Convenience stores have relatively narrow profit margins. If you want your store to be successful, you need a steady stream of paying customers. But with competition from big chains and online stores, this can be a challenge.
Convenience store advertising can help you compete.
From giant highway billboards to hyper-targeted digital ads, modern marketing comes in countless forms. But choosing the right strategies and campaigns that actually deliver and get more neighborhood consumers in the door (not just clicks and impressions online) can feel overwhelming.
This post explores six convenience store marketing tactics and strategies. After reading, you’ll have the information you need to level up advertising and promotion for your store.
Benefits of Convenience Store Advertising
Before we explore our recommended marketing strategies you can use to boost foot traffic in your store, let’s first answer a critical question: Why do you need convenience store advertising in the first place?
Many convenience store owners believe customers will find their store organically, as long as they keep their shelves stocked and the lights on. However, unfortunately, that is often not the case. So, what are some advantages you can enjoy when you prioritize advertising for your convenience store?
First, running targeted campaigns keeps customers engaged, drives brand visibility beyond regulars, and gets folks through the doors to discover the inventory that makes your shop special. Advertising also allows you to spotlight new products, fuel word-of-mouth, and leverage seasonal events — all of which can help you boost revenue from your existing customer base. But how can a convenience store owner new to the world of marketing and advertising get started creating advertising campaigns for their store?
Related Read: Convenience Store Technology: 5 Tools To Modernize Your Store
The first step to crafting your ad campaign is to examine your target customers. What channels are they likely to see your ads on? What messaging is likely to resonate with them? You should also review what competing c-stores may be overlooking in their campaigns. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, carefully analyze your point of sale (POS) system data and sales reports. This data will help reveal what products are currently selling well and which products could use a boost.
Convenience store advertising represents an investment, not just an expense. What are some strategies you can use to maximize your return on investment? Let’s explore six strategies we think are winners in the current market.
1. Explore Organic Social Media Marketing
One of the most immediate — and, upfront, often inexpensive — marketing strategies you can implement is exploring organic social media marketing.
Organic social marketing requires you to build a follower base by regularly posting engaging content rather than paying for ads. This approach takes time to build traction, but can be a great way to build relationships and trust with your target audience.
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Regularly post about new products, deals, or events happening at your convenience store. Consider sharing photos of your latest food and beverage items or videos of prepared foods being made in-store.
Another critical part of organic social media marketing is regular audience interaction. Monitor your posts and mentions across your platforms. Respond to any questions or comments followers post about store hours, products, ongoing promotions, etc. You can also direct message disgruntled commenters right away to resolve issues before they escalate publicly. Post comments thanking fans for checking in to your location or tagging you in relevant posts as well, further encouraging sharing and returns.
Use relevant local hashtags on all posts like your city, neighborhood, or regional names to maximize visibility. Customize additional hashtags referencing things residents self-identify with, so you can actively search for even more exposure. Partner with complementary neighboring businesses, too, for the creative cross-promotion of joint offers.
For example, team up on a protein shake and gym discount combo rewarding customers who present proof of their gym membership upon purchasing shakes in your store.
2. Run a Giveaway
Another solid strategy you might consider for your convenience store is running a giveaway. Giveaways help win new visibility while allowing existing customers to benefit from the offering. For example, you could offer free coffee or fountain drinks to customers with a certain purchase size to boost the average receipt size.
Related Read: 4 Simple Convenience Store Marketing Strategies To Try This Year
You can also explore a traditional giveaway. Enter customers in a drawing for free pizza slices, breakfast sandwiches, or soft drinks. Promote the giveaway rules on social channels, with in-store flyers, and with prominent signage.
As fans engage with the giveaway, collect contact information like email addresses to grow subscriber lists for future couponing and personalized offers, encouraging repeat visits long after the contest runs its course.
3. Run Ads on Local Radio
You want to draw local customers to your convenience store. You can consider partnering with a local radio station to promote your business to your community and gain more brand recognition from your target customer base.
Target specific stations based on their listener demographics when building your radio advertising strategy. Find stations with listenerships that match your ideal customer profile. You can also identify shows or radio personalities that align with your customer base and partner with these shows for sponsorships. Local radio personalities organically discussing favorite grabs makes offers resonate more with your audience.
Time 60-second ad spot placements around expected convenience shopping behaviors like weekday commuting hours and weekend mornings when customers may be running errands. Introduce the same promotions pushed on social media for seamless omnichannel integration.
For ad content, avoid generic store attributes and lead instead with crowd-pleasers like your hot food menu items, coffee specials, or unique snack offerings.
4. Start a Customer Loyalty Program
Another cost-effective advertising strategy for convenience stores is starting a customer loyalty program. Loyalty programs build meaningful relationships and encourage repeat customers. You can use benefits like points, perks, and personalized offers to encourage your best customers to spend more and shop with your store more often.
You can also use your loyalty program members for targeted ad campaigns and segmented marketing outreach. Send regular email campaigns with coupons and promos exclusively for program members. Feature new product arrivals or flash sales only active members can access. Track email open/click rates, in-store redemptions, and other key metrics to improve your loyalty program over time.
Segment top-tier "VIP" customers for surprise-and-delight perks like members-only taste tests, first dibs on high-demand items, or bonus wallet top-offs. Catering creatively to your most valuable heavy purchasers prevents competitor defections while making those customers feel appreciated.
5. Run Targeted Facebook Ads
We spoke about organic social media marketing earlier, but you might also consider paid social marketing, depending on your audience. One of the simplest social media platforms to run ads with, historically, is Facebook (Meta).
Related Read: Are Convenience Stores a Good Investment? 5 Ways To Increase Profitability
Using Facebook’s advertising toolkit, you can fine-tune your audience and reach, building your target audience based on regions, interest and behavior signals, age, and more. Geo-targeting focused on nearby neighborhoods with disposable income and impulse shopping habits allows you to target only your most likely customers and demographics.
For example, you might run snack-themed video ads targeting college-aged customers nearby, in the evenings when late night cravings spark. You can also use Facebook ads to retarget past paying customers who've stopped in before, reminding them of your offerings to hopefully win them for another visit.
6. Refine Your Ads With Point of Sale Data
Last but not least, you need to remember that your convenience store advertising campaigns should never be “set it and forget it.” Instead, you should consistently seek to improve your ad campaigns’ effectiveness over time.
One of the best ways to optimize your advertising and store operations is to leverage your point of sale data.
Use your POS system to identify top-selling items across categories, days, times, and other cuts, rather than simply guessing or using your gut. Armed with this data, you’ll know what items to feature in your ads to draw in more customers.
You can also examine your overall sales trends to pinpoint slower periods, then use promotions to inject traffic as needed. For example, you might run a promotion that only runs from 2-4 p.m. on weekdays to encourage more customers to come in during those slow, afternoon hours.
Drill down further by analyzing scanned customer age, gender, and other checkout traits, soyou can shape messaging and offers to better resonate with existing segments already converted to sales. Last, reference redemption rates on past deals before building out similar future offer campaigns, helping quantify the ROI of your efforts.
Managing Your Convenience Store Advertising Efforts
Implementing convenience store advertising campaigns across platforms like social media, loyalty programs, and in-store displays provides a major opportunity to drive foot traffic and sales. As we've explored, you have no shortage of options when it comes to how — and where — you promote your store.
However, you must consider what happens if you get what you want: What if your convenience store advertising pays off and your store is suddenly bursting at the seams with new customers? If you want to get the most from your marketing efforts, you need to optimize your store operations.
That's where a robust point of sale system makes all the difference. C-Store POS offers a point of sale solution built by and for convenience store owners. With C-Store POS, you get built-in controls for your unique challenges, like lottery sales and age verification, plus powerful reporting to identify areas for better performance.
Schedule a demo of C-Store POS to check out features made for taking your store to the next level.
