Shifting to Mobile Marketing Helps C-Stores Digitally Transform to Meet Their Customers Growing Technology Needs

Today’s c-stores both large and small continue to experience challenges to stay competitive and remain profitable. And although the average c-store gets about 1,100 visitors to its gas pumps per day, according to NACS findings, only about 44% of those customers go inside the store. The potential for in-store sales remain largely untapped by many c-stores.

Driving in-store purchases has a direct impact on a c-store’s bottom line as the margins for items purchased in-store, especially prepared foods, are much higher than that from fuel sales. With increasing competitive pressure from ecommerce, quick service restaurants, and grocery store online ordering and delivery, c-stores cannot afford to take a do-nothing approach any longer.

They must leverage digital technology to enhance their ability to reach busy, hyper-connected customers who want not only high-quality food and beverages, but also the convenience of being presented with quick and easy offers that lead to quick and easy in-store experiences.

Because most customer lifestyles involve mobile devices, c-stores are making the investment to position themselves on this channel. In fact Google reports people today have 2X more interactions with brands on mobile than anywhere else. Therefore, c-stores that embrace mobile are then able to provide services like mobile ordering, payments and loyalty reward programs, using this channel as a successful path for engagement.

Mobile marketing helps c-stores meet tech-savvy customers’ growing expectations by sending offers and updates via SMS, email and push, which customers can view from their mobile devices even while at the pump. This leads to a dynamic, adaptive marketing approach that helps c-stores build better real-time, one-to-one relationships and increase same-store frequency, recency and spend.

With the right cloud platform a c-store’s mobile marketing efforts can engage customers and rewards members with valuable messages and promotions through targeted campaigns based on segmentation. A platform’s customer engagement tools enable marketers to automatically segment lists designed for specific purposes such as to win-back customers who have stopped visiting or to provide relevant offers to top customers that increases their spend.

C-stores can collect valuable data and measure their mobile marketing campaigns impact in not only click and open rates, but also in real-time revenue generated. Collecting and analyzing customer data across all locations from marketing campaigns as well as mobile payments and mobile rewards further helps c-stores track and build customer loyalty. This will continue to keep a c-store’s mobile marketing strategy successful now and into the future.

Interested in learning more about the top strategies needed to meet c-store customers’ lifestyles and engagement preferences? Download the free ebook, 5 C-Store Strategies to Increase Customer Engagement and Loyalty.