How Gas Station Marketing Can Benefit from Big Data Analysis

Gas stations and convenience stores have long since been looking for the competitive edge at the pump. Besides improving facilities and maintaining competitive pricing, some gas station chains have begun offering loyalty reward programs. This tactic has also been implemented in many industries from retail to travel with success. It not only strengthens your existing customer base, but also has a lot of opportunities to help your business. Here are a few tips about implementing reward programs you may not know:

1. Opportunity for data capture

Loyalty programs present the opportunity to capture a good amount of data about your most frequent customers. Every time the customer uses the card, you can learn about their traveling habits, what gas they use and how often they fill up. You can overlay this data with things like fluctuations in weather, gas prices, seasonal changes and holidays. This process can enrich the data you’ve collected in order to find existing and emerging trends in your business.

2. Predictive Planning

Now imagine that you were able to pull this information from a large pool of your customers. You would be able to predict about how much gas will sell during a particular time of year or event and how much of your sales come from return customers, data which can be helpful for signing more vendors and offering better products in-store.

3. Personalization of rewards

Letting your customers know how important they are to your business is at the heart of reward programs. By capturing their purchase data, you are able to offer rewards to different stores or regions that are applicable and meaningful to your customers. Perhaps in Milwaukee, your best seller is hot chocolate whereas in Florida, your best seller is a blue slushie. And it doesn’t always have to be so obvious. Perhaps more people purchase car washes in one location than another because of traffic flow. This information can help you decide what promotions will be most successful in a given area.

4. Technology considerations

These tactics are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to customer loyalty programs because the data you are able to collect is vast, and the uses are nearly limitless. In order to take full advantage of this data, however, you have to be able to analyze it. The “Big Data Problem” can be solved with technology solutions like database development. This helps automate processes and aggregate disparate data sources into a palatable document from which you can make decisions. Technology is an important consideration because it can ultimately help you better the rewards program and your ability to act upon the collected data.


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Jeff Adelson-Yan: Jeff Adelson-Yan is the president + Co-Founder of Levelwing, a digital marketing firm offering media, social and analytics services to help businesses market and operate with greater clarity and profitability. Founded in 2002, Levelwing is headquartered in Charleston, SC. In 2013, Levelwing was recognized for the fourth consecutive year on the prestigious Inc. 500|5000 list for Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America. Levelwing has also been named one of the Best Places to Work in the state of South Carolina. Adelson-Yan is deeply versed in digital strategy and media including search engine marketing, organic search optimization, social media, web analytics and data mining. Recognized as an industry authority, Adelson-Yan has been a featured speaker at conferences and events around the world and his writings have appeared in various publications. He is a member of the Ad Council for the Association of Downloadable Media and Advisory Board Member for OPEN from American Express. In addition, Adelson-Yan was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® 2011.