In 2016, Cyclistic launched a successful bike-share offering, which currently holds more than 5,000 geo-tracked bicycles in a network of 692 stations across Chicago. The bicycles are unlockable in their respective station and can be returned to any other station in the system anytime.

Until now, Cyclistic’s marketing strategy relied on building general awareness and appealing to broad consumer segments. For example, the flexibility of its pricing plans is as follows: single-ride passes, full-day passes, and annual memberships. Customers who purchase single-ride or full-day passes are referred to as casual riders. Customers who purchase annual memberships are Cyclistic members.

You are a junior data analyst in the marketing analyst team at Cyclistic, a bike-share company in Chicago. The marketing director believes the company’s future success depends on maximizing the number of annual memberships. Therefore, your team wants to understand how casual riders and annual members use Cyclistic bikes differently. From these insights, your team will design a new marketing strategy to convert casual riders into members. However, Cyclistic executives must approve the recommendations, supplemented with compelling data insights and professional data visualizations.

Cyclistic’s finance analysts have concluded that annual members are much more profitable than casual riders. Although the pricing flexibility helps Cyclistic attract more customers, Moreno believes that maximizing the number of members will be the key to future growth. Moreno believes there is a reasonable chance to convert casual riders into members. She notes that casual riders appear aware of the Cyclistic program and have chosen Cyclistic for their mobility needs.

• Cyclistic: A bike-share program that features more than 5,800 bicycles and 600 docking stations. Cyclistic sets itself apart by also offering reclining bikes, hand tricycles, and cargo bikes, making bike-share more inclusive for people with disabilities and riders who can’t use a standard two-wheeled bike. Most riders opt for traditional bikes; about 8% of riders use assistive options. Cyclistic users are more likely to ride for leisure, but about 30% use them to commute to work each day.
• Lily Moreno: The director of marketing and your manager. Moreno is responsible for the development of campaigns and initiatives to promote the bike-share program. These may include email, social media, and other channels.
• Cyclistic marketing analytics team: A team of data analysts who are responsible for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data that helps guide Cyclistic marketing strategy.
• Cyclistic executive team: The notoriously detail-oriented executive team will decide whether to approve the recommended marketing program.

The business task is to develop marketing strategies that convert existing casual riders into annual members. However, the marketing analyst team needs to understand how members and casual riders differ, why casual riders would buy a membership, and how digital media could affect their marketing tactics. Our team is interested in analyzing the Cyclistic historical bike trip data to identify trends.

In an Amazon Web Server (AWS), Cyclistic stores the data in zipped comma-separated values (CSV) files. For the years 2020-2023, Cyclistic split the data by months. Prior to 2020, Cyclistic split the data by yearly quarters. The company updates the data once a month.

In this case study, I’m focusing on the recent monthly data, specifically from January 2022 - December 2022. Since I am working with first-party data from a recent year, the data is original, current, and cited. Furthermore, the data is anonymized since the selection doesn't include personally identifiable information. The data partially satisfies the reliable and comprehensive. The data is partially incomplete for about 22.9% of trips, specifically for the attribute data of the stations.

Because of the limitations of the README file, I am attaching the deliverables below.

• Full report.
• Documentation, Part I: Data Wrangling.
• Documentation, Part II: Data Visualization.

I theorize that members primarily use the Cyclistic bike-share program for transportation between and from essential tasks (i.e., work, errands, shopping, religious observation). For example, for the daily commute, the reliance on the bike-share program helps explain the peak participation in the early mornings and the evenings since members are completing a round trip. Because members expect short-distance travel throughout the year, members conserve their ride length, especially when punctuality weighs heavier in particular assignments (e.g., work, groceries).

On the other hand, I theorize that casual riders are likelier to participate in recreational activities than members. For example, though casual riders could use the bike-share program for essential tasks, they are focusing on errands and recreational activities since they are usually active in the daytime and early evening on weekdays. However, the volume of trips by casual riders is exceptionally high on weekends because of the availability of recreational activities.

Without a user experience (UX) study, we cannot assess the customer's preferences and pain points. The following recommendations are limited to the assumptions above:

1. Develop a seasonal marketing strategy aiming at casual riders.
   • Because casual riders are usually interested in summer usage of the Cyclistic bike-share program, the marketing department could develop an appropriate marketing strategy around summer participation.
   • Cyclistic could determine the suitability of stations and surrounding public space for deployment of promotional materials, focusing on proximity to local establishments and recreational areas that are popular during the summer.
   • Since patrons may be active in recreational activities with others, Cyclistic could develop a referral program that pairs with the annual membership, with a generous discount for one or both parties. For example, first-time members receive a discounted membership if they apply a referral code during the purchase. Likewise, the associated member could receive a small discount on electric bicycles for the summer.
2. Partner with local institutions and establishments to sponsor the Cyclistic membership.
   • Through partnerships with local institutions and establishments, annual membership is promoted to employees and students. For example, a first-time subscription discount may be suitable because Cyclistic is developing a strategy to convert existing riders.
   • Similar to above, Cyclistic could focus on local establishments and recreational areas, which are popular during the summer. However, instead of advertising around these areas, Cyclistic could partner with their corresponding organizations for marketing.

However, there is one recommendation for Cyclistic if the company is interested in structural changes.

3. Develop a seasonal pass for casual riders during the summer.
   • Some demographics are specifically available in the summer, including but not limited to: tourists and student populations. Because of the expected decline in utility for annual memberships, a seasonal pass is a compromise between the options for casual riders and the membership.