Enhanced shopper experiences is everything for a retail business and with Wi-Fi marketing you can provide a valuable service to shoppers while gaining useful and unique data that helps your business grow. Wi-Fi marketing is becoming yet another aspect of the omnichannel retail experience.

What is Wi-Fi Marketing?

Wi-Fi marketing is when retailers provide wireless internet access to shoppers and then use that as a channel to communicate messages and promotions. It traditionally includes branded login pages, promotions, content delivery, email marketing, social media interactions, Customer Survey, and data collection. It is an innovative way for retail-chains or brick-and-mortar businesses to build customer loyalty by leveraging on-premise guest Wi-Fi to run highly targeted promotional ads, send emails/SMS, and automate other customer communications.

How Wi-Fi Marketing Works?

With Wi-Fi marketing, you turn guest Wi-Fi hotspots into marketing platforms that provide valuable business insights. As shoppers connect to your in-store Wi-Fi, you collect their contact information and build client profiles that help you understand how often they visit your store and what they’re interested in buying. It can be defined in four steps:

1. Offer Free Wi-Fi: You offer free Wi-Fi to store walk-in or nearby guests.
2. Connect: Anyone on a Wi-Fi-enabled device, from smartphones to tablets to laptops, will be able to see and connect to your Wi-Fi network. Guests connect to your open Wi-Fi network without a password.
3. Login: Guests are asked to login using social media, email, or SMS to get access. You can also mandate that users view, engage with or share content before being granted access to the network. This might be a splash page that talks about sales discounts, new announcement or a form/survey where the user must submit their email address.
4. Engage: Create a fully immersive guest Wi-Fi experience with videos, images, social widgets and more. Keep tabs on how many people are joining your Wi-Fi network, what time of day they’re joining, how long they’re spending time in your store, etc. These numbers, coupled with smart stone retail analytics, will give you a comprehensive picture of how people engage with your physical space.

How Wi-Fi Marketing Can Help Your Business?

• Share Information on Login Landing Pages: Like your other marketing channels, Wi-Fi marketing is an opportunity to share information with customers that they otherwise might not have known. Through the creation of dedicated landing pages, you can promote unknown products and services, share facts about your brand, and provide news updates to customers.
• Promote on your splash page: You can use Wi-Fi marketing to promote a product/service, new announcement regarding upcoming deals, etc. on your splash page.
• Understand your customers: Wi-Fi marketing grants you access to a wealth of data and knowledge about shoppers. You can use these insights to understand your business, the in-store experience, and what makes your customers tick.
• Promote sales: Whenever your store is having a sale, you can spread the word to everyone who has used your in-store Wi-Fi. This way, you can invite anyone to come back in, regardless of whether they’ve purchased from your store before or not. With additional personalization, you can offer those who haven’t purchased an additional coupon for making their first purchase, or incentivize previous buyers with a coupon as well.
• Target individual demographics – Say you’re a shoe store that suddenly finds itself with an abundance of Adidas running shoes. With Wi-Fi marketing, you can specifically target customers who have previously purchased Adidas shoes or running shoes in general to let them know you’re having a massive blowout sale on Adidas. In marketing, it doesn’t get more specific than that. 
• Design store layout: Wi-Fi marketing allows you to use foot traffic data, like how shoppers have navigated your store, where they’re spending time, and where the sales are converting, to give you a better idea of how to think about store layout.
• Guest Feedback & Surveys: Integrate directly with review sites for reputation management.

How to Get Started?

Let’s start off easy. Here’s a simple step-by-step guide to getting set up:

1. Choose high-speed, high-bandwidth service: You want your shoppers to be able to use the Wi-Fi, so it’s important that you invest in a higher-tier plan so they won’t get bogged down by slow browsing.
2. Choose UIAPL Software: Regardless of whether you are looking for a Wi-Fi management software for a large retail chain, or a small brick-and-mortar store on the corner, you will find UIAPL software was built with your needs and concerns in mind. UIAPL is a secured, scalable, cloud hosted Wi-Fi solution which simplifies monitoring and management of distributed wireless network in a cost effective manner. It enables visitors to connect to your Wi-Fi using their social media profiles or mobile OTP, ensuring a quick and simple login. It controls user Internet access, sets limits, engages users and provides powerful analytics.
3. Let customers know the Wi-Fi: Make sure your Wi-Fi is visible. Put a sign on the window that tells passersby you have Wi-Fi available.