March was an exciting month in promotions! Not only did we hire some awesome new Brand Ambassadors to promote loyalty and cards at our stations, we also had our very first month organizing station events! It was definitely a learning experience as it is with anything new, but for our first month in promotions, I would call it a success!
Our promotions team has been enrolling customers for both loyalty and consumer credit cards throughout the month of March.
The overall goal of driving customer loyalty programs is to ultimately bring those consumers back to your stations more often than they would normally. With incentives to come back and earn a reward for their purchase, this will drive up incremental fuel sales as well as c-store sales inside.
We also had the privilege of working with five great stations to do customer appreciation events; one Mobil station and four BP stations. Each of them had a unique offer, but all were extremely productive and made for happy customers.
Smile Gas Station | Mobil in Yulee, FL
From left to right: AJ, radio personality for JAX 105.3, David Coy, ExxonMobil WEX Fleet Representative, Ashley Hall, Marketing Director for Southeast Petro, Sonny Patel, Smile Mobil Station Owner, Alex, Rockstar Energy Brand Ambassador.
The first event was held on Friday, February 23rd at the Smile Mobil Gas Station in Yulee, FL operated by Sonny Patel.
Sonny was a pleasure to work with and had several ideas on how to execute an awesome customer appreciation event. We ended up having free hot dogs and a drink for customers that purchased anything at the store, sub sandwiches from Subway, and Rockstar Energy drinks for customers to try.
The local radio station JAX 105.3 sent their radio personality AJ out to support us and helped add to the promotion with a raffle for two Hank Williams Jr. concert tickets!
The Southeast Petro team was out as well, promoting the Plenti loyalty card. There were several customers that already had the Plenti card, but we gained quite a few more that day due to our efforts.
Plantation BP | BP Station in Bunnell, FL
From left to right: Brand Ambassadors for Monster Energy, Ashley Hall, Marketing Director for Southeast Petro, Pranav Shah and his son, Plantation BP Station Owner, Lisa, Grow Now Brand Ambassador.
This was the first of four BP events for the week. We scheduled this for Tuesday, March 13th.
Synchrony Financial sent the Grow Now team to get BP Visa enrollments while the Southeast Petro team worked the pumps to get BP Reward enrollments.
It was the beginning of Bike Week, so the traffic was high. Overall, we ended up with around 20 BP Reward enrollments and 17 BP Visa applications.
Pranav, the store owner made sure that he was well staffed to support the additional traffic this event brought to his station. He offered free hot dogs and a drink to his customers and made sure that they knew they were appreciated.
Adding to this event was the Monster Energy team! They had samples of their product for customers to taste under their tent.
This was a fun day that resulted in many customers excitedly taking part in all of the offerings that the station had to offer.
Waldo BP | BP Station in Waldo, FL
From left to right: Helen Waugh, District Manager for Southeast Petro, Ashley Hall, Marketing Director for Southeast Petro, Mr. Freeman, Waldo BP Station Owner, Paula, Waldo BP Manager, Chris, Assistant Manager at Waldo BP.
The next day, March 14th we set up at the next BP, a truck stop on SR 301 in a little town called Waldo.
What a treat it was to travel to this station for the day and meet Mr. Freeman, the station owner that has the most infectious smile you have ever seen.
Mr. Freeman made sure that his station was well prepared for an event! He had balloons and streamers outside, had a clean and inviting store, and gave away hot dogs, chips and a drink donated by his grocer Core-Mark. Mr. Freeman himself was greeting the customers with his fabulous smile and putting that personal touch to his customer service with each and every person that walked through the door!
The hospitality that Mr. Freeman showed our team was well worth the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Cocoa, Florida. He brought us a home-made meal of lamb, potatoes, fresh vegetables, pita bread with pesto, and some baklava for desert! I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed meeting Mr. Freeman!
So now that I have expressed my amazement with the station owner at this site, I will talk about the event itself…
While it was not all that busy of an event, we had great success with getting customers signed up on the BP Rewards card and the BP Visa. Overall we obtained another 20 registrations for the rewards card, and 20 BP Visa applications!
We want to try and do another event at this location in the future. There are talks of hot food coming to this truck stop store, and I am overwhelmed with excitement in anticipation of the success that this store will continue to have.
Canaveral Groves BP | BP Station in Cocoa, FL
From left to right: Ashley Werda, Branded Fleet Sales Rep for Southeast Petro, Ashley Hall, Marketing Director for Southeast Petro, Ed, BP 83 Manager, Miguel, Marketing Representative for Krispy Krunchy Chicken, Lisa, Grow Now Brand Ambassador, Laci, Brand Ambassador for Southeast Petro.
This station is a Southeast Petro company operated location. The Manager Ed was a pleasure to work with as we prepared for this event on Thursday, March 15th.
The participating vendors were a pleasure to work with as well.
Miguel with Krispy Krunchy Chicken allowed us to have free samples of the awesome chicken we sell at this store. He even brought some tunes to play outside on the loud speaker, giving our customers a fun and inviting atmosphere to pull up to.
We offered all of our paying customers a free hot dog and a Coke product to drink, courtesy of Core-Mark and our Coke Vendor. Coke also provided us a cooler to raffle as part of the event!
On top of all of this, our promotions team was able to enroll over 30 customers with a BP Rewards Card, and the Grow Now team got over 25 BP Visa applications!
This was a fun event to be a part of, and we hope to hold something like this every year at this station!
82nd ST BP | BP Station in Vero Beach, FL
Our last event for the week on Friday March 16th was at the Vero Beach BP. This was a fun event that had a lot of vendor participation!
The Store Manager Steve put a lot of effort into making this event a success! He had the Route 60 Hyundai Genesis dealership and the Miller Light Distributors giving away goodies!
The other highlight of the event were the samples of the sub sandwiches made fresh daily here at the station’s 82ND ST Deli. People rave about these high quality subs made with only the best Bore’s Head deli meats around!
The Southeast Petro Promotion’s Team walked away with another 30 BP Reward enrollments, and the Grow Now team was able to get another 25 applications!
These events really work to drive the foot traffic and engage customers with your store products.
If you are interested in holding a customer appreciation or grand opening event at your station, give Ashley Hall, Southeast Petro’s Marketing Director a call! She can help you in organizing one of these events to promote your store.
