COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF DIRECT MAIL MARKETING TO NEW RESIDENTS

In January 1989 the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (Tri-Met) began offering a promotional packet to new residents in selected ZIP codes within the Tri-Met service district. The primary objective of the program was to increase ridership by attracting new riders and retaining existing riders after they move. In February 1991 Tri-Met launched a year-long study to determine how often and for what period of time new riders who received a direct mail promotion continued to ride Tri-Met. The study found that after a year, 64% of these new riders continued to ride, making 21 trips a month on average. The length of time that a person stays with the Tri-Met system appears to be correlated to the number of trips they made on Tri-Met when they first started riding: the more trips respondents made initially, the more likely they were to continue riding. The promotion is cost-effective; the payback period is less than 3 months, including all development, production, mailing, and lost revenue costs. Respondents generally pay their fares using the most economical method for the number of trips that they plan to take in a given month with two exceptions: those who always pay cash (about 10%) and those in lower-income brackets who make more than 30 trips a month. Targeted direct mail promotions such as the new residents promotion should be continued because they appear to be effective in terms of both attracting and retaining riders at a relatively low cost to the agency.

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1993/1402/1402-007.pdf
• Record URL:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=COST-EFFECTIVENESS+OF+DIRECT+MAIL+MARKETING+TO+NEW+RESIDENTS&author=C.+Ambruso&publication_year=1993
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/03611981
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1402, Public Transit: Current Research in Planning, Marketing, Operations, and Technology. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Authors:
  • Ambruso, Carol Pedersen
• Publication Date: 1993

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 43-50
• Monograph Title: Public transit: current research in planning, marketing, operations, and technology
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1402
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cost effectiveness; Marketing; Migration; Postal service; Promotion; Public transit; Residents; Ridership
• Identifier Terms: Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon
• Old TRIS Terms: New residents
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00641363
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Jan 5 1994 12:00AM