Kwik Trip Launches Influencer Marketing Initiative

LA CROSSE, Wis. — Kwik Trip Inc. is teaming up with a Wisconsin native to make its brand a little more social.

The locally based convenience store retailer tapped Kristen Carlson to be one of its first partners in a new influencer marketing initiative the company implemented this year, according to the Wausau Daily Herald.

According to Kendra Nedegaard, digital content supervisor with Kwik Trip, she knew Carlson would be good to work with because she's from Wisconsin and was already familiar with the brand.

Known for her Instagram account, @missnortherner, Carlson also runs a blog by the same name where she shares and promotes Northwoods lifestyle in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest. She told the news outlet the partnership with Kwik Trip is a dream come true.

A frequent Kwik Trip customer, the social media influencer reach out to the c-store retailer and pitched the idea.

With focus on the up north lifestyle and travel, "it was a perfect fit," Nedegaard said. Carlson helps Kwik Trip reach new audiences, including people who are traveling in Wisconsin and need to stop at a convenience store, she added. 

As an ambassador, Carlson works the Kwik Trip brand into her Instagram account. In the summer, she might have a date night on a northern Wisconsin beach with her boyfriend. They'd bring along snacks from Kwik Trip and she could take a photo to post on Instagram. If she's on an early morning canoe paddle, she might have some Kwik Trip coffee.

Carlson added enjoying the outdoors in the Northwoods with some Kwik Trip snacks and drinks — photographing nature and wildlife — is true to her lifestyle.

Known as Kwik Trip in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and as Kwik Star in Iowa, the retailer operates more than 675 family-owned convenience stores.