About 10 years ago, Fort Worth, Texas-based Yesway launched a dual modality rewards program with both physical and digital accounts under one brand. When Yesway acquired Allsup’s, the rewards program evolved to its second iteration to incorporate the new brand. Now, the combined brand is on its third iteration.
- Yesway is No. 19 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
“We've since taken our program to the third level where we want it to evolve even more and really double down on our digital capabilities,” Darrin Samaha, vice president of marketing at Yesway said during a general session at CSP’s Outlook Leadership conference last week in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. “We were working with one hand tied behind our back with our prior programs. It was a clunky process.”
The session, pictured above, included Samaha (pictured second from left), and to his right, Jake Kiser, general manager at Par Retail, Philadelphia; Jim Dodge, vice president of convenience at Mars Wrigley; and Taylor Bromley, senior manager of third-party implementation at Altria. It was moderated by Mitch Morrison, vice president of retailer relations and event content director at Informa Connect Foodservice (left).
Since launching, enrollments have skyrocketed, Samaha said of Yesway’s updated loyalty app.
“We're betting on digital, betting on the future,” Samaha said.
Digitalizing the program has allowed Yesway and Allsup’s to cut out the friction of signing up. Instead, it identifies the phone number to more quickly get information and data on customers.
While email campaigns still have strong open rates, “SMS is where we’re at right now,” he said, because it’s real time and more relevant. Samaha said that the brand can test and learn more quickly, plus offer more personalization.
“It's not a one size fits all approach, whether it's an impulse, whether it's tobacco, or a customer wants to move on to combustible [cigarettes], the only way to communicate effectively is real-time, relevant personalization,” he said.
Convenience-store brands have to personalize profitably, said Kiser of Par Retail.
“I think it's very easy to do something personalized that you could lose a lot of money on, or that maybe doesn't scale,” he said. “I think it's important that both the supplier and the retailer come together and think of new ways to deliver that personalized experience.”
For example, instead of discounting an energy drink, Kiser spoke of a retailer that created a sweepstakes where, in order to enter, the customer had to purchase one of the energy drinks. The drinks were still full price, and the promotion was simply tracking purchases.
The data revealed who bought the energy drink, which allowed the retailer to understand who bought more than normal and createm personalized offers.
Par Retail also worked with General Mills in Marathon stores to drive consumers inside from the pump.
Kiser urged retailers to "Connect that consumer’s fuel purchasing habits with what they're buying in the store instead. I think only that only happens if folks on the vendor side and folks in the retail side work together.”
Yesway collaborates with supplier partners on marketing and merchandising to creatively come up with better solutions, Samaha said.
“Can we elevate and think a little bit differently … and funnel that into a retail media network? That's where we want to go," Samaha said. "We're not there yet by any stretch, but I think what's important to notice is the teams have to be right on both sides.”
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