Can You Build a Loyal Customer Base in the C-Store World?

I enjoy winning.  In business, you have to be competitive.  Choosing your battles and the fights you can leverage to where winning is a no-brainer makes total sense to me. 

No, I don’t take candy from babies.  But allowing myself to get into a business position where I continually fight for my existence makes no sense to me.

Similarly, since you may not be a COCO c-store, you have to direct your resources to where they will be used the best.  You can’t afford a full-scale direct battle against a competitor such as BP or Dutch Shell.  You need to find battles where you know you can win.

How can you win against such giants?

In areas such as delivery, personal service, guarantees as well the quality of your products.  Never on price.  You can never win that war (look at how Wal-Mart is losing that fight against the Dollar-Xs right now).  Since someone will always be prepared to price below you, you will eventually be out of business (think Sears in 1960 versus now, K-Mart in 1980 versus now, Wal-Mart in 2011 versus 2021).

How do you handle your marketing battles?  It should not be like going fishing.  It should be like shooting fish in a barrel.  Even better, have the water drained out of the barrel, the fish already skinned or de-scaled, laying on ice and a chef with a grill standing next to the barrel ready to prepare the fish I select.

That’s my kind of fishing!

So how do you make your business like my kind of fishing?  You need to figure out what you do better than everyone else.  After you realize that, you need to tell the customers you are targeting on a consistent basis why you are different.

A successful marketer needs to figure out who their best customers are and what they have in common.  Then find the right type of media that will reach out to those people in an effective, efficient way.

This may mean you use direct mail, community newspapers, e-mails, coupons or many other types of media. 

If you can focus your fire power on YOUR strengths, your competitors’ weaknesses and what your customers truly value, you are well on your way to “building a loyal customer base in the C-Store World.”