City of Hobart
In search of a ‘shop local’ passport-style incentive to support businesses after COVID-19, the City of Hobart set up a highly successful campaign using Stamp Me.
Background
Hobart is the capital of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, famous for its Georgian and Victorian architecture, groundbreaking art gallery, bars, restaurants and spectacular surrounding national parks.
Due to the disruptive repercussions of COVID-19, the local government body, the City of Hobart, were looking for a solution to support the communities hospitality businesses and boost the city’s economy.
They subsequently founded the Passport to Hobart initiative. The program aimed to reward and motivate locals to dine out with discount vouchers by utilizing Stamp Me’s loyalty technology.
60 businesses participated in the 2 month Passport to Hobart campaign with thousands of residents taking advantage of the exciting local promotion.
Almost half of the participating businesses saw an increase in foot traffic. For every $1 the City invested in this campaign (which includes full reimbursement to venues), the venues also received a minimum value of $2.31 through redeemed vouchers and stamps collected.
The Brief
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Key Objectives
The primary goals that the City of Hobart strived to achieve with their digital rewards campaign were to:
- Reward and incentivise locals to dine out and spend money at hospitality venues within Hobart.
- Provide financial grants to boost businesses and the local economy in light of COVID.
- Offer a user-friendly and contactless platform which could be implemented across multiple venue.
- Communicate with campaign participants through and all-in-one platform
Learn more about how a community passport campaign can help you to achieve your company objectives.
How the
City of Hobart
Loyalty Program Works
The City of Hobart used a shared stamp card to run their campaign. This meant that residents could collect stamps and earn reward vouchers using one digital stamp card, at any of the 60 participating businesses.
To join, they searched for Hello Hobart using the ‘Explore New Offers’ feature or scanned a QR code displayed on the council’s website.
Upon joining the Passport to Hobart offer on Stamp Me, the first 3,500 users automatically received a $10 welcome voucher to spend at any of the participating venues on a purchase above the value of $20.
Then, each time a customer made a purchase of $20 or more at one of the venues, they qualified to collect a stamp on their digital stamp card. A maximum of one stamp could be collected per day, regulated by the in-app time delay feature.
Once users had collected 5 stamps on their foodie journey throughout the city, filling their stamp card, a $20 in-app reward voucher was triggered. This voucher could be spent in much the same way as the first welcome voucher.
How the City of Hobart Refunded Businesses
Step 1: Venues were encouraged to keep track of the number of redeemed $10 and $20 vouchers at their store.
Step 2: The venue invoiced the City of Hobart to be reimbursed.
Step 3: The invoice was cross-checked with issued and claimed voucher data provided to Hello Hobart. Invoices were processed in their next pay cycle.
Promotion
The City of Hobart ensured that The Passport to Hobart campaign was a success by creating a strong marketing strategy, promoting the program through a variety of channels in the months leading up to and during the launch.
Here is an insight into their marketing activities:
Digital
- Social media (FB & IG through Hello Hobart channels)
- 30-sec radio advertising on local commercial station
- Digital signage in Council owned car parks and mall signage
- Media launch at a venue with press invited (picked up by a number of newspapers and nightly news bulletins. Hobart Observer, The Mercury & more)
- Digital advertising through a local newspaper
- Dedicated web pages on the Hello Hobart website answering common FAQs
- Highway signage
- Posters distributed throughout the city and suburban areas
- Local newspapers
In-store/Venue Materials
- Venue decals (A5) for the windows of participating venues
- Venue decals (A5) for the counter tops of participating venues
- Posters for the venues
- All venues given social media tiles/templates they could use with their own images
Communication
In order to communicate directly with the Passport to Hobart users, the City of Hobart leveraged Stamp Me’s existing platform.
Push Notification
Regular push notification reminders were sent to users with unclaimed vouchers to encourage them to be spent.
Similarly, when the program was extended, a push notification announcement was sent to notify all users.
Upon receiving the $10 or $20 voucher, an email to the user was automatically sent, congratulating them and reiterating how to spend it along with the campaign terms & conditions.
Two further ad-hoc emails followed – one to announce the extension of the campaign and the other two days before it ended, reminding users to spend any unclaimed vouchers before it was too late.
How Rewards are Redeemed
Step 1: Users told staff they had a $10 or $20 reward voucher they wished to claim (valid on purchases of $20 or more).
Step 2: They opened the Stamp Me app and selected their Passport to Hobart voucher under their list of ‘rewards’.
Step 3: To validate the voucher, the user was prompted to scan the QR code on the back of the EFTPOS machine.
Step 4: To claim, they simply showed staff the animated countdown voucher on their phone screen.
Step 5: The business removed the voucher value from the final bill.
Step 6: The voucher was dismissed or timed out after 3 minutes.
Results
Having launched the Passport to Hobart scheme, the City of Hobart have:
- Understood that almost half of the participating venues saw an increase in foot traffic.
- Invested a minimum total of $2.31 back into the participating venue for every $1 spent on the campaign.
- Provided a user-friendly contactless program with businesses rating Stamp Me as ‘easy’ or ‘very easy’ to use.
- Effectively incentivised customers to spend money at the city’s local businesses.
- Offered modest financial grants to 60 small businesses in the Hobart area.
- Boosted a sense of community between residents and businesses.
- Maintained communication with program participants throughout the campaign.
Learn more about running a community passport campaign on Stamp Me.
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If you’re a local government, council or community organisation looking for a similar passport rewards scheme to support local businesses, please feel free to get in touch with our loyalty experts to discuss your objectives.