Marketing Toolkit
How-to Guide For Marketing Transit
Marketing Tools and Templates
Other Resources
These case studies illustrate how rural transit agencies have used the strategies addressed in the toolkit to achieve their own marketing goals. Click through to see the full case study and the how-to text relating to the strategy that it exemplifies.
Branding: Bluegrass Ride
Blue Grass Community Action Partnership (BGCAP) Transit, of Central Kentucky, rebranded to Bluegrass RIDE to raise the public profile of the agency and...
Branding: A Family of Services
The Belknap-Merrimack Community Action program operates fixed-route service in Concord, NH, and demand-response service throughout its two-county region.
Community Outreach: Westmoreland County Transit
Go Westmoreland, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, felt the need to broaden awareness by increasing their outreach and community education efforts. To broaden awareness...
Customized information: Verde Shuttle
To make transit as easy as possible to understand, sometimes it is helpful to customize information tools for a specific group or trip. The flyer shown here was created for...
Digital Advertising: NWOTA
Five small transit organizations serving the Northwest Oregon Coast banded together to promote travel to and from cities in Central Oregon to the coast and north...
Direct Mail: Verde Shuttle
Cottonwood Area Transit launched the Verde Shuttle to help employees living in Cottonwood, Arizona, travel to nearby Sedona for work. In addition to marketing conducted...
Event: Sedona Shuttle Stuff the Bus
The Sedona Shuttle, operated by the City of Sedona, Arizona, successfully sponsors annual “Stuff the Bus” events in partnership with Toys for Tots. The events occur for one...
Increasing Ridership: A Reason to Market
The City of Durango involved community members in developing a new brand for the transit system. Surveys revealed that while most residents weren’t aware of the...
Messaging: Personal Benefits
These two print ads focus on the personal benefits of riding transit (what’s good for the rider) by using testimonials from actual riders. Missouri Rural Transportation interviewed a...
Messaging: Targeting Specific Audiences
Different appeals and images are appropriate when communicating with different target audiences. These marketing materials used by small transit systems throughout...
Newspaper Ads: Different Approaches
Transit systems in rural and small urban areas often have a promotional advantage in their local newspapers, which usually have more loyal readers than big-city publications.
Passenger Information: Calaveras Connect
Calaveras Connect operates a combination of deviated fixed-route and demand-response service over a very rural county. Some services only operate one or two...
Permanent Information Displays: VVTA Victor Valley College & Needles
Permanent information displays are stands and information holders that can be placed in the offices and facilities of your community partners' and gatekeepers’ locations.
Posters
Posters and flyers provide effective promotion through their affordability and flexibility. You may be able to print high-quality posters and flyers on your office printer.
Prepaid Fare Programs
Many colleges and universities participate in pre-paid fare programs for their students. These types of programs...
Radio: Bluegrass RIDE
Local radio stations in Central Kentucky, as in many small communities, have loyal listeners. Bluegrass RIDE chose radio as a strategy for...
Social Media: NWOTA, Calaveras, SBCTA
Social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, or other channels can be used to deliver a wide variety of messages to your followers. Remember...
Transit Advertising: Window Clings
Beyond basic branding, vehicles can also be used to advertise your services to people who see them on the street. Here are examples of side window clings and...
Video: Verde Shuttle
Video provides a great opportunity to show viewers your system in action, raising awareness and giving important directions for riding. The Verde Shuttle used videos...
Website: Trinity Transit
Trinity Transit provides a network of intercity routes connecting the communities of Trinity County, California, with transit services in neighboring Humboldt and Shasta Counties. Their interactive...
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90 days using GTFS Builder. Trip planning information displays in a riders'
native language, which supports gencies in travel training and meeting Title VI
mandates. "
" Having a tool like GTFS Builder is really light years ahead of what it used to be at one time in terms of how fast you can put everything together. Our university students really can't imagine transit without it, so I think it's very important for us in terms of attracting that particular demographic. "
" In the past we used proprietary database software that was very challenging, very murky, and hard to update. GTFS Builder is a great opportunity to make this more user-friendly, more readily updatable and it
would enable us to show how to create a GTFS to more of the staff. "
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