Experience Grand Rapids is Using Bandwango Passes to Gain and Retain Partners

How it All Started

Kate Lieto is the VP of Marketing for Experience Grand Rapids, and she first learned about Bandwango by seeing the paid attraction pass created by Visit Denver. She said,

"I really liked the idea of having one place where visitors could access multiple attractions. Building something like that ourselves felt overwhelming, but Bandwango made it easy to get started."

That’s when the Culture Pass was born. 

“We started seeing success where people were buying it and visiting multiple attractions, which is exactly what we wanted. That was a great start,” said Lieto. “The participating businesses were seeing value too. The platform made it easy for them to track performance and manage payouts.” There was just one problem – more partners wanted to be included. The pass was rebranded to the Attraction Pass GR last year and the new pass is broader, allowing participation from more partners. 

That’s when she and her team started realizing that this was a valuable asset they could provide to their partners, and they started thinking about their pass strategy in a different way. They built more passes, including Flights of Flavor and Restaurant Week, and businesses were showing strong interest in participating. 

"When we launched our first pass, we saw it primarily as a visitor experience. We didn't realize it would become such a valuable tool for partner engagement and recruitment as well." 

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The Passes Are a Part of Their Marketing Strategy 

“The passes fit really well into our larger marketing strategy because they bring our brand pillars to life,” said Lieto. “We're talking about things like dining, arts, music, and craft beverages, and the passes package those experiences together in a way that's easy for visitors to explore. We can say Grand Rapids has a vibrant downtown with lots to do, but the passes actually show people what that looks like and make it easy to experience it for themselves.” 

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Opening Doors to New Partners

"Sometimes people aren't returning calls or emails, and sometimes it takes an in-person visit to get the conversation started," said Jaylyn McCloy, the Marketing Partnership Manager for Experience Grand Rapids. "But the passes are often what opens the door. I like to say they're a doorstopper. They keep the door open for future conversations. Even if a business isn't ready to partner right now, the passes give us a reason to stay connected and continue building that relationship." 

She said that sometimes she has conversations with business owners, but they aren’t ready at that moment. Then, they get ready to launch their popular Restaurant Week pass. “The moment they see that Restaurant Week is there, they know they need to become a partner to do it. They're like, ‘OK, we're 100% ready to fully commit to a partnership.” With the exception of their savings pass for convention attendees, all of their other passes are exclusive to businesses that are members of Experience Grand Rapids.

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New Prospective Partners Are Reaching Out to Them 

"There have been plenty of times when a business reaches out because they've seen one of our passes and want to participate," said McCloy. "That gives us an opportunity to talk about partnership as a whole and all the additional benefits available to them. The pass is often what starts the conversation, but the relationship grows from there. It's definitely become a unique selling point for us." 

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It’s Helped With Retention As Well 

In addition to opening doors to new businesses, the passes that Experience Grand Rapids has built with Bandwango have helped maintain phenomenal retention rates as well. “They know that in order to maintain their participation in the passes, they need to be a partner of Experience Grand Rapids,” explained McCloy. "When renewal conversations come around, I'm able to provide partners with a summary of the value they're getting and use the metrics to show that impact."  

She uses the reporting data in her Bandwango dashboard to be able to show her members exactly how many people visited their business because of the passes.  She pulls reports to show how many check-ins they have, among other key data points, but there’s another tool that’s helped their partners see the information as well. Beyond the Bandwango dashboard, Experience Grand Rapids also integrates reporting data directly into its partner portal through its CRM. "Our partners can log in and see that information for themselves," McCloy explained. "I think that's a unique opportunity because they have access to their results year-round, not just during renewal conversations."

“A lot of times, that's what really resonates,” she said. “Businesses can see the results for themselves. When they realize they would no longer be included in the pass program, it often reinforces the value of maintaining their partnership with us.” 

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Measuring Success

Experience Grand Rapids’ measurements of success have changed as their portfolio of passes has grown and evolved. “It started as a paid attraction pass, so we were very much looking at how much money was brought in, and how many were sold,” shared Lieto. “But now a lot of the successes are how many partners are involved. Are they enjoying it? Are they seeing new revenue from it? We’re passing on the success and the metrics to the partner, and if they're successful, we're successful.”

The partners seem to like participating in the opportunities that Experience Grand Rapids brings to them. McCloy shared a benchmark that her team is proud of: “A quarter of our partners participate in at least one pass.” That’s impressive that so many of their partners are included in passes. They’re making sure partners have the information they need, and it’s contributing to their high retention rates. They’re also growing partners, and seeing increased visitation to Grand Rapids. It’s a win-win for everyone. 

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Tips for Success from Experience Grand Rapids

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• Listen to your partners.

”I would recommend creating a roundtable. You don't know what your partners want or need unless you take the time to sit down and chat with them,” said McCloy. “When we were talking about Flights of Flavor and bringing that to fruition, we met with some key partners, and they were like ‘yes, yes, yes, or change this, or don't do this.’ We were then able to move forward with a concept of a pass. But we had to have those key conversations with them in order to ensure that we're best supporting them. We can't make a pass for our partners if they don't believe in it either, because it’s going to flop if you don't have the support already before going into it.”

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• Look at who your partners are, and who could best benefit. 

Lieto shared, “Just take a step back and look at who your partners are. See if there’s some who aren’t getting as much benefit from their membership as others are, or as they could be. There might be a bucket of partners that would make sense to partner up in some way. For example, Flights of Flavor isn't just all restaurants. We’ve got bakeries, cafes, and breweries in there, but they all have this commonality of offering flights. So sometimes looking at it in a different way from what your partners have in common could help you find a way to string them together into something that people would enjoy.”

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• Take your time.

“It's okay if things don't start up right away,” shared McCloy. “ It's okay to think things through and take your time building out your pass  to ensure you're going to have a pass that not only your partners stand behind, but also something that your visitors would want to do. Sometimes you just want to make sure you get it right before you just press go.” However, she also urges others to not stall once you’re at the finish line, saying, “But don't be afraid to press go, either. Once it's there, don't overanalyze. Do it and see where the cards fall.”

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• Listen to the locals.

“Be receptive to the feedback that you're going to get from not only your visitors, but also your local community that lives in the destination, because you have to have the support of your locals,” said McCloy. “I always think community engagement's a key part in anything that you're going to do, because we know that the success of a pass is probably going to start with the people that live in your own backyard. If they have a great time with your pass, they're going to invite their friends and family to have that same experience too. 

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Conclusion

Experience Grand Rapids expects to continue using Bandwango as a tool to help with partnership growth and retention. “There's really no shortage of partnership potential,” said Lieto. “It's really just bandwidth on our end, so having easy-to-onboard options like Bandwango passes, does really help with that, too, when you're kind of bottlenecked with staff.” She says Experience Builder has been easy to use also.

“Bandwango has made so many changes that make it a lot easier now to run multiple passes. We could launch a pass a day if we really wanted to. Technology-wise, it’s super easy.”

Does your destination marketing organization depend on the support of members? Experience Grand Rapids has found the key to growing and retaining members for their DMO. What started as one paid attraction pass has grown to so much more. 

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If you would like to find ways to create a pass that contributes to the same level of growth in your destination, let’s chat. Reach out to our team to book a free demo and let us help you meet and exceed your membership goals.