentivize people to visit the area and discover the food and beverage scene in the neighborhood
3. Increase revenue for participating bars/breweries
4. Create new customers for participating bars/breweries
5. Increase website traffic, social media followers, and newsletter subscribers

The strategy for the campaign centered around getting pre-sign ups for the passport. In order to make people aware of the passport before the opening weekend, the NoMa team created a robust marketing strategy by partnering with Visit Washington DC on paid advertising.

Their approach also included an earned media component, and the team worked hard to pitch key media outlets such as the Washington Post. Spoiler alert: it may or may not have paid off…

• Read the Washington Post article
• Read the Washingtonian article
• Read the Inside Hook article

Campaign Results

• 2,453 Passport Sign-Ups
• 4,706 Check-Ins

Results are as of June 28, 2022

Reactions from the Participants, Merchants and NOMA

Once the pass was released, NOMA could only imagine the amount of passes that would be redeemed and even completed within the first weekend. They prepared to give away 300 t-shirts, which were all quickly taken.

“The passholders we heard from spoke very highly of their experience: they had fun, loved all the bars, and loved the t-shirt prize! We had several people asking if they could even purchase our prize t-shirt. We could not have done this campaign without Bandwango’s technology! Bandwango provided a customer-friendly solution that was fun and easy to use. The technology also allowed us to execute this in a way that did not put the work on the bar/brewery employees or owners.” - Leah Ben, Senior Marketing Associate at NOMA
“We had a lot of guests who were first-timers to the restaurant, which was awesome.” - The Eleanor

“We had a lot patrons asking if they could do the trail again.” - Red Bear Brewing Co.

“It was by far our top performing Saturday of all time!” - metrobar

“Holy guacamole! We were crazy busy.” - Right Proper