Struggling to drive more sales and repeat visits to your place? Heard about WiFi marketing and wonder whether it could help you turn things around?
I admit – What you do is far from easy. You’re trying to connect with and win more customers, get them to come back, and also tell others about you, too… All the while, so many other businesses around you are trying to do the same thing.
So, your ads get buried among all the noise. Customers seem not to notice your promotions. And it’s almost impossible to get anyone to join your mailing list…
Well, this is exactly what WiFi marketing could help you overcome.
In this guide, you’ll learn everything there is to get started with it.
So, let’s get to it.
What is WiFi Marketing?
Let’s face it: It’s impossible to run a coffee shop or a restaurant today without offering free Wi-Fi to customers.
It’s a standard feature, one that customers pretty much take for granted.
They enter a new place, sit at their table, and … connect to its free WiFi.
There are plenty of stats to prove it. For example
- According to the UK Office of National Statistics, 84% of adults use the internet on the go. Granted, this doesn’t mean that they all use free WiFi. However, the data suggests that they do indeed connect to the Internet outside of their home or work network.
- 96% of customers prefer a business that offers free WiFi (source)
- To 60% of millennials, free WiFi is the no.1 hotel perk (source)
WiFi marketing allows you to capitalize on this behavior and use your free WiFi to connect with those people as they are in your coffee shop or store.
How does WiFi marketing work?
When we use the term – WiFi marketing – we refer to strategies that coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, and many brick-and-mortar shops use to:
- Capitalize on the free access to WiFi they provide to customers.
- Collect their customers’ contact details.
- Promote the business or deals or promotions.
This typically happens in several ways:
- Requiring a signup with email. In this case, companies use guest WiFi to collect their customers’ contact details and add them to the mailing list.
- Requiring social signup. In this case, the person begins to follow the company on social media in return for access to its free WiFi.
- Promoting deals and promotions on the signup page.
- Running ads.
- Running loyalty programs,
- Asking for ratings or reviews, etc.
All this happens through a simple process.
A guest decides to connect to a free WiFi.
So, they look up the network and tap their mobile device to connect.
However, before they can start using the network, the company requires them to sign up either by email or through social media.
The login process happens on a page we call a captive portal. This page simply captures the person’s contact information and acts as a gateway to connect them to your free network.
Once captured, the data is added to your CRM or email marketing list.
But the opportunity to engage customers with WiFi marketing doesn’t end there.
You can show customers ads, promotions, and any other information you want them to see.
You can show them videos, images, social widgets that they could tap to connect with you on social media, and more.
You can ask them to provide a rating or review of the place, too.
And then, you can add various triggers and automations to engage customers even further.
What Makes WiFi Marketing Such a Powerful Marketing Strategy?
To explain this, we must look again at the data I quoted earlier. From the data, we know that:
Most adults use the Internet on the go. Again, it doesn’t mean that all of them connect to free networks. But I think it’s fair to say that most of them would.
Most people expect the WiFi to be free in various locations they frequent. In fact, to more than half, it’s a must-have.
So, let’s understand why.
- Most people want to stay connected online, but they might not want to use up their data allocation on their plans, etc.
- Many customers visit coffee shops to work or study. In fact, working from Starbucks has long become a popular stereotype, after all. The same goes for studying or any other intellectual activity. I’ve even seen people having job interviews (or at least client calls) via Zoom from coffee shops. Not to mention that many famous writers, like J.K. Rowling, often retell stories of writing their breakthrough works from coffee shops. Working from a coffee shop has become a cultural trend now, one that absolutely requires a good Wi-Fi connection.
- People want to entertain themselves, too. They might be in a coffee shop by themselves and want to listen to their favorite playlist or continue watching their favorite show on Netflix. Again, for that, they need to access your WiFi.
- They want to browse online stores and buy stuff there, too.
In other words, they want to do the very same things they do when they’re connected to their home or work network.
And that’s exactly what your free guest WiFi allows them to do.
This is exactly why so many of your customers are likely to connect to your network, giving you an unparalleled opportunity to connect with them, engage them, and start building stronger business relationships with them.
Why and How to Use WiFi Marketing?
#1. To grow the email list
I admit it; This is probably the most common use case for WiFi marketing.
Because you see, as customers decide to connect to your guest WiFi, they provide you with their contact information, which you can, then, add to your email marketing platform and expand your email list.
And let’s face it: with WiFi marketing, building a list can happen almost effortlessly. Customers do have to provide their contact information. Otherwise, they won’t be able to use your network.
#2. To learn more about customers through behavioral data
Most WiFi marketing platforms recognize returning visitors. In other words, a person who has connected to your free WiFi before doesn’t have to do it again. The system would recognize them. At the same time, the system will also record their repeat visit and other behavioral data.
For example:
- Last Visit – Date that guest was last in venue
- Visit Frequency – Measure of customer loyalty
- First Seen – The date the user was first seen in the venue
- Dwell Time – How long a customer spends in the venue
Needless to say, that’s invaluable information you could use when engaging and marketing this person.
Let me share just some examples of what you could do:
- Based on the person’s behavior and frequency of visits, you can email them promotions or deals that match the pattern. So, if you know that the person visits your location every other Tuesday, you could trigger email campaigns to them on Sunday or Monday morning, etc.
- You can ask the most loyal customers for reviews. Since they’ve been coming to your venue repeatedly, there is a much greater chance that they’ll not only agree to review you but also provide a glowing recommendation.
#3. To profile customers
This benefit relates particularly to large venues like a hotel or a shopping center. For those, it may be important to know what part of the venue different guests frequent the most.
For example, guests who only visit a hotel’s spa will likely not be interested in conference room rates, and vice versa.
Gaining that insight will help you segment your customer list and trigger more relevant email marketing campaigns.
#4. To use anonymized data to understand how many people visit your venue
I agree that counting footfall or dwell time isn’t the most exciting activity. But it’s one that can provide you with highly accurate benchmarks to understand customer behavior in-store.
Coincidentally, this is what WiFi analytics helps tremendously with.
You see – Every person carries a phone, after all. And so, they could be counted as they come in and out of a venue. The data can also be used to establish how long users typically stay in a given venue.
Larger venues could even break it down into smaller units by generating the same data for each smaller part of that venue.
#5. To understand customer journey flow
If you operate a large venue, one where customers freely move around (i.e., a shopping center, for example,) then you can use the free WiFi to understand how users move throughout your location.
For example, in a shopping center, such a system could map the customer journey as the enter, then as they move through the center, and finally as they leave.
#6. To get more reviews
I mentioned reviews several times already, and that’s because, after growing an email list, this is by far the most common use for WiFi marketing.
To do it, you just need to integrate the WiFi Hotspot Service with popular online review sites like TripAdvisor.
The integration will let the review sites know that a user was in a particular venue on a given date and then invite them to leave a review of their experience.
It’s that simple.
What Do You Need to Launch a WiFi Marketing Campaign?
#1. WiFi Marketing Hardware
If you’re already providing guests with free WiFi, then I suspect you have all the hardware you need – A router or access point that provides you with reliable WiFi coverage throughout the location.
There are several other components that you could use as well, depending on your preferred WiFi marketing use case:
- Proximity beacon that would allow you to market to past customers in your proximity.
- QR codes to guide guests to WiFi sign in
#2. Software
You need several pieces of software to run WiFi marketing campaigns:
Captive portal and splash page
First, you need a platform to capture customers’ email addresses and provide access to your network. We refer to such products as a captive portal and splash page software. Let me explain what each of those terms means.
Captive Portal
A captive portal is a mechanism that intercepts the web traffic to enforce your login requirements when a customer decides to connect to your free WiFi network. It shows them a splash page and asks them to log in, agree to some terms, or provide some basic info, like their email address or phone number, before letting them access the internet.
Splash Page
A splash page, on the other hand, is the exact page that your customer sees when they connect to a WiFi network through a captive portal. It’s where they complete the necessary steps to get online, like logging in or agreeing to terms. This page can show them your logo, ads, messages, or instructions. It’s designed to look nice with the company’s branding, making their transition to the internet smooth and pleasant. The splash page can also show whatever promotional messages you’d like customers to see.
Meet MyPace, the no.1 WiFI email capture software
MyPlace (disclaimer—this is my tool) helps venues, restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses manage access to WiFi networks through a captive portal where WiFi users register to get access.
With MyPlace, you can:
- Create powerful captive portals and splash pages
- Use social login
- Create customizable guest landing pages
- Collect WiFi analytics data
- Control our WiFi usage
- Segment customers, and more.
On top of that, MyPlace integrates with several email marketing platforms – Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, etc. And, you can also send the collected data to your CRM through a Zapier integration.
CRM
You also need a customer relationship management system where you can store all the different customer data, incl. Behavioral information.
Email marketing platform
Finally, you also need an email marketing solution to store customer emails and send relevant campaigns to them.
And that’s it
