Retailers that pay attention to their company brand have a connection with customers that goes beyond the pocketbook. “Businesses like convenience stores are susceptible for major interruptions from competitors, but if you have a brand that connects emotionally with your customers, you won’t lose out when a new store opens nearby,” said Ernie Harker, brand therapist at 8Fish.

Branding Promises

Brands do more than provide a promotional hook to use for marketing campaigns. “A well-known and positive brand image can be a significant driver for convenience store chains and local store owners,” said Matt Mohs, vice president of refined fuels marketing for CHS and the Cenex brand. “Many consumers do not think there is any difference between the quality of fuel they get from one station to the next. Seeing a trusted brand on the canopy or street sign can make the difference between customers turning left into your store or taking a right turn to your competitor across the street.”

Cenex has been using its brand for nearly nine decades. “As a retail network of nearly 1,500 independently owned stores across a 19-state area, we strive to deliver advertising and marketing programs that align with our Cenex brand personality,” Mohs said. The company ensures its brand can be adopted and executed by storeowners on a local level in ways that resonate with the communities they serve.

At Maverik, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, the brand permeates everything the store does. “It’s part of the customer experience, and it creates a connection with consumers,” said Aaron Simpson, chief marketing officer for Maverik. “Our branding helps them make the choice to come visit our stores over other convenience locations.”

Maverik picked “Adventure’s First Stop” to embody its brand. The theme colors every aspect of its stores. Flooring evokes the great outdoors; the ceilings are painted sky blue and colorful outdoor murals depict adventure activities. Even the employees are called “adventure guides,” rather than cashiers, to keep the brand promise front and center throughout the store.

The brand purpose should shape and guide everything you make, say and do.

Branding Blocks

But a brand doesn’t just fall out of the sky—companies should spend time crafting the right brand that has both growth potential and meets the present needs of their business. “A brand is more than products, features and benefits. A brand is the gut feeling consumers have when they see your store, logo or company name,” said Mohs. “As your business grows, you should continue to protect and enhance your brand image.”

Whether you have a brand or want to develop one, here are some of the steps involved in building a great brand.

Determine your purpose. “The brand purpose should shape and guide everything you make, say and do,” Mohs said. Cenex routinely conducts market research to identify what customers want and expect from the Cenex brand to identify ways to evolve to meet its customers’ changing needs and expectations.

Understand what makes you unique. “This can be challenging to a convenience store because we all sell essentially the same things,” Harker said. “But there’s usually one, two or three things that you do differently from the competition and show your store’s personality.”

Questions to ask to determine your store’s uniqueness include: What do people love about your business? What do you want to be known for or are known for? Answering these kinds of questions will provide the groundwork for developing a brand that fits your store. “If your brand doesn’t resonate with you, then it won’t resonate with your customer,” Simpson said.

Define your target customer. Yes, everyone usually stops by a convenience store at some point in their daily lives, but you want to drill down and find out who really cares about what makes your store different. “This is not about who stops to fill up their gas tank but who cares about what makes your company special,” Harker said.

Identify your core beliefs. This is—or will be—what drives every decision in your store. “The heart of your company’s brand stems from the core belief and passions of the owner or senior-level executive,” Harker said. “This is the element that will always need to stay true to the brand messaging because it’s the heart of the brand.”

Outline your vision. You need to get buy-in from not only your customers but also your employees. If your staff isn’t on board with the brand vision, customers won’t be either.

Describe your brand. Use adjectives that define who you are, and ask brand shareholders what brands they love and why. “Identifying four or five adjectives that describe your brand are helpful for vendors and employees to strengthen and reinforce it,” Harker said.

Start small. Since your brand should fit in with your standard operating procedures, you need to pace your branding to keep all the pieces together. “Keep working on your brand year after year to build your brand well,” Simpson advised.

Losing a Brand

If you’ve had a brand for a while, sometimes, that brand can get fuzzy around the edges. “Companies can concentrate on a particular initiative or goal and end up compromising their brand to meet that sales goal and initiative,” Harker said. “You can so easily forget about the importance of maintaining brand integrity across everything in your business.”

“Since a brand is not always something you can touch or see, it can be easy for employees or storeowners to get caught up in the details needed to make a store run smoothly and profitably,” added Mohs. “As brand marketers, it is on us to help educate storeowners and employees about the brand purpose and how their day-to-day efforts can impact consumers’ perceptions of our brand. For example, at Cenex stations, clean bathrooms, a friendly smile and a welcoming store environment are important not only for a storeowner’s business but also to protect our brand reputation.”

Harker pointed out three ways a brand gets lost in a company’s day-to-day operations: saving time, expense and convenience. “There can be a sense of urgency—we’ve don’t have a lot of time to get this billboard done, for example—that translates into going with the first ideas without lining those ideas up against the brand,” he said.

It often takes more time, more money and is inconvenient to do something brand-centric, but it’s worth it to do it right from the beginning.

Money also plays into brand dilution. “It can be more expensive to do something on brand, rather than generically or quickly,” Harker said. “But there’s a cost to non-brand decisions as well that might not have obvious dollar signs attached to it.”

The convenience factor means retailers go with whatever’s easiest to do. “This is the biggest breaker of the brand because this often is the decision that doesn’t ruffle feathers or polarize anyone in the company,” Harker said. “It can be scary and nerve-wracking to make decisions that align with the brand, but if you don’t, you churn out unremarkable messaging and products.”

Having a team within the company that keeps an eye on the brand can help with those tough decisions. “Everyone needs to protect your brand to ensure the brand doesn’t erode over time because of tradeoffs made because of time, expense or convenience,” Simpson said. “It often takes more time and effort to do something brand-centric, but it’s worth it to do it right every time.”

Brand SOS

If your brand has become diluted or lost, there is hope for recovery. “Start with why your founders built that company,” Harker said. “Try to answer why they cared so much about what makes your business unique. Then think about what got them excited about pouring themselves into the business.”

“I would define a ‘lost’ brand as a brand that has lost its identity, strayed too far from its purpose and has lost touch with its customers’ expectations,” Mohs said. “If this occurs, marketers should re-examine their brand purpose and whether it has lost its relevancy and potentially consider refreshing it to better align with the needs of your customers. Then you need to reevaluate all the ways your brand goes to market and interacts with your customers. It will take time to change customers’ perceptions of your brand once it is lost.”

To start the conversation on recovering a diminished brand, Simpson recommended sitting down with your team to determine if the core brand is still relevant today. “If not, then start from scratch. In either case, start small and begin tightening your brand from the basics on up,” he said.

Retailers also should remember that brands take time to develop and come into their full potential. “Be patient, because brands aren’t built overnight,” Harker said. “Consistency is the key. Remember that internally your branded message or campaign gets old way faster than it does to the customer outside. Stick with the same message and brands can run for multiple years.”

The bottom line is that both big and small convenience stores benefit from having a brand. “Everybody has a brand whether they realize it or not,” said Simpson. “You can be deliberate about it or let it happen to you.”