What Is WiFi Marketing Anyway?
WiFi Marketing is a customer acquisition channel for restaurants, coffee shops, bars and lounge areas in hotels, building lobbies and airports. It is an easy channel to grow your audience with permission.
The average acquisition growth rate is 40x faster than any other digital channel. Coffee shops who require a purchase before connecting to the Internet the result is an average revenue of $70 each visit.
The guest experience is simple, flexible and can support your desired guest WiFi policy. In this guide, you’ll learn about how to select your wireless access points and design your guest WiFi experience.
Over 60% Of Customers Stay Longer At Locations That Provide Free Guest WiFi
If you offer WiFi at your restaurant, QSR or coffee shop, you’ll likely enjoy customers who stay at your location for longer. Usually, that translates into more revenue for your business: customers who spend more time at your site(s) will buy more. They are partially justifying their stay, especially if they’re using free resources, like WiFi, but you’re also providing a comfortable and practical environment for them…why would they move? Read The Bean NYC’s case study.
WiFi also makes your location a convenient place to be. Customers can work, catch up with friends and family, stay connected on social media or consume content. Many customers have also come to expect free WiFi will be on offer at a restaurant-type business. Brands that don’t offer free WiFi could potentially disappoint customers. Your audience may also be more likely to choose to purchase from your competitors that do offer free WiFi. In short: offering free guest WiFi will help make your business competitive and desirable.
But WiFi marketing isn’t only about enticing your customers to come to (and stay at) your venue. Offering free WiFi will give you more access to customer data and insights that will help you deliver a better customer experience. You’ll be able to use what you learn to understand more about your audience, where they are spending their time in your restaurant or hospitality business, and glean other relevant insights into who they are and what attracts them to your brand.
WiFi marketing also provides an invaluable opportunity to build an audience. You’ll capture active customer contact information, including email addresses which is excellent for building an engaged and active email list. You’ll be able to use the data you capture to run more effective email marketing campaigns. You can also collect mobile numbers to run SMS marketing campaigns, which have proven effective for restaurant-type businesses like yours. If you collect social media profile information, you’ll be able to use this for targeted advertising and understanding more about your customers.
In many ways, offering free guest WiFi is the ultimate win-win. You’ll have satisfied customers who spend more time and money. And for their part, your customers will enjoy a great customer experience that’s convenient and offers them everything they’re looking for from your brand.
At GoGoGuest, we consider guest WiFi, any point-of-purchase in-store or online and third-party applications to be unique touchpoints that offer insight into a customer’s interests and preferences.
A WiFi marketing solution like GoGoGuest comes with customer journey capabilities for email marketing and SMS Marketing. This makes it super easy for your marketing and customer teams to create a consistent and personalized experience for each customer.
With GoGoGuest’s built-in data, engagement, analytics and insights platform restaurants, coffee shops and multi-unit food & beverage businesses can hyper-personalize each and every message, customer by customer.
- Welcome series – A series of messages to introduce your brand and your different sales and ordering channels.
- Customer experience series – An excellent place to ask for feedback, reviews and referrals
- Loyalty enrollment and engagement – Attract new members to your loyalty program with specific offers based on a guest’s average purchase and frequency of visit.
- Product and menu highlights – Personalize your menu and product introductions based on a guest’s prior order history.
- Localized series – Armed with unique localized identifiers, your brand can personalize content for customers who live nearby
- App series – Are you a national brand with a recognizable app? Customer journeys at the national level, make the customer journey feel more like campaigns
And more!
What Does The WiFi Marketing Guest Experience Look Like?
The practice of WiFi marketing always starts the same: your customers will search for your in-store WiFi network.
You’ll usually require that they submit some personal information in return for access to your network. You’ll be able to decide what information you want to collect. Users’ names and email addresses are generally easy and valuable to capture, and most restaurant-style businesses chose to collect at least this information.
Depending on the kinds of marketing campaigns you want to run, you might choose to collect alternative or additional data. Mobile numbers and social media information is also popular.
Once they’ve provided some personal data, your customers can connect their phone, tablet or laptop to your WiFi network. Users are usually directed straight to your captive portal. There, you will be able to show offers and promotions. Later, depending on the information you ask customers to provide, you’ll be able to run email marketing campaigns, retarget customers and carry out SMS marketing and so on.
Customers, as well as being connected to free WiFi, will also be able to enjoy learning more about your brand and potentially take advantage of any promotions you offer as part of the sign-on process.
The Major Benefits
Unsurprisingly, WiFi marketing benefits both you and your customers. Offering free WiFi isn’t something you need to do simply to keep up with your competitors. Instead, it’s a strategic tool that will help you grow your business and increase your revenue.
Here are some of the ways your business will benefit from offering free WiFi:
You’ll drive revenue and sales
Customers who have access to free WiFi tend to stay in-store longer than customers who don’t. Providing free WiFi will help your business see an increase in customer spending.
You’ll understand your customers better
Offering free WiFi will mean you have access to more high-quality customer data. You’ll be able to understand your customers better and get more insights into what drives them to buy from you, if they’re enjoying their experience, how long they’re spending in your store and so on.
You’ll collect valuable customer contact details
You’ll want to be running effective and valuable marketing campaigns which help build brand awareness and drive revenue. The secret to effective marketing campaigns? You’ll need to have active contact data and an engaged group of customers to market to. Whether you want to try SMS marketing, email marketing, or reach your customers on social media platforms, the data you collect through offering free WiFi is a great place to start your next marketing campaign.
And what about your customers? With free WiFi, your customers will:
Enjoy a better customer experience
You’ll want to provide your customers with the best possible experience, and free WiFi will be part of that. Customers want to stay connected, work, catch up with friends online, scroll news, social media, and other sites while enjoying their dining, drink, or snack experience. Customers that have access to free WiFi will enjoy a better customer experience. They will be more satisfied and are more likely to return to your business.
The ROI Of WiFi Marketing Is Always Impressive
WiFi marketing always tends to deliver a fantastic return on investment. It’s inexpensive to set up, and it’s easy to maintain. At the same time, it offers amazing and tangible benefits for your business.
WiFi marketing is still one of the best ways to get accurate first-party data from your customers, who share their contact information in return for access to your network. With this information and your customers’ permission, you can run highly effective and targeted marketing campaigns.
The data you collect will also help you achieve your business goals. You’ll enjoy a better understanding of what your customers like, their motivations, and who they are. You’ll be able to use this information to make smarter decisions for your business that drive sales and revenue.
The WiFi Marketing Playbook
Our guide covers best practices to build a digital strategy that leverages your restaurant or coffee shop’s guest WiFi infrastructure for your coffee shop, QSR or restaurant-style business.
In today’s world, your audience is always connected. Your customers consume different types of content, chat with other people on multiple messaging platforms, and browse content simultaneously. Take a look at the folks waiting in line for their order: everyone is glued to their device. Look around your coffee shop, bar or restaurant. Every customer has a device (or two!) next to them or in their hand. Your customers are consuming content, sharing content and making content all the time.
WiFi Marketing is an easy way to connect your traditional storefront customer experience with your digital channels like social media, your website and your digital store.
GoGoGuest’s guide covers the very best practices in setting up your storefront’s wireless infrastructure and guest WiFi policy. You’ll understand how to set up and get the most out of a WiFi marketing strategy for your traditional storefront as a restaurant or hospitality brand.
WiFi Marketing is a way to connect your traditional storefront customer experience with your digital channels like social media, your website and your eCommerce store.
Are You Ready To Connect With Your Guests In A Meaningful Way?
Digital technologies like your guest WiFi infrastructure gives your restaurant, coffee shop, bar or food service business the power to grow your audience, understand your high-value customer and personalize each engagement. The modern consumer expects brands to know what they want and anticipate their needs.
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