Free WiFi has become a standard fare to offer to customers. The vast majority of customers expect it or at least appreciate it when they visit your store. Not only does complimentary WiFi benefit your customers, but it also gives you opportunities to boost sales and promote your brand.
Studies have found that restaurant diners are happier to eat alone if the place has WiFi, and retailers report higher sales numbers when free WiFi is present. These insights along should be enough to encourage you to utilize WiFi marketing within your business, but that’s just the first part of adding WiFi to your locations.
Providing free WiFi also opens the door to a multitude of in-store analytics that you can utilize to improve your operations.
Check out a few common metrics brands can track when they offer free WiFi.
1. The Number of Customers Entering Your Business
The first metric you can track with your WiFi marketing is the average number of people who visit your store each day.
Not everyone who walks into your store is going to buy something and some people might combine the purchases into one ticket. In-store WiFi creates a clear picture of the number of people walking through the door and the percent of people who buy from you.
2. New Versus Returning Customers
Once you have a clear idea of the number of people entering and exiting your business, you can dig a little deeper to see which customers are new and which ones are loyal.
Remember, your loyal customers are your bread and butter in your business. More than 60% of loyal customers will go out of their way to buy from a brand, 60% will shop at a business more often, and 50% will buy more products. You want to retain the new customers who walk into your business and turn them into loyal buyers.
With WiFi marketing, you get these in-store analytics about new and returning customers, and you can market to them differently. You can welcome existing customers back or present coupon codes to new customers visiting you for the first time.
3. Demographic Information about Your Customers
Of course, the difference between new and returning customers is just one way you can use demographic data to offer different marketing messages. Through WiFi analytics, you can also learn about the gender, age, and interests of the people visiting your business.
Your WiFi system can be connected to Facebook or Twitter to gather demographic details about your in-store shoppers so you can learn what your customers like and how they respond to certain items and ideals.
This demographic data is exceptionally useful for in-store marketing. If your primary demographic is young people in the mid-to-late twenties, you can develop overhead music that appeals to them and menu items that are popular with that generation. This makes your customers more likely to buy because they emotionally connect with your brand.
4. Coupon Use and Other Customer Communication
When your customers log in to your free customer WiFi, you can control what landing pages they see, what offers they view, and what they redeem. With this information, you can track the effectiveness of campaigns before you promote them to your social media following and other mass audiences.
For example, you can A/B test promotions to see which ones people respond to more. This will save you money in the long-run when you push coupons out to your paid campaigns.
5. Customer Engagement on Social Media
Along with showing specific ad banners and offers on splash pages, you can use your free WiFi to connect with customers on social media. You can present a call-to-action for them to follow you or check-in for a discount or coupon.
When people follow you on social media, they commit to your brand. This is one way for them to move from new customers to potential loyal shoppers. From there, it’s up to you to create amazing social media content that makes your customers want to come back.
6. ROI For Your Promotions and Other Conversion Metrics
You likely have plenty of financial data from the business management side of your operations. You know how many transactions there are, how much inventory you have sold, and which items are popular.
However, WiFi marketing analytics can open up the door for clearer conversion tracking and insights into who is buying what. A few common metrics you can pull with this data include:
- Conversion Rate: the percent of people who make a purchase when they walk into your business.
- Redemption Rate: the percent of people who use a coupon or promotion related to your business.
- New vs. Returning Customer Spend: the amount new customers spend versus loyal buyers.
- ROI for Marketing Efforts: the average percent increase in traffic as a result of your campaigns.
- Cost Per Acquisition: the amount you need to spend to acquire a new customer or bring an additional person into your store.
This provides insight and control over your marketing efforts. You can use in-store analytics to clearly determine which store promotions worked and which ones your target audiences ignored.
7. The Busiest In-Store Hours
This final metric gives you insight into your store operations. Knowing which times of day are popular and which ones are slow (on average) can help you discover the best times to schedule staff.
You can make sure that shifts overlap during busier times and schedule shifts where people come in for a few hours during peak hours. Through these efforts, you can create a better experience for your customers, who will be happier with the customer service that your (not overworked) team provides.
Use In-store Analytics to Guide Your Business Decisions
Too many business owners rely on intuition and guesswork to run their companies. They make assumptions based on what they see in the stores and what they want to see. However, nothing can replace clear, objective data.
If you can glean valuable in-store analytics from your WiFi marketing efforts, why wouldn’t you use this promotion strategy?
To find out how you can start collecting these in-store analytics by offering your customers free in-store WiFi, contact Spectrio today. We’d love to show you a demo of what is possible when you use in-store marketing to learn about and better engage your customers.