3 Reasons Every Brick-And-Mortar Venue Needs Guest WiFi in 2019
- By Destiny Pearce
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- 24 Feb, 2019
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Consumers Expect Guest WiFi
When it comes to grabbing a bite at a restaurant or finding a new clothing outlet, more and more shoppers look for guest WiFi as part of their consumer choices.84% of restaurant patrons consider free WiFi as an influencer when choosing an eatery while 96% of retail consumers prefer to shop and return to stores that offer guest WiFi.
Guest WiFi is popular because it’s a fantastic resource for shoppers to stay connected to the internet without worrying about using their mobile data. People also can lose their cell signal, especially in large concrete buildings, so knowing that there’s WiFi waiting for them to keep them connected is a reassuring bonus.
Download the ebook: Turn Up Revenue & Engagement with Guest WiFi
Offering guest WiFi isn’t just appealing to consumers. Many small business owners stand by guest WiFi as a great ROI as well as an additional tool to encourage customer loyalty. Tie these aspects in with the reasonable cost of bringing WiFi into your brick-and-mortar store and there’s really no reason not to have it.
Smart Tip: When setting up WiFi for the first time, ensuring your WiFi signal reaches every corner of your store is important so no guest loses connection. Learn the basics of WiFi setup and how to optimize your WiFi landscape.
Market Your Brand with Guest WiFi
WiFi marketing allows brick-and-mortar businesses to market and advertise their brand to guests that use free their WiFi.
Basic WiFi helps shoppers stay connected to the internet without worrying about using precious mobile data. WiFi marketing goes beyond the basics by providing a branded WiFi login page where businesses include marketing and advertising content to show off to their WiFi guests.
WiFi marketing allows guests to simply and securely access a WiFi network by signing in with contact information such as an email address or social media profile. This sign-in feature helps brick-and-mortar stores that want to build assets such as a CRM list or social media following. WiFi marketing even utilizes a URL redirect feature that takes WiFi guests to a specific webpage after signing in. By using all of these tools, you can market your store in ways you never thought was possible through simple guest WiFi.
Guest WiFi Improves Your Customer Experience
You can use all of the marketing strategies out there to get people to visit your store, but if guests don’t enjoy the customer experience you offer in-person, don’t expect them to return. WiFi is now being used as an analytics tool in order for retail spaces other brick-and-mortar businesses to better understand how guests are interacting throughout the property.
WiFi analytics is great for learning analytics such as how many guests are visiting your store at specific times, which areas of your store receive the most foot traffic, and also how long your guests visit. These insights are invaluable if you are looking to improve operational aspects of your store such as store signage and other advertising pieces, product placement, and even create more efficient staffing schedules for your workers.
Having the near perfect layout for your guests can be a determining factor between guests choosing your store and your competitors. With WiFi analytics, you have more insight into how your average guest behaves.
Ready to start using guest WiFi for your brick-and-mortar store and get the most out of it? WiFi is here to help. Our Smart WiFi platform comes with all of the top-notch Wi-Fi marketing, advertising, and analytic tools to make your WiFi one of the best running utilities for your business.
Click Here To View A Demo Of How Our Wi-Fi Marketing Services Function Or Contact Us Today
How Can Advertising On WiFi Help My Business?
Wi-Fi advertising is used by a variety of different industries including travel, hospitality, and retail. On the surface, it may seem like the only advantage to WiFi advertising is getting your ads in front of your customers. That’s the obvious and most direct use. However, there are several unstated benefits that should not go unrecognized, as they could be the factors that edge out your competition.
Advantages to Using a WiFi Advertising Platform:
Gather customer contact information for follow-up and future correspondence.
Increase customer engagement by offering discounts, special offers, or unique products.
Earn direct revenue every time a guest connects.*
* Direct revenue earned via hosting ad network through your guest WiFi platform.
The potential of WiFi advertising crosses every industry. A large healthcare complex can offset the infrastructure cost of their guest WiFi by offering WiFi advertising while gathering rich presence analytics to improve patient outcome and guest and patient experience.
Imagine a weekend music festival providing guest WiFi brought to you by the festival's signature sponsor. It's possible with WiFi advertising. If an event includes free WiFi, WiFi advertising should be included as part of the premium sponsorship tiers.
As colleges become contained communities, WiFi advertising can offset costs and increase revenue for the school while allowing vendors within the campus to advertise. Extra credit: All those WiFi hotspots are great for WiFi analytics, which helps universities and colleges better track student traffic patterns.
How Does WiFi Advertising Software Drive Revenue?
The landing page for your guest Wi-Fi is the first point of contact before a customer reaches the internet. It is an impressive piece of digital advertising real estate. Organizations can use this space to promote their own brand or earn revenue by offering this space up to non-competitive advertising partners. Your WiFi advertising enables advertisers to reach a highly engaged mobile audience, and you earn revenue every time someone connects.
Beyond the incremental revenue, WiFi advertising helps enterprise venues and organizations offset the infrastructure costs associated with providing free guest WiFi. In this context, WiFi advertising more than pays for itself.
How Does WiFi Advertising Software Work?
WiFi advertising is based upon proximity. As long as someone’s close enough to find your WiFi on their network list, they will have the opportunity to connect and then be served your ads. This means that they don’t necessarily have to enter your business – they could be next door or across the street, depending on how powerful your WiFi signal is.
Benefits of Proximity Advertising
You need to promote your business all the time. By showing people details about your business when they connect to your WiFi, you build up your reputation. It’s all part of your branding – and you get more subscribers at the same time. This gives you a way of telling more people about you and being able to connect with them again and again.
WiFi advertisements enable businesses to:
Target the right audience
Use WiFi advertising to target the right audience with personalized messages or media. Manage what your users see about your business and promote relevant content that will interest them.
Feature relevant content
Display image (of any size) and video advertising (with random or time-based location) in the right moment and target your customers while they are in your location with in-store discounts, special offers and other such promotions on the splash page.
Nourish customer loyalty
Improve your customer retention and engage with your new and returning users when they are using your WiFi – target them with advertisements and customized email marketing to keep them interested and coming back.
Multimedia advertising
Target existing and potential customers using our built-in system for image or video advertisements, or both. Choose the type of advertisements you want to add to your splash pages, the duration of time each add is shown and at what point during the authentication process it is displayed (before, after or during the login process).
These features the capability to add linked images to the splash page. This means, that your splash page can include advertising banners, that link to your own website or page, or an external one.
Advertisement rotation
There are three types of ad rotation that can be set on the splash pages.
- None : Image or video advertisement will be displayed as is.
- Random : Image or video advertisements will be displayed at random rotation (no specific order) on the Splash Page.
- Time-based : Image or video advertisements will be displayed for a selected duration of time only.
