There are 8 very crucial questions on the lips of every business, both online and brick n’ mortar. In the race for the answers to these questions, online businesses took the lead and brick n’ mortar businesses got left behind. This happened because the internet avails online businesses the channel to easily collect, organize, interpret and use customer data. However, fortune has smiled on brick n’ mortar businesses, thanks to guest WiFi. Guest WiFi, through WiFi analytics platforms, now enables offline businesses to collect, organize and interpret customer data. More so, it gives them the answers to the following 8 questions:
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How can I build my email list?
A few years ago, it was a tedious and expensive exercise for offline businesses to collect customer details. Fortunately, guest WiFi has turned the tables and has made this an easy and inexpensive process. You can set up a free guest WiFi with a landing page (Captive Portal) where users can register in order to surf the internet. Log in options could be a combination of name, email address, phone number, social media profile, gender, date of birth, etc. Remember to keep it simple. A complicated registration/log in option could be a major turn off. You also need to seek your visitor’s consent to contact them with the details they have provided.
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How can I know what my customers want and think?
Sometimes the best way to get something from a person is to ask. Using guest WiFi, you can send out surveys or questionnaires to your customers in order to obtain their opinions about your business. The questions can be tailored in order to get their opinions about their level of satisfaction, their expectations about your product/service and what complaints they currently have about your business. You could make the survey submission anonymous if you want to reach the customer later.
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How do I promote my loyalty programs in order to trigger on-site rewards?
Using WiFi perimeter sensors, you can know how many people visit your business premises every day and how many times. With this you could award points or scores for every visit which visitors can redeem for discounts on your product or service. Although you need to put systems in place to make sure it is not abused.
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How can I know my rate of attraction, conversion and retention?
Mobile devices send out certain signals that help them detect the availability of WiFi in an environment. This can also be used by WiFi perimeter sensor to detect when a WiFi enabled device is within its range. With this you can determine foot traffic pattern in your place of business. Things like how many visitors you had; how long they stayed; what parts/sections of your premises/store they visited; how many visitors came through, etc. can be determined using WiFi analytics. If there’s an increase in foot traffic after a marketing campaign, then that’s an indication that you have a healthy attraction rate. You conversion rate can be determined by visitors who make purchases on-site. Given that guest WiFi platforms create device-specific accounts, it would recognize the same device whenever it enters its range, connoting a repeat visit.
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How can I promote special offers?
Using the WiFi landing page or captive portal, you can display special offers and promos for customers to view when they log on to your guest WiFi network. Given the customer data you have, you tailor each landing page’s content for a particular customer or set of customers. This message can be triggered when the customer walks into or leaves your business premises. You could also send these special offers through email or SMS when the customers are not in your place of business.
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How can I promote my new products/services
This can be done by, for example, showing an ad for 3/5/8 seconds before the captive portal’s login page appears. It is important to make sure that your new products or services are in line with your customers’ interests and needs. More so, even if your products/services are valuable, overwhelming customers with new product messages will have an opposite effect from what you want.
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How can I increase my mobile app use and retention?
You could use your WiFi landing page to briefly introduce your app. Using newsletters, SMS, and social media for the same purpose is also quite effective. You should make sure your app is easy to download and works with all major operating systems. If you app is easy to use and bug-free, it should soon become the major channel that your customers use to interact with your business.
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How can I improve my social media presence?
Using emails, WiFi’s captive portal and even signs within your business premises, you could encourage your visitors to follow or like you on social media. You could use social media profile as a log in option for your guest WiFi as well. Creating social media programs like contests or hashtags is another excellent way to boost your social media presence significantly.
Making the data usable
The data that is stored through the captive portal, is essential for determining what marketing strategy to use. Therefor it’s good to know what WiFi Analytics can tell you about your customers. Using this data to apply marketing strategies is called ‘WiFi Marketing‘. For example, you can use the stored e-mail addresses to send out vouchers, coupons, automated birthday discounts etc. You can also manage and boost your reviews. However, this is a different topic.
Do you have any unanswered question or did this topic raise (new) questions? Don’t leave them unanswered and request a free online demo.
POSTED ON November 16, 2018