Guest WiFi: A Sales & Marketing Tool?

This blog will discuss new opportunities for retail and hospitality venues in today’s era of data capture through Guest WiFi. Focus is on how to leverage this information to generate revenue while strengthening brand loyalty.

It will be no surprise to you to learn that WiFi has become one of the most important business assets to drive hotel loyalty and profitability.

Indeed, WiFi is often cited as the #1 desired amenity by travellers and for hotels, restaurants and retail. Therefore, it is fast becoming the most effective way to connect with guests and increase brand loyalty and sales.

WiFi to Build Brand Loyalty

Following, this demand creates opportunities for hotels to use the WiFi service to build brand loyalty. It’s estimated that 80% of guests won’t return to a hotel that delivers a bad technology experience. When your brand becomes synonymous with superior, hassle-free technology experience, travellers will seek you out for their next stay.

Think of WiFi as sales and marketing tool. It starts with your web portal, where guests first connect with your hotel and continue through to your Guest WiFi Portal. Whereas, your portal can deliver timely information such as the restaurant’s soup of the day. You are more likely to engage guests and create that important connection with your brand.

WiFi Analytics – A Tale

All Information coming in from your WiFi service can be invaluable in building a real interaction between your brand and guests. Imagine the benefit of feeding that data into marketing vehicles to engage guests. A use case illustrates the impact this could have:

Jane checks into a hotel for a sales conference and logs into the Guest WiFi service using her Facebook profile.
The data from Jane’s public Facebook profile allows you to personalise her web experience to build loyalty.

Since it’s her first time with this hotel brand, Jane is forwarded to a page to sign up for the loyalty program. She receives premium WiFi free at this visit as an appreciation.

Headed to the conference, Jane receives an SMS on her smartphone welcoming her to the event and offering information about the upcoming keynote.

Stampede Guest WiFi can be used to send this relevant information to Jane. This is possible, as it integrates with the CRM/PMS system for ongoing marketing.

WiFi Insights

Through Stampede Connect dashboard analytics about WiFi data usage can be managed on a single dashboard. Even more, if you have multiple hotels, it can show data use across all hotel properties.

Which of your hotels are the top data users per device? Also, the hotel as a brand may want to understand why hotels have very low data usage per guest or per device. Further, exporting data usage by day allows the hotel to compare numbers of guests logging in against occupancy.

In the past WiFi service management used to be a tool primarily for the IT department. Captive portals were designed to block internet access and make sure that you could charge customers before getting them online.

All that has changed. Now, Guest WiFi is a business tool. It’s all about getting insights about your guests to better engage with them online.

Marketing