Business Opportunity
Managing strategic marketing, digital transformation and customer experience for Edmonton Transit, Nathan led an initiative to review and improve channel performance, and particularly e-commerce.
With a specific emphasis on e-commerce platform modernization, project objectives focused on:
Shifting a larger share of sales online / towards self-service; thus, lowering cost per transaction.
Increasing appeal and loyalty of the e-commerce platform, making it a preferred choice.
Engaging customers in a targeted fashion, focusing on campaign-based monetization.
Improving the user experience and interface.
Strengthening City and Edmonton Transit branding.
To achieve these objectives, Nathan led stakeholders through discovery, planning, design, development and implementation stages to ultimately, modernize the platform.
During discovery and planning, Nathan led a current state analysis, which included conducting and analyzing sales channel research, customer feedback, operational feedback, as well as technological capabilities of the current platform - collaborating with the technology provider.
Following, Nathan developed a project implementation plan, as well as amended the vendor contract, to formally outline project objectives, key stakeholders, budgets, enhancements and project milestones.
Actions + Outcomes
The Transit e-Commerce Modernization project resulted in the prioritization, development and implementation of the following.
User Interface (UI) - A redesigned user interface that was developed directly by the ETS Marketing Group under Nathan’s leadership. The new UI made the site architecture more intuitive, simplified the site navigation, improved the mobile experience, streamlined the shopping cart process flow, reorganized content to the customer journey and incorporated brand attributes.
AIR MILES® reward miles - Integration with the AIR MILES® reward miles program, where customers could both redeem as well as earn reward miles through the platform; shifting incentive and channel loyalty online. Moreover, an Edmonton Transit loyalty program was introduced, called ETS Rider Returns, where customers could earn more reward miles the more frequently that they purchased online – earning the most for higher-valued products.
Direct Email Program - Direct email integration to better target various segments purchasing through the platform. This included customer subscription functionality (during the purchase process) as well as the ability to export targeted lists. Direct email integration led to several promotions, branded as ETS e-Specials, which also incentivized customers to shift their purchase patterns and channel of choice to online. One multi-day ETS e-Specials campaign in particular resulted in realizing an additional $75,000 in revenue.
Web Analytics - Integration of a web analytics platform to better understand traffic behaviour, utilization and platform conversion. These analytics were then reported within the ETS Marketing Dashboard and shared monthly with leadership across the organization.
Branded URL - Introduction of a more direct access point to the e-commerce platform by rolling out a customized web address; takeETS.com/buytransit. While the e-commerce platform had historically been accessible through the City of Edmonton website, it required further navigation and clicks that would result in user drop-off. Having a customized URL allowed for direct access and also better framed a call to action across advertising and communication channels.
Online Donations - Integration of online donations, where the customer at the time of purchase can add to their cart a charitable donation (as much as 10 rides) that goes towards the Donate-A-Ride program; a program that pays for transit fare for those in need.
Embedded Advertising - An embedded advertising block was designed into the layout. This new asset was leveraged by the ETS Marketing Group as an additional channel to target advertising / promotions and track click-through rates.
The newly modernized site was brought to market with an extensive multi-channel campaign that included billboards, bus benches, transit shelters, ads on / within transit vehicles, ads within transit stations, social media, and a variety of other wide-reaching applications.
