Wi-Fi is a good promotional tool for any service establishment, be it food or retail, because it works as a catalyst for sales, but you can go far beyond just selling extra coffee or sandwiches. Wi-Fi can also be used as a powerful marketing tool to build close customer relationships and establish loyalty. This is done by setting up an infrastructure that allows people to use public Wi-Fi services via social media.
Now, this is where the magic happens – customers get excited by the prospect of an easy and safe connection, and businesses get a rare and invaluable glimpse into people’s everyday habits. Once customers have connected and agreed on terms and conditions, just about any retailer – coffee shops, restaurants, malls or convenient stores – gets the right to collect, store, analyze information on client behavior, and based on that improve their services. No more guessing, just raw and sincere data.
Marketing Tools for Wi-Fi
You basically get access to a real gold mine – posts, reviews, every like, dislike or comment, photos, videos and even his friend’s information. This is where you start to learn the truth about your own business. Maybe your establishment is too expensive, maybe not clean enough, maybe the music is too loud, or the bouncers tend to be rude towards customers.
All of that information can be harvested and used to improve services, thus bringing more profit and better experience to the customer. Once that is done, you can move on to the next stage and offer personalized ads on slash pages, send newsletters, discount coupons, special offers, invitations to parties and events, congratulate them on their birthday or new employment.
For example, you can set up an algorithm to send a generous discount coupon when customers connect for the second time, or you can send targeted offers for favorite beverages right before certain events, or even give away a free T-shirt once in a while. Use Wi-Fi marketing to send push notifications when clients are near a particular section in a store or have a habit of buying particular items. This can be achieved through a rapidly growing innovation called proximity marketing. It‘s basically the practice of integrating specialized software over Wi-Fi networks and using signals to get an idea of how people move around stores.
Wi-Fi marketing is actually giving a huge boost to brick-and-mortar establishments because for a long time online stores had the best tools and opportunities to collect user data. Now it seems like physical stores are also finally getting their fair share of the marketing department.
Customer Benefits
Ever heard of people going to coffee shops and sitting there for hours while sipping the cheapest espresso on the menu? Most likely not because of the amazing coffee but for the lightning-fast internet connection, so the irony is that lots of coffee shops end up selling Wi-Fi for the price of a coffee. Statistics show that people tend to spend more time and money in places that offer good Wi-Fi connection. What does that say about us? Most likely it means that Wi-Fi is slowly becoming somewhat similar to water – it’s basically digital oxygen for the modern person that can’t imagine a life without being online.
The fact is that people crave quality Wi-Fi connection, but they don’t want the hassle of creating accounts, disclosing bank card information or worse. Wi-Fi marketing offers a friendly and easy alternative. No separate passwords, hidden payments or obligations. People tend to have a more positive attitude towards Wi-Fi services that don’t have strict requirements, and connecting via social media, for example, Facebook, definitely feels like a natural motion that you do every day, so it gives you the feeling of being safe. It’s also great that Wi-Fi marketing is a mutually beneficial exchange – businesses make a profit, customers get free internet and personalized deals.
Future of Wi-Fi Marketing
The benefit of offering content via Wi-Fi is that it’s a non-aggressive way of attracting people’s attention and giving them fair deals. Such type of marketing still feels like uncharted territory – compared to other more established forms of advertising – but that’s the reason why you should grab the opportunity and make most of it because tendencies show that the significance of Wi-Fi marketing is only going to grow. This is obvious from a recent report which suggests that the Wi-Fi marketing sector will grow from 2.94 billion in 2017 to 10.72 billion by 2022. Basically, the figures are going to triple in the next 5 years.
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