In today’s fast-paced retail world, staying ahead isn’t just about having great products and prime locations. It’s about delivering the best customer experience, which can be challenging without the capabilities of a retail media network.
At Axonet, we know that a winning retail media network starts with solid data foundations. For convenience retailers, this means gathering data that can help retailers achieve relevance and reach: two key assets for retail media. Here’s what you need to consider to build a killer data foundation for retail media.
Nailing the Basics: Relevance and Reach
1. Selling Relevance and Reach
In retail media, your top assets are relevance and reach. To nail relevance, you’ve got to understand your customer inside and out. This means diving into data on purchase history and touchpoint interactions like loyalty programs, offers, or in-store audio and digital signage.
Get to Know Your Customers:
- Purchase History: Use past purchase history from transaction logs and loyalty redemption history to predict what customers may buy in the future.
- Touchpoint Interactions: Track loyalty programs, responses to marketing offers, and customer encounters with digital signage and in-store audio to understand how your customers respond to specific stimuli.
- Communication Channels: Monitor response and open rates, among other data, to understand the best ways to reach each customer, whether it’s email, SMS, or something else.
This data will answer the big question: “Who is this customer, and what do they want?” C-store staff might have a hunch about their regulars, but they can’t cater to everyone.
The goal of relevance in retail media is to replicate that knowledge and present customers with relevant offers that drive value for them at the checkout. Full personalization is a lofty goal—relevance is the important piece. Not every customer needs to feel like a regular, but the more data you obtain on their purchase history and interactions, the more they will feel the fine tailoring of this data should you choose to join an aggregated retail media network or establish your own.
2. Reaching Your Target Customer
Your goal is to win over your target customer and others like them. By knowing their preferences, habits, and communication preferences, you can help marketers hit your customers and lookalike audiences with targeted campaigns that stick.
Again, monitoring purchase history, touchpoint interactions, and customer behavior with your communication channels will strengthen your data foundation so advertisers can better reach them with the right media at the right time.
Expanding Your Retail Media Program: Measurement & Refinement to Expand Reach
3. Effective Measurement
Measuring the outcomes of your marketing and loyalty efforts can generate valuable data that can both refine your existing efforts and equip marketers to be effective at marketing to your customers as part of a retail media network.
- Digital Customer Experience: Check out how customers are interacting with your digital platforms.
- Loyalty Redemption: See how often customers are using loyalty programs.
- Offer Relevance: Make sure the offers you’re pushing are hitting the mark.
Strong data connections and a data warehouse solution are key to integrating and analyzing all this information.
4. The Bedrock of Retail Media: Rocking the Customer Experience
The best c-stores have the best customer service. No matter how strong your data foundation is, you must earn the return visits that solidify the retail media assets of relevance and reach. A top-notch customer experience includes motivated staff, stocked shelves, and a seamless blend of digital and in-store interactions. Don’t forget data privacy—keeping customer information safe builds trust. Here’s how to step up your game:
- Motivated Cashiers: Keep your staff empowered and ready to serve.
- Product Availability: Use purchase history data to keep popular items in stock.
- Integrated Experiences: Create a smooth journey across digital and in-store touchpoints.
- Data Privacy: Build strong privacy practices to protect customer information, earn their trust, and establish a foundation of consented customers to safeguard retail media efforts.
At Axonet, we’re here to help convenience retailers make the most of their data. Focus on relevance and reach, measure success effectively, and enhance the customer experience with the support of the Axonet aggregated retail media network that drives growth and loyalty.
Ready to supercharge your convenience retail strategy? Reach out to info@axonet.flywheelstaging.com or visit axonet.flywheelstaging.com to see how we can help you lead the data-driven retail revolution in the C-store space.