In part three of our series, we offer a final recommendation on how to get the best return on investment for the digital display screens on your property. We’ve already covered what kind of content C-stores should put on their screens and the different options for monetizing their screens, so now it’s time to take it internal and look at how you can use screens to best tell your story.
Branding
Branding matters in retail, especially for convenience stores. A solid comprehensive marketing strategy should include a branding initiative that takes advantage of as many avenues as you can to support those efforts.
Branding includes everything about who you are as a company. It’s everything from your core values and how you train employees to interact with customers to the fonts, colors and images you use to represent your store. The screens on your property are a great opportunity to reinforce those branding ethos.
Community
Whether you are part of a national chain or a one-man show, you need each location to be seen as a valuable member of the local community. That means you need to tell your story about how you’re impacting the community. Become the local hero by sharing how you support the community.
When building a local brand, you have to be intimately involved in the community. That means supporting local schools, athletics, festivals and more. Get creative and use your screens to feature local high school athletes or promote the local football game. Put together short vignettes about community events going on around town or create a visual calendar of events that plays between ads. When you feature local relevant content on the screens at your pumps, customers will view you as a local company.
Charity
Many C-stores are active in fund raising for local or national charities. One way to support them is to offer a roundup campaign that allows your customers the opportunity to roundup to the nearest dollar, with all of the proceeds going to your chosen organization. You can and should utilize your screens to promote local charitable activities.
When you’re working to raise money, every penny counts. That means you need to raise awareness and garner donations from customers without spending marketing dollars on advertising or physical promotional pieces like table tents or posters. This is where the existing display screen network on your property comes in. By featuring content that promotes the charity you are supporting, you can do more to help that organization without unnecessarily spending money you could be donating directly to the cause.
Make your screens work for you. They are a great way to provide useful content for your customers and monetize them in different ways, but at the end of the day, it is up to you how you use your screens. While a combination of all options is probably best, don’t forget to take the time to promote yourself too.
