Social WiFi

Social Wi-Fi refers to physical locations that use branded WiFi landing pages to capture their customers’ digital profiles in exchange for access to a location’s internet.  Registration methods on the WiFi landing page include “single sign on” applications such as Facebook Connect. If a customer clicks on Facebook Connect to log in, they are giving that application permission to access approved customer data such as names, emails, and birthdays. This customer data is then stored in a customer profile database to be used for customer insight and marketing purposes.

Studies show that businesses that provide social Wi-Fi tend to see increases in foot traffic, the length of customer visits and the amount of money they spend. In addition, Accenture reports that 64% of consumers make a restaurant decision based on WiFi availability.

Social Wi-Fi provides an opportunity for restaurants and retailers to passively build customer profiles. As a result, you’ll have a much more accurate understanding of customer behavior. Using DIGIMAX’s growth tools you can automate personalized marketing campaigns based upon your customers’ behavior. This will help reduce churn, and building strong customer loyalty, for example.

Vendor Selection

One of the most important considerations you face in offering social Wi-Fi powered by WiFi marketing & analytics is selecting the vendor who supplies your guest WiFi access tools. You want to make sure they provide commercial-grade equipment, which is typically more secure and able to handle multiple concurrent users. It will also allow you to throttle bandwidth and block certain websites from being accessed.

You also want to ensure your vendor is PCI compliant. PCI compliance involves following a set of requirements created by the credit card industry that mandates the security of cardholder data. It includes guidance for networks that process payment cards as well as those that may do so unintentionally.

DIGIMAX Intelligence offers these features and will even send a technician to survey your location. They will find the best location for your access and install everything for you. DIGIMAX will also provide tech support after the initial installation for both you and your customers.

Promoting and Encouraging Sign-Ins

Having social WiFi will do no good if your patrons don’t know it is available. Many businesses will display signage in prominent places stating they offer free WiFi. And if your network name isn’t obvious, you can have it printed on your signage as well. It is a good idea to have your staff mention the Wi-Fi availability when they see customers using a mobile device.

Even if they know of your free guest WiFi, many customers are unwilling to spend the time creating a login or typing their contact information. There are two primary ways of avoiding this.

For example, offer the ability to log in using a social media account, such as Facebook. Or, you can provide an incentive for users to log in, such as a free drink or dessert. Offering a small free item or some other discount is proven to get customers to provide names and email addresses. And with DIGIMAX, you’ll be able to try all of these ideas, and more.

Data Analysis and Customer Segmentation

Even with a quality POS and accounting system, you simply won’t have the type of information you need to effectively analyze your brick-and-mortar business. DIGIMAX’s social WiFi platform can do this for you.  You don’t even need to require users to log in to enjoy the benefits of data-driven marketing and operations.

DIGIMAX has the ability to identify the smartphones and mobile devices your customers carry. They don’t even need to log in. You’ll see things like first-time visitors, repeat visitors, dwell times, visit times and much more. And if the customer does log in, DIGIMAX will build a detailed customer profile around that customer. Then you can use these profiles for more targeted, triggered marketing. Additionally, DIGIMAX will even track ROI on each campaign.

In other words, you can see whether efforts you’ve made are paying off by monitoring churn rate and other DIGIMAX metrics. A special promotion or a change in store layout can actually impact your sales and DIGIMAX can help you see whether they helped existing customers spend more or attracted new customers.

You can use the data to make more informed decisions in staffing and purchasing, saving you money and resources.

Improve Marketing ROI

Ultimately, the data you receive from offering social WiFi at your business can be used to improve your marketing and grow your business. It has been proven that segmenting and targeting specific groups with different marketing messages aimed at appealing to each group can improve customer engagement tremendously. A recent study by Constant Contact showed that more personalized emails deliver 6x more transaction rates.

With the ability to create customer profiles using DIGIMAX you can create these types of targeted email campaigns. Therefore, you’ll save on marketing costs and be able to track ROI down to the individual email level. This allows you to test frequently and improve each campaign.

Other Benefits of Providing Social Wifi

• Increased customer dwell time. Free Wi-Fi for your customers means higher dwell times. In turn, customers may spend more money. IGR reports that businesses that have free guest Wi-Fi see a 72% success rate in increased sales.
• Remain competitive. By collecting customer profiles and segmenting, you’ll have a competitive advantage over your competition. Also, you will save on costs and improve operations.
• Increase customer base. Customers will feel more appreciated when they have access to the internet through your free guest Wi-Fi. More importantly, using the customer data you collect, you can personalize your customers experience. Offering free social Wi-Fi creates a value-add for your customers, increasing loyalty and repeat traffic.

If you’re thinking about adding social Wi-Fi at your place of business, you’ll want to take all the things mentioned above into consideration. DIGIMAX Intelligence can bring your business the power of social Wi-Fi and advanced growth tools for your restaurant or retail locations. Even better, we keep the set up and management of the platform as simple as possible for you with your own dedicated customer success manager – letting you concentrate on what you do best, running your business.

If you’d like to take a look at DIGIMAX, call us today at 215-528-8410 or schedule your demo here.