Customer engagement is a tried and true business practice that’s performed by virtually every successful company. But, engagement is more than sending emails or scheduling social media posts. Your customers need to be genuinely stimulated by your marketing content to feel a true connection to your brand. You may already use your website, email marketing, social media, and digital advertising to reach and engage with guest, but are you leveraging the opportunities that your physical location present? WiFi marketing and geofencing drive customer engagement right from your storefront, or the surrounding area. Below are the top three ways this pairing works in conjunction to help you engage with customers in the modern age.
Branding
WiFi Marketing: With basic WiFi, there isn’t much engagement available when a guest signs onto your network. WiFi marketing changes that by creating what is known as a captive portal, a login page for WiFi guests that allows them to easily and securely access your network by signing in through social outlets. Captive portals can be built to show off your customized look and logo of your brand. Now, your WiFi guests can go from a bland sign-in experience to a true branded engagement. WiFi marketing can also change the SSID of your network so guests will notice your WiFi right away with a customized name that stands out from the crowd.
GeoFencing: As WiFi guests surf the web and perform social interactions, geofencing picks up where WiFi marketing left off. Geofencing is a service that uses WiFi or other types of radio frequencies to creates a virtual boundary. When guests enter this virtual boundary, automated triggers can be sent to these guests that have entered your geofence boundary. Intuitive geofencing software provides branded content to your guests with tools such as SMS and MMS messaging. A well-timed “Welcome” text to first-time visitors is great for personally introducing new customers to your brand. Social apps, such as Snapchat, allow you to create geofenced content for guests that are engaging in your area. For example, events industry companies can create personalized Snapchat filters to be used and shared by event attendees.
Smart tip: When you provide a branded WiFi marketing and geofence experience, you want as many people exposed to your WiFi as possible. Since WiFi signals are one of the ways to set up a geofence, every corner of your property needs to have WiFi running through it. That way, no guest is left out of your branded experience. Brick-and-mortar stores can take it a step further by creating a network that bleeds over to common spaces between you and your neighboring businesses. This can help your WiFi reach those who shop at surrounding properties.
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Advertising
WiFi Marketing: With WiFi marketing, you can generate advertising and marketing materials by using digital banners on your captive portal page. Promote products, reward programs, and promotions right on your guest’s device screen as they sign-in to your network. Advanced WiFi marketing platforms let you implement a redirect URL, which can take a WiFi guest to any web page of your choosing. Use this tool to promote and showcase your business’s web page, social media accounts, online app and any other type of content that continues the guest engagement.
GeoFencing: Geofence advertising is how you advertise to your guests after they have completed the initial WiFi login process. As guests use your WiFi, you can provide personalized advertisements and marketing content through outlets such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. As guests surf the web and scroll through their social media feeds, they see personalized ad content that you’ve created through your geofence.
Smart Tip: Malls and shopping centers, listen up! You can provide specific advertising content to different areas of your property with the help of geofencing through Google Ads. Don’t let another guest visit your location without knowing about all of the different deals and promotions that your vendors are running. Google ads through geofencing can generate specific ads down to the exact location you specify. So when guests are navigating through your property, you can deliver specific ads for certain stores when guests are hovering around close by.
Analytics
WiFi Marketing and GeoFencing: Since WiFi is one of the best ways to set up a geofence, generating analytics through WiFi marketing and geofencing can be one and the same. Both of these tools provide you in-depth analytics of your consumers such as guest demographics, WiFi usage, location tracker and more.
With WiFi marketing, you can learn more about the type of devices guests use to connect to your WiFi network, your monthly or weekly average of WiFi check-ins, how many new and repeat guests connect to your WiFi and other data such as usage and duration time.
Geofencing through your WiFi network is the next step to collecting analytics by learning how exactly guests navigate through your property. Understand where the busy and slow traffic areas of your business are located, find out your busy hours vs. slow hours of an average workday, and figure out how long an average guest spends at your business. Analytics data from WiFi marketing and geofencing is your key to finding out how your guest really engage with your location.
Smart Tip: Analytics is great for making key changes to your marketing campaigns, but don’t forget the operational improvements that can come from this insightful data. No longer will restaurants have to worry about the dilemma of being over/understaffed by guessing guest traffic. Instead, improve staffing schedules by learning about the fluctuation of guest traffic throughout the day. Knowing the high-traffic areas of your location informs where you place physical signage for specials deals and promotions that need more exposure. Festivals and events can create perfect layouts for vendors through a better understanding of traffic patterns.
Are you ready to start using the perfect pair of customer engagement? With GoZone WiFi’s Smart WiFi platform, you’ll have advanced WiFi marketing tools that work seamlessly with your geofencing program. With Smart WiFi paired with geofencing, bland guest engagement is a thing of the past.
