Convenience Store Marketing: 10 Strategies to Stand Out

It’s no surprise that most customers shop at convenience stores for the convenience, but there aren’t always compelling reasons to return to the same c-store. As a result, people are less likely to make repeat purchases at one location. 

How can you make your convenience store stand out and keep customers returning? Defining your convenience store brand and employing marketing strategies helps you stand out in a crowded market. Let's dig deeper. 

Defining Your Convenience Store Brand 

Developing a brand identity is the first step in creating a successful convenience store business. A strong brand identity sits at the core of your marketing strategy. It’s not just about the logo or colors that make up your brand but what customers feel when interacting with your business. 

Brand strategy helps you prioritize goals and plan. It can help you determine whether your brand tone should be casual, conversational, or authoritative. It can also determine the demographics or segments you’d like to target.

To develop a brand identity, you’ll want to identify: 

1: Your target audience and what makes your store stand out: Do you have specialty products? Do your customers love your consistently quick service? Do you have everything someone would need in a pinch? Are you known for your friendly staff? These are characteristics you can showcase in your brand identity. 

Look at your target audience: Who are they? Why would they stop by your store? What issues are they facing that your store/brand could help with?  

If you use your knowledge of your audience’s needs and buying habits to target your messages to them, you’re more likely to resonate with them.  

2: Your competition: Look at the other convenience stores in your area. What is their branding like? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Think about what makes your store different from any others (even if it’s small features), or how you’ll grow your business to a level where it’s different. 

3: Your brand’s personality/story: You know what makes your brand stand out since you’re involved with it every day, but why does it stand out? What’s the story behind your brand? Consider why you do what you do and how you’ve helped your community. Stories are a great way to connect with people, so use these questions to further develop and share your stories. 

4: Your brand’s voice and tone: Maintaining a consistent brand voice and tone is essential. This regularity builds trust with your audience and potential customers. When creating your brand’s voice and tone, you should: 

• Know what language will resonate with your target audience, and use it prominently throughout your website and marketing campaigns 

• Know your brand’s personality and values—make sure images and graphics convey these characteristics, too 

• Be consistent across all platforms and communication channels—the modern consumer journey has nine touchpoints before purchasing 

5: Your brand’s look and logo: Your brand’s logo is often the first impression people have with your store. Logos incorporate a variety of visuals like color palettes, typeface, imagery and other elements. Color can convey a specific message and make people feel a certain way. Be aware of this when considering your brand’s look and logo. The font and imagery should represent your brand’s story and voice. Any text you include in your logo or imagery should ideally be black or white and easy on the eyes to improve comprehension. 

You’ve developed your brand identity. Now, it’s time to align your brand with your customers’ expectations. You can do this by: 

• Engaging with your customers and learning what they care about  
• Getting customer feedback on a regular basis (e.g. two to four times annually) and adapting your strategy accordingly 
• Communicating authentically across all platforms 

After you’ve created your brand’s identity and aligned it with your customer’s expectations, you’ll want to: 

• Establish your marketing goals 
• Select your marketing channels your customers are most likely to engage in 
• Plan in advance your promotional activities, discounts, contests, social media content, special offers and seasonal items 
• Claim your store’s listings on maps and local directories—this will make it easier to find 
• Continuously analyze your efforts—this will tell you if your marketing efforts are successful or you need to change a strategy or offering

10 Convenience Store Marketing StrategIES

The convenience store landscape is competitive. Your product offerings need to stand out, and your brand identity needs to resonate with your customers to create more than just a shopping experience.  

These marketing strategies can help you create meaningful connections with your audience: 

1. Use SEO: You’ve got a brick-and-mortar location, but having an online presence is just as crucial. Local SEO tactics can help ensure your store and products appear in organic search results. Optimize your website and product listings with location-specific and product-specific keywords.
2. Use social media: Social media is valuable for convenience stores. Social platforms can accelerate your rate of success online and create an online community around your store.  
3. Have in-store promotions: A digital presence is essential, but remember not to  overlook your brick-and-mortar location. Utilize creative in-store promotions that go beyond buy-one-get-one (BOGO) offers.  
4. Don’t forget about email: Collecting customer emails lets you send personalized offers and notices of in-store promotions directly to your customers’ inboxes. Segment your email list based on what you learn about your audience. You can also segment based on purchasing behavior. Email marketing is a cost-effective  strategy to keep customers engaged.  
5. Consider partnerships: Partnering with local businesses can help boost visibility for both your store and your partner. Collaborate on special offers or cross promotions that benefit the customer base of your store and your partner. These kinds of partnerships can expand your reach and create and strengthen ties with local businesses, too. 
6. Don’t overlook your customer feedback: Do you collect customer feedback after someone makes a purchase? Such feedback is vital to making improvements, both short- and long-term. It’s also a useful tool to learn what customers think sets your c-store apart from the competition. 
7. Consider local events: Expand your reach by sponsoring a local event or having a booth or table at a local event. Dozens of sponsorships can be conducted inexpensively and, if the event overlaps with your audience(s), can produce immediate ROI in some cases. 
8. Optimize your signage: Good signage is what gets customers driving down the road to make a stop at your store (and remember it for next time). If your convenience store sells gas, make sure the prices for diesel and fuel are clearly visible, especially if you’re offering a lower price than your competitors. Make sure you have product advertisement signs at multiple places around your store. Include locations like store windows, fuel pumps, store entrance(s), and high foot traffic areas. 
9. Incentivize word of mouth: 92% of customers trust recommendations from their friends and family. Word of mouth marketing plays an even more key role in your c-store business because you’re local. An unmistakable element of effective word-of-mouth marketing is offering great products and services. To achieve this, ensure you always have cost-effective stock. Also, notice what products customers buy most and make sure they’re always replenished. 
10. Ask for reviews: Reviews on platforms like Yelp or Google can enhance your store’s ability to get found. They can also showcase your customer satisfaction, offerings, and products. Ask for customers’ reviews on social media, in-store, or incorporate it into your loyalty program or when someone makes an online purchase. 

Technology plays an essential role in your marketing strategy, too. An all-in-one platform helps you create exceptional customer experiences and build revenue in addition to your everyday marketing tactics.  

Use a loyalty program and app to provide a seamless experience. Allow customers to order a snack from their device while they’re pumping gas. Promote limited-time offers on their favorite snacks and drinks.  

Plus, predictive models and real-time data let you easily segment customers and target them based on their activity.  

8 More Convenience Store Marketing Ideas 

1. Offer delivery: Convenience stores are widely associated with buying gasoline (roughly 55% of U.S. c-store visitors are there to fill up on gas), but more and more customers are ordering items for delivery from their phones. You can practically get anything delivered to your door these days. Provide first-party ordering through your own website, and if you don’t have staff or budget to provide delivery, offer it through third-party delivery providers like Postmates, DoorDash, and GrubHub to deliver snacks, drinks, and other items.  
2. Offer produce: While most convenience stores are known for having snacks, sugary drinks, and sandwiches, many shop at convenience stores for grocery items. Consider partnering with local farms or produce providers to provide fresh produce for your customers. 
3. Create a memorable offering: Grocer and convenience store brand Giant Eagle created The General, a sandwich featuring General Tso’s chicken and egg rolls. Convenience store brand Sheetz continually creates eye-catching and dynamic food offerings.  
4. Carry a variety of alcoholic beverages: Alcoholic beverages are a common purchase at c-stores, with this product category comprising anywhere from 13 to 20% of total sales for most stores. Carry a wide variety of alcohol that includes beers, malt beverages, ciders, and wine to appeal to your customers’ tastes, and check your sales records to optimize future stock. 
5. Offer a loyalty program: An engaging  c-store loyalty program keeps your current customers returning. Offer free items, discounts, or special offers on your customers’ favorite products. An all-in-one solution like Paytronix can help you create and launch a loyalty program and track customer behavior to offer personalized content. 
6. Conduct paired item discounts: Did a customer stop in for a coffee on the way to work? It would be great if they also grabbed a donut, breakfast bar, or customized breakfast sandwich to go with it, wouldn’t it? Paired item discounts can help you accomplish this. If a coffee is $2 and a breakfast bar is $2.50, for example, the paired item discount for this offering can be $4.00. 
7. Run a social media contest: Social media contests are a useful way to give your brand more visibility. Consider these two social media contest ideas: 
8. Photo contests: Give your customers a prompt and ask them to post photos in relation to that prompt. Alternatively, you can ask customers to take and post a photo of a product offering you’re trying to sell more of.  
   1. Caption contests: Who doesn’t love a caption contest? Post a photo of your mascot, a notable object in your store, or some other kind of common occurrence and ask people to caption it. The best caption can win a discount or free product. 
   2. Consider local events and trends: Taking advantage of local trends and events can set your store apart. Does your town hold an annual event like a festival? Capitalize on the increase in traffic and offer festival-specific items to your customers. 

Launching Your First Convenience Store Marketing Campaign 

Before you launch your campaign, determine your objectives or goal: Do you want to sell more products? Do you want to increase sales? Get brand recognition?  

Once you have your goals in mind: 

• Determine your budget 
• Identify your target audience 
• Design your marketing content (including emails, banners, signs, site pages, social content) 
• Choose your channels (TV, out-of-home signs, screens on gas pumps, social media) 
• Launch your campaign 
• Monitor it, make tweaks as needed, and analyze the results 

Measuring whether your campaign was effective is necessary to help you determine if the campaign helped you reach your goals. Having the right technology platform is a key part of determining campaign success. Plus, the information you collect when you analyze one campaign is helpful when planning future campaigns.  

The Bottom Line 

Clear marketing objectives help you reach your goals and grow your business. Setting specific goals, using proper channels, having knowledge about your audience, and using the right technology helps you easily meet your business goals, no matter your budget or starting point. 

Ready to launch your first or next convenience store marketing campaign? Contact us today to see how we can help.