Lessons Learned: Buffalo By Bike Tourism Campaign
This past summer in partnership with Slow Roll Buffalo, GoBike Buffalo, and Reddy Bikeshare, the Shared Mobility Team launched a multi-faceted marketing campaign focused on encouraging bicycling tourism in Western, New York. A grant for $150,000 provided by Empire State Development was used to bring people to the city of Buffalo and help spur economic impact for local businesses. The BuffaloByBike campaign focused on these advertising mediums in order to encourage bike riding and spending money locally:
Billboard Advertising
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
Tabling and in-person events
Radio
Video
Physical collateral
These mediums were used to focus people to come into the city and experience BuffaloByBike. We focused advertising on these aspects:
Popular summer events to ride to
Safe and easy trails to explore for novice bike riders
Organized group rides (such as the weekly Slow Roll, and the popular SkyRide event)
Self guided tours to try yourself
Throughout the 2017 and 2018 summers, the project produced over 6 million impressions mixing all forms of marketing. Below are some of the marketing designs we used during the campaign:
The above video was promoted heavily on social media and correlated with an event to promote biking in the region.
Below are the estimated economic impacts of the project that resulted from $150,000 of funding:
| 2016 | 2017 (funding) | 2018 (funding) |
SkyRide | 700 | 700 | 763 |
Other Various Events (5 events)* | 275 | 260 | 315 |
Slow Roll (30 events) | 16500 | 17000 | 20000 |
Reddy Bikeshare | 510 | 1682 | 2460 |
Total People From outside the City | 17985 | 35950 | 25358 |
Estimated Economic Impact | $1.34 Million | $1.48 Million | $1.78 Million |
With an $150,000 investment in this project, it was estimated to spur over $400,000 of economic impact.
Quick lessons learned from the campaign included:
Billboards were expensive, and seemed to be less impactful than other forms
Social Media was affordable, and yielded a lot of results
Being at events and promoting with already existing established organizations was very successful
Creating content that can be reused should always be done.
Radio was not as impactful.
If working with a small budget, diversifying advertising mediums is needed, but try not stretch yourself too thin.
If you have any questions regarding this campaign, please email info@sharedmobility.org.
What stands out is that the campaign backed its conclusions with measurable results: social media and event partnerships generated stronger engagement than billboards and radio, while reusable content offered longer-term value. That lesson is still relevant to digital projects such as Cool Games, where well-planned content can continue serving an audience beyond a single promotional campaign.
The Dinosaur Game goal of becoming the town's sheriff gives the game a competitive edge. Players aren't simply wandering through a dinosaur world—they are building their reputation and trying to establish themselves as one of the strongest characters around.