OPIS Blog

7 Irresistible Pitches to Build Loyalty at Your Gas Station & C-Store

If you’ve set up a loyalty club program at your gas station or c-store and email your customers promotions, you may be struggling to get folks to open up your offers – and act on them. Here are some tips!

Understatement of the century: You get a ton of email and so do the customers that frequent your retail gas station and convenience store. 

According to Statista, 293.6 billion emails are being sent daily in 2019. By 2023, that number is expected to grow to more than 347.3 billion.

So, what can help your c-store promotional email stand out from that huge crowd? And, how do you get loyalty club members to open and read your offers? 

Loyalty program provider CrowdTwist offers some successful pitches:

 

Loyalty Program card with colorful background with defocused lights1. Roll Out the Rewards Club Welcome Wagon

Kick off the relationship with a welcome email offering a deal to thank customers for signing up. Be sure to provide information on how to earn points, an update on points they’ve earned already and information on when they are eligible for rewards.

 

 

2. Get Personal(ized) With Your Visuals

For example, send a monthly recap email showing customers how much they have earned and encouraging them to earn more points. Create a “gratitude meter” in the body of the email showing their current point status and how far they need to go to get to the next reward.

3. Encourage Customers to Redeem their Rewards

Show how many points they’ve earned, the rewards tier achieved and the reward that is currently available to urge customers to redeem unused points.

 

Concept of sending e-mails from your computer4. Reinforce Your Email’s Message Through Other Channels

For example, provide a link to a web page that allows customers to click through to a special offer that’s based on their frequent purchases.

 

 

5. Make Your Offers Time-Sensitive

Promote current specials with a limited-time offer. Tip: This is also a great opportunity to add the customer’s current points total, along with the number of points needed to reach the next tier or offer.

 

Hand with marker writing Follow Us

 

6. Offer Incentives to Share the Love

Give bonus points to members for referring the rewards program to their friends. Provide links to social media platforms to enable them to share a rewards offer easily. 

 

 

7. Offer a Members-Only Sweepstakes

Everyone loves to be an insider, so create offers that highlight exclusivity. But, don’t forget to promote that contest to the non-member segment of your database, informing them that only loyalty members are eligible to enter. It’s a great way to convert people!

 Bottom line, loyalty club programs are a great way to drive traffic into your store and gasoline pumps.

As we highlighted in this year’s 7 Trends Shaping Gas Station Profitability in 2019, loyalty programs are evolving as competition heats up between brands.

  • The coalition loyalty program Plenti – involving ExxonMobil – folded. But another loyalty solution from FIS offering gas discounts to members of financial institution rewards programs is growing.
  • Marathon canceled its proprietary rewards credit cards, but Shell debuted rewards credit cards tied to the Fuel Rewards Program, a coalition loyalty program administered by Excentus.
  • BP teamed up with United Airlines as a rewards partner and Marathon joined Southwest Airlines, La Quinta Inns and the Arbor Day Foundation to form a new rewards program.

And as email remains a highly effective way to reach members, be sure to try these tips today to get the most out of your program.

Retailers who sell gasoline and diesel just concluded their most profitable first half of any year in the modern era. Take a look back at the first half of 2019 and discover how retail gas stations performed so solidly in the 1H 2019 Retail Fuel Scorecard, with exclusive OPIS data showing demand, margin, average prices and more. Plus, regional data and an update on how some of the major brands performed.

 

Tags: C-stores, Retail Market