Amazon, Netflix, Starbucks. What makes these brands leaders in their category?

In an increasingly digital world, data that leads to market insights and analytics is essential for businesses that want to navigate the ever-changing consumer environment. However, the brands that can act on that data in real time tend to dominate their category.

Fueled by actionable data, a real-time implementation strategy, and industry-wide insights, convenience stores and CPG brands can better reach consumers with compelling, relevant product and service offerings to boost revenue and continue building customer loyalty.

Actionable data drives opportunity

In shaping a competitive data strategy, the difference between awareness and action is critical. For instance, brands with 250 to 1000 fuel stations are part of what we call the “Goldilocks Zone.” They’re small enough to serve unique geographical needs but large enough to enjoy strong brand equity. They also tend to have more freedom in managing their gas prices.

With consumers becoming increasingly sensitive to high prices, a trend that is expected to continue throughout 2023, this level of flexibility is critical. For instance, it’s helpful for a business to be aware of consumer price sensitivity and also know that they’re in the right pricing range, but these insights become valuable when the business can combine them and act upon them quickly.

Businesses can also monetize the Goldilocks Zone by reaching consumers through tools like GasBuddy Listings Management. After putting themselves on consumers’ radars, brands can earn customer loyalty by offering highly relevant products and loyalty programs.

Ultimately, businesses achieve their Goldilocks status—and relevance—not just by being in that sweet spot, but by leveraging their position with strategic action.

Real-time data, real-time responses

Relevance is the intersection of offering the right products (or services) at the right time, at the right price. Brands that use shopper insights to target their customers with relevant promotions typically see increased basket spend, customer loyalty, and brand affinity.

One of the most reliable indicators of purchase habits is routines. Insights from PDI show that the 2 pm to 6 pm daypart on Thursdays and Fridays is the most popular time slot for shoppers to visit convenience stores. In developing relevant offerings, businesses can use time of day data to either incentivize traffic during non-peak times or to increase basket spend during peak times.

Having access to live data is one key way convenience stores can monitor the success of their promotions and quickly adjust their strategy. Real-time data can also lead to businesses leveraging much larger cultural and economic shifts. How, why, and what shoppers purchase all changes depending on what’s happening in the world around them—and savvy businesses can reach those shoppers faster and more effectively. 

In the age of social media, product trends rise—and fall—faster than ever. To capture profits from popular products or categories, c-stores and CPG brands need current, precise information and the digital tools to respond in real time.

Site-level tools and insights

The right mix of store-specific data points and industry-wide trends can support the most comprehensive approach to data analytics and strategy. For instance, PDI’s flexible enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution uses real-time regional and industry data to help businesses identify smarter management strategies.

Businesses can leverage site-level data to streamline day-to-day management tasks. Whether they automate routine processes or eliminate unnecessary or low-payoff tasks, data-driven store strategies are more time- and cost-efficient.

Timely data can also help businesses avoid issues that could negatively impact their reputation.  In fact, PDI convenience store data indicates that negative customer ratings have a much higher impact on store footfall than their positive counterparts. With GasBuddy’s Reputation Management tool, convenience stores can aggregate customer reviews and quickly identify and address any concerns that potentially threaten footfall. Sometimes, unexpected factors—such as poorly rated coffee—lead to a fast and easy fix that can help restore footfall rates.

Discover the PDI difference

PDI insights are the result of analyzing billions of customer records and billions of dollars in receipt-level transaction data and loyalty program transactions. That level of robust, real-time data can empower businesses to act proactively—and preemptively—rather than reactively. That competitive advantage is often the difference between being an industry leader rather than a follower.

When c-stores and CPG brands have the right data-driven insights they can act on, they can deliver timely, relevant offerings to their customers—ultimately building brand loyalty and higher profitability.

Download “Tracking Convenience Report: From the Pump to the C-Store” to get the consumer data and trends that will impact your business in 2023 and beyond.

You can thrive in today’s digital economy. Contact us today to learn how we can help you transform your business.  

Today’s convenience retailers face nearly unlimited opportunities—and challenges—as the consumer mindset continues to shift based on economic concerns and a growing desire for personalization and deal-seeking. At the same time, CPG brands are looking for innovative ways to engage consumers through new and existing touchpoints—especially in digital environments.

That confluence of trends is making digital age and identity verification one of the fastest-growing technology solutions in the convenience industry. Why? Because most convenience store transactions contain age-restricted products. For instance, 61% of today’s alcohol sales occur at convenience stores and 80% of nicotine product sales occur within the c-store, according to PDI data.

Combine that number with the fact that tobacco users typically have over 60% larger c-store basket size, and you start to get a sense of how much revenue is at stake. Deploying the right age and identity verification solutions can help you maximize in-store revenue by marketing some of the most popular brands to the most loyal customers.

The drive to go digital

This approach, combined with the need to encourage repeat visits and sales, creates an environment where serving up digital offers can improve your bottom line and help you better meet consumer needs.

As age-restricted categories, particularly nicotine, continue to evolve (with some industry experts noting the potential for only non-combustible products as early as 2030), marketers must be able to safely, directly, and confidently communicate with consumers. And don’t forget that cannabis products will also play a role in age-restricted marketing as recreational use becomes legalized state by state.

Having said all that, going digital can still seem difficult in restricted categories. Beyond age and identity verification, there’s surgeon general warning compliance, geographical restrictions, app store concerns, and other category-specific requests that frequently change and are somewhat opaque to retailers.

PDI helps solve this issue by offering our webview as a service to take care of all the compliance requirements. Retailers can use the webview to confidently display PDI-sourced content along with their own content, inclusive of targeted offers, brand website links, loyalty offers, and coupons.

The role of brands in age verification

Brands can also play a key role in helping retailers overcome these challenges. By digitizing the age verification process through a matrixed offer network that provides built-in age and identity verification—as well as regulatory warnings (i.e., Surgeon General)—brands can benefit both retailers and consumers.

In addition to alleviating the burden from retailers, this approach can help brands build a loyal following through a frictionless experience for shoppers at their preferred time and place of convenience. If brands can rapidly convert consumers from offline offers and loyalty programs to digital options, the opportunities are virtually limitless. While brands can build greater loyalty, retailers can enjoy larger basket spend and potentially higher profits.

Lasting value in the data

Ultimately, digital age and identity verification provides a better understanding of consumers through a treasure trove of data, which enables deeper relationships and the delivery of seamless personalized experiences. In a complicated yet high-potential ecosystem like that of convenience, having the right tools to optimize your retail promotions and increase sales can be key to navigating dynamic market changes and achieving ongoing success.

If you’re interested in discovering how age and identity verification solutions can benefit your business, PDI has the right offerings and an integrated ecosystem approach that’s far easier than trying to build and manage a customized in-house solution. In fact, PDI serves the largest network of CPG brands and retailers in the convenience industry. That large and growing ecosystem helps take the burden off both brands and retailers, enabling everyone to thrive.

PDI can help retailers attract the most CPG funding for digital marketing in restricted categories such as alcohol and nicotine products for consumers 21 years and older. In this way, the benefit becomes far more than just age and identity verification—it becomes the ability to market more effectively for these age-restricted categories that account for such a large portion of c-store sales.

The time is right to turn digital age and identity verification into a strategic business advantage. Contact us today to learn how we can help you transform your business.

All signs point to 2022 as being a critical year for fuel and convenience retailers to strengthen their relationships with consumers. To accomplish this, you’ll need to leverage a variety of new and emerging consumer engagement technologies.

Building longer-lasting and more meaningful relationships with your customers will require you to gain deeper insight into their mindset and behavior — so you can better predict what they want, when they want it, and how they want it.

Watch for the following trends to gain traction throughout 2022 and beyond, with savvy retailers doubling down on consumer engagement initiatives such as:

• Modernizing the way their customers search for and purchase fuel
• Going beyond the pump to connect with consumers through mobile apps
• Differentiating their brands with unique loyalty programs that deliver greater value
• Creating more compelling offers to attract fuel consumers inside the c-store

To stay on top of these and other industry trends, be sure to sign up for the GasBuddy Fuel Availability Tracker.

In a world of limited resources and unpredictable consumers, optimizing your marketing strategy and spending can make a major difference in your end result. But how do you know if you’re marketing investment is optimized? Are you measuring your Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)? When it comes to measuring ROMI, there is no standard approach that is utilized across the board. Every brand thinks of ROMI differently and how they go about it.

In this article, we highlight the importance of ROMI for brands and why it matters in understanding if you’re meeting the goals and objectives through the campaigns you’re running.

What Is ROMI, and Why Should You Care? 

ROI and ROMI are often used interchangeably, but the most significant difference is that ROMI is more specific on your return on marketing investment—what you’re measuring and how you’re adjusting your measurements depending on what your goals are for the campaign you’re running. Are you trying to increase customer penetration? Generate trial? Increase how much is spent during the trip (buy rate or basket size)? Increase trips? Are you trying to build awareness of your new product or service by getting eyes on your digital ads or in-store signage? Whatever it may be, it’s important to understand ROMI.

Marketers today are looking for a consistent measuring outcome that is the same across all their marketing investments in order to better allocate, optimize and implement their future efforts. Even though the programs and goals for each campaign are different, like measuring ROMI in c-stores versus digital ads, they are looking for a consistent measuring outcome to make comparisons. Looking at ROMI allows marketers to understand better if they’re achieving their campaign goals and where their time is best spent (or not spent).

What Should You Be Evaluating? 

Again, what marketers want to know about ROMI depends on their objectives. What is the return specific to your objective? That is where these four buckets marketers are evaluating come into play: reach, engagement, lift, and financial return.

Reach How many consumers are seeing/hearing/or being reached by your efforts? How big is your reach, and how is it measured? If your goal is to generate awareness of a new product, then the goal and how you should be measuring ROMI is by how many eyes saw that offer or ad. That can include who saw the offer in the mobile app, the projected number of consumers who saw the signage within the store, an email communication including the promotion, etc. What promotion you’re pushing and how you’re pushing it influences ROMI.

Engagement How many consumers actually took advantage of or interacted with your efforts? Engagement is usually measured by the number of coupons used, offers accepted, link clicked, or another measurable action. If the goal of your campaign is to generate X number of purchases, or you have a ROMI goal of 10 offer uses for every $1 spent, then engagement is the measurement you should focus on.

Lift Did you generate the increase in business you were looking for? You wanted to run a promotion that would help increase the number of consumer trips and keep them coming back. Measuring lift requires a starting point to measure against. So, if you wanted to increase sales by 10%, you’d need to know the before and after of those sales and your ROMI would be based on if your investment gave you that lift. Make sure you understand the starting point in order to properly measure the ROMI when having a goal of lift.

Financial Return When making investment decisions, financial considerations often are at play. Financial return should be looked at in context of outcome. How can I execute a campaign or a promotion in order to maximize or protect margin, or which is the best tool or stimuli to achieve the goal that also has reasonable financial return?

What Data Is Important to Look At?

Even if you can’t use the same data to measure ROMI across all of your marketing efforts, the end result is what brings it all together at the end of the day. You should be measuring what you’re doing using the data available, and then comparing what campaigns, mediums, or events delivered on their goals. Tools matter, and they are the biggest challenge for brands. Even though there are many tools at your disposal, there is not one place for you to get all the information needed to evaluate ROMI.

Brands rely heavily on their partners to deliver the right data points in order to evaluate ROMI and whether their campaign was successful. When evaluating partnerships, drill down to understand the data they provide and measurements they help you digest to ensure the partnership is delivering what is asked. At the very least, you can expect a read out of your efforts to then generate a ROMI evaluation.

Don’t be afraid to partner with your vendors when developing the relationship and strategy. Allowing your vendors to have a line of sight to your goals can also help them design the best solution for you. And they can do so with the end data and insights in mind.

How to Take Action

Brands should rely on data to understand, measure, and deliver on the key objectives they’re trying to achieve with the campaigns they’re running. Partnering with someone who can provide the data to show you if your promotion or ad is meeting the goals you set is the best way to measure ROMI.

Everyone is trying to get closer to the consumer to remain as relevant as possible. If you can operationalize your goals, you’ll be better positioned to optimize your investment and get the most out of it. Understanding ROMI is key to seeing success in your marketing efforts, boosting sales, increasing consumer engagement, or any other goal you’re trying to achieve.