How to Get Your Customers to Engage With Your Captive Wi-Fi Portal Using Gamification

Gamification iStock image Gamification iStock image

You probably read that headline and wondered how gaming relates with your business. You run a restaurant or a retail store, not an arcade, so you don’t see how this might be of use to you. I get it. A lot of marketers and business owners do not see it at first.

For those of you who do not know, gamification is the integration of gaming elements, such as competing with other people for some reward, scoring points, and a set of playing rules, on a digital platform in order to encourage participation on this platform.

Your captive portal serves as a channel to collect customer data in real-time. Data that will give you a clear picture of what your customers want.

Now, combine gamification with your Wi-Fi captive portal, and you have got yourself an entertaining data-collector.

Do you have a splash page? If yes, then you can give your customers a fun time by having them play an exciting game while you gather vital information.

So…

Let’s look at how the captive Wi-Fi portal-gaming combo makes for a really great digital marketing tool with your splash page.

Getting Your Splash Page Up and Running

A splash page is the first page your customers see whenever they want to access your Wi-Fi network. While not every company that provides free Wi-Fi has one, a splash page is essential.

You can use it to display your terms and conditions of agreement. It can be used to display new products or services you may have, a new menu, perhaps? You could also display paid ads from other companies who offer complimentary products or services. Read How to Make Money with Your Social Wi-Fi Platform to learn more about this.

By the way, do you need assistance in setting up your splash (landing) page? You can get help right here.

But there is one more thing you can do with your Wi-Fi splash page.

Gaming!

If you aren’t using your splash page for ads or terms of agreement, why not use it as an opportunity to engage with your customers? Gamification is the best way to do this. If you are in the restaurant business, you know that there are times where customers may have to wait a little longer to be served.

You can use this opportunity to entertain them with interactive games. This way you encourage your visitors to engage with your page while they wait to be served. The more rewards your game has, the better engagement it generates.

And do you know the best part?

You can collect data from your customers while they are getting entertained with your games. It’s a win-win; your customers get entertained and you get vital data and engagement.

Another benefit of splash page gamification is that customers associate your brand with something fun and rewarding which is good for strengthening customer loyalty.

Providing Exciting Games through Splash Page

It has been proven by research that splash page gamification is extremely beneficial for managing customer relationship. Whatever you do, ensure that you provide a game that reflects the product or service you offer, or at least one that resonates with your brand.

For a restaurant, a great game idea would be to make the customer a character that goes around the game picking up ingredients to prepare a particular dish in a set time. There could be several stages with each stage having a different, more complex dish to prepare. There should be a reward for the customer at the end of each stage when they successfully complete a stage by making the dish.

With an interactive game like that, customers will be so immersed they will not feel the time they spend waiting.

Offer Rewards for Playing

This idea goes both ways.

One way is to reward customers with game points whenever they buy an item, say a meal, from you. These points may be needed to get certain items inside the game. And so, the more cash they spend in your business, the more game points they gain.

The other way is to set a physical reward for any customer who successfully completes the entire game. This could be a free family dinner or free desert for two weekends or a free product if you are a retail business.

You could combine both ways and reward customers with game points when they buy from you. Then turn around and physically reward them when they complete the entire game.

Using the Customer Data

As your splash page gamification runs, you will accumulate an ample amount of customer data. You can do this by requesting personal data from the customer for them to get to the next stage or to gain game points. You can turn around and use the data to send personalized marketing messages. Personalized messages makes your marketing more effective and has a positive impact on your marketing investment.

You can use the data to send triggered messages to customers about your in-house game upgrade, new features or special offers.

To be able to collect and make sense of the customer data, you need a cutting-edge Wi-Fi analytics tool. SpotOn Wi-Fi makes gathering, storage, and interpretation of visitor data an easy task. Our dashboard is robust and presents your data in visual formats that allow you better understand what they mean.

Want to see how this works? Just go here to request a free demo or visit our contact us page and shoot us a message.

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