The average fill-up takes two minutes. For those precious two minutes, you have a captive audience to engage with your brand and everything it offers. But is your current dispenser retail media strategy delivering the results you want?
We sat down with industry leaders to discuss effective retail media strategies – here are three tips they shared for retailers to consider:
1. Something is Better Than Nothing
Dispenser screens are like cellphones (or any other personal electronic device). When a consumer pulls up to the pump, they are entering into a 1:1 messaging platform with you.
You have their attention; they can’t conduct their transaction without looking at your screen. The last thing you want to do is show them nothing and waste that opportunity.
If you’re struggling with what to display, trial and error is a great place to start. You may run a message that doesn’t find success, but at least you’ll walk away with data on what doesn’t work.
Now you can take that information and try again. Something will resonate with your consumers, but you won’t know what that message is if you don’t provide them with any message at all.
Retailer Tip: Consumers don’t want to see advertisements 24/7 at the pumps – eventually they’ll stop paying attention. Mixing in messaging as simple as shouting out the local high school basketball team during their playoff run helps keep things conversational.
2. It's Ok to Go Your Own Way
You know your site better than anyone else. You don’t have to run certain messages just because your competitors are doing so.
Shep Digital helped one of their mid-sized c-store operators take their own approach to promoting their products, and it led to a drastic increase in sales!
The operator was known for its craveable product categories like packaged ice cream, hand-dipped cones, shakes, and fountain drinks. Shep helped them run an eight-week control test where, instead of running messages about how much these products cost, they focused on the fact they offered these sweet treats at all.
What did they learn? That was what their consumers needed to hear! The test sites that ran those category-level messages saw a 17% increase in ice cream sales compared to the control stores. Sales among the 18 - 35 segment jumped 35%!
Imagine they stuck with “traditional” messages and missed out on those additional sales!
3. Leverage Your Loyalty Program
Your dispenser screens and your loyalty program should be best friends, and not just when it comes to loyalty sign-ups.
Loyalty customers drive 60% more revenue than the average "grey" or unknown transaction, according to data from Shep Digital.
In addition to that added revenue, your loyalty customers also give you access to valuable data that you can use in your messaging strategy.
Use their transaction data and build out tailored messaging for them. Say a loyalty customer tends to purchase fountain drinks from your site. Use that and have messages running about promotions or offerings that include fountain drinks to encourage them to come inside.