You have screens on your property. Now what? Welcome to our three-part series on how to maximize your return on investment for display screens in the forecourt and inside your convenience store.
First, let’s talk content. The screens don’t do you any good if you aren’t playing the right content. And we all know if you play all ads all the time, you’ll lose the interest of your customers quickly.
Every site’s content strategy will differ based on the location and the attributes that the site offers, plus what the retailer wants to see on their screens. In general, we recommend a combination of infotainment content customized to your location and merchandising messaging.
Don’t overload the wheel.
Content wheels are short, especially at the dispenser. Your customers aren’t standing there long, so you don’t need your content mix to be more than about three minutes, about as long as it takes to fill a 13-gallon tank. Two-thirds of that time should feature retailer promotions and merchandising ads that will drive customers into your store. That leaves about a minute for infotainment content.
Go local.
Local news, weather and traffic are all good types of content to show on your dispenser screens. It’s best to partner with a well-known local media brand whenever possible. For example, Shep Digital works with major broadcasters like NBC Universal, Sinclair, Tegna and NexStar to provide local content for our C-store retailers. This allows you to have a popular local content partner providing engaging and useful information to your customers. And of course, it doesn’t hurt to have familiar faces add local relevance to your screens as well.
Mix in national.
In some markets, a local broadcaster may not be available, or some retailers may prefer to use more generally recognized content. National news, local and regional weather graphics and lifestyle entertainment can be entertaining and relevant depending on your retail location. Sometimes it can even be a good strategy to mix your local news, weather and traffic with some of the national lifestyle and entertainment content.
Choose the right merchandising messages.
If you only have two minutes for merchandising messages, it’s important to make the most of it. You probably have a promotional cycle that your screens can fall right into. This allows you to strategically prioritize vendor promotions coupled with your own proprietary products in your content wheel instead of just playing random ads.
Display screens may seem simple, and they can be, but to get the most value out of them, it’s important to be smart and strategic about what you play on them. For more about being smart and strategic, check out the rest of our blog series to learn more about other ways to monetize your screens and how to best tell your brand story.
