SARTA Employee/Rider Thank You Campaign
Target Audience: Current SARTA Employees and SARTA Riders throughout Stark County, Ohio.
Strategy Objective:Just about every day you see news stories or social media posts thanking frontline workers in a medical setting, restaurant services and even delivery personnel but it was uncommon to see them thanking public transit operators. Our drivers were coming in daily, administrative staff were cleaning buses and our maintenance department was resupplying and cleaning all premises on the daily. We wanted to take the opportunity around and showcase to the public not only our drivers, but all of our SARTA employees for their part in providing a safe working environment and a safe travel option for Stark County. The goal of the Rider "Thank You" campaign was to amass stories and feedback from riders on their use of SARTA services during the Pandemic as well as thank them for their continued support.
Situation Challenge: At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there were a lot of changes that both our drivers and riders went through on a daily basis. From the installation of Plexiglas barriers, hand sanitizing stations and mask requirements as well as fare-suspension, contingency service and limitations to essential travel only, our drivers and the citizens of Stark County continued to come into work and to utilize SARTA for their essential travel needs. We knew that there are plenty of people in Stark County who depend on SARTA to get them where they need to go and we wanted to hear from them as to how SARTA was still assisting them during pandemic. We also wanted to highlight our employees that were making SARTA a safe place to work and a viable, safe, transportation option on a daily basis.
Results Impact: As evident from the campaign's original social media post that reached over 12,000 people, had 800 post engagements and 72 comments as a part of our "Comment for a Chance to Win" story gathering on the challenges of 2020, SARTA played a major role in a lot of people's lives while COVID raged on. From these 72 comments we were able to select the four best that we felt showed the importance of SARTA during this time and turned these into their own advertising pieces as a "Thank You" and showed our gratitude for playing such an important role in our Rider's lives. These pieces will continue to run as we thank the community for their support throughout this past year.
Why Submit: We chose this entry because the Employee/Rider Thank You campaign originated and ran during a stressful time full of changes and uncertainty. People all over Stark County were continuing to go to work and would do things that were a previously "thank-less" job (including those in public transit). We wanted to show not only our employees but our community that we appreciated them coming to work and using our service at a time when people were concerned with where they were spending their money, spending their time all while trying to be safe as possible. We feel that this campaign was effective at not only reaching this audience but showing them how much appreciation we had for their support and their commitment to SARTA and Stark County.