Fast and free WiFi as an amenity is now widely expected by users. Offering this can keep customers coming back, make patients’ hospital stays less troublesome and keep passengers continuously connected.
But you can also use WiFi as a beneficial marketing tool to help maintain loyalty and drive further engagement. An innovative solution lets you harness the information users provide to both improve their experiences and also benefit you.
However, that’s only possible with the right WiFi provider. So, here are some pitfalls of WiFi marketing to look out for.
Lack of Brand Awareness
If you choose a WiFi provider that doesn’t let your platform become fully-branded, then you could be losing out on a big chance to promote your services even further. When it comes to WiFi marketing, not only do you need to provide a great service for your users but you also need to help get your name out there even more and stay in your visitors’ minds.
WiFi providers that don’t give you a platform that can be fully-branded means your content and logo won’t appear on splash pages, such as when users need to provide details to sign up and use the WiFi in the first place.
Instead, it could be the WiFi provider’s brand and products that are displayed when people are connected, so they’ll receive all of the benefits of boosted brand awareness instead. Although your logo might feature in a corner on a banner, for example, it’s not enough to demand attention or even leave a lasting impression.
You should look for a provider that allows you to use a fully-branded service.
Upselling Other Services is a Challenge
Another pitfall which works hand-in-hand with the previous point is that a lack of brand awareness through a poor choice of WiFi provider means it’s also a challenge to upsell your other products or services.
Again, as it’s likely that the WiFi provider will offer their branding instead, the likelihood is that they’ll also push their own products, packages and services to your users. So you’ll miss out from both angles - you won’t raise the awareness of your brand and you’ll fail to upsell your other services.
The same solution applies here. Rather than making the mistake of selecting a WiFi provider that focuses on their own brands and success, opt to use one that keeps your brand, products and services in the limelight instead. This allows you to position your messaging to your visitors.
Lack of Coverage Area
An unsuitable WiFi provider can leave you short is if the coverage area of the infrastructure they provide isn’t enough to cover the entire location. Especially if the area of your business is large, you might find that visitors in certain areas are benefitting from fast access to WiFi while those in the opposite area can’t access it at all.
The disadvantage here for you is that you’re missing out on an entire target audience you can market to if they could receive access to your WiFi.
The right WiFi provider will survey your venue thoroughly first and will also design and install a solution to suit your WiFi coverage requirements as best they can to the location. They will ensure your entire service will be covered so you’re not missing out on more potential people you can market to through your WiFi.
Unable to Implement Targeted Messaging and Integrations
By choosing the wrong WiFi supplier, it’s likely that the WiFi platform isn’t bespoke and they’ll use the same approach for every business they work with. This makes it a challenge for you to get to know your users on a personal level because it’s more difficult to implement targeted messaging depending on the actions your visitors have taken.
Choosing the wrong WiFi supplier might also mean you won’t have the functionality to implement integrations, such as with your loyalty schemes and user databases. By choosing a platform that does let you achieve both, you can easily send out targeted messages to your visitors and also take full control of integrated loyalty schemes.
Not Owning Analytical Data
If you’re under pressure to innovate and want something new to gain actionable insight from the user experience and improve engagement, then you’ll need a WiFi provider that gives you access to granular insights from the WiFi data and more importantly, lets you own the data.
The downside to going in blind and choosing a concession WiFi service is that although data will be collected, you won’t own it - the WiFi service provider will. So, either you’ll have to purchase it from them or they’re free to sell it on to third parties.
Without this data, it’s almost impossible for you to gain insight into your visitor behaviour to see how they’re engaging with your service.
You’re unable to see which areas are the most popular and which aren’t, when the busiest times are, foot traffic, dwell times, patient information and a lot more. All of this data gives you the opportunities to switch up strategies and act as opportunities to increase loyalty and happiness.
That’s why working alongside a WiFi provider that lets you own the data is important and picking a concession service is a major pitfall to avoid.
How to Avoid the Pitfalls
The most effective way to avoid these pitfalls is to not pick just an ordinary WiFi service and instead, use a platform that offers your users free WiFi access and offers you more than just WiFi with other features and integrations and lets you own data.
With the right provider, you’ll be able to access detailed analytics so that you can improve both their user experience, your marketing tactics and so much more.
From creating personalised experiences to remarketing to previous users and using that data to make smarter marketing decisions, owning and using analytics data helps your service and your visitors.
Take the First Step Towards Keeping Your Users Engaged
You can only really succeed with WiFi marketing and keep people engaged if you work with a WiFi provider that helps you overcome the challenges highlighted above. Customer engagement helps to maintain your loyalty while improving brand exposure at the same time.
To find out how you can keep your visitors engaged while collecting data to increase repeat business, upsell to current customers and even tips on the tools you can use to achieve this, then download your free copy of our customer engagement guide below.
