When it comes to running a local business, only a few things are more important than providing WiFi to customers. However, most businesses do not take advantage of the free internet connections they provide. A WiFi cafe optimized with a WiFi marketing solution can yield multiple benefits and lead to the growth of the venue. This article will dive deep into the topic and show you how to get the most out of your guest Wi-Fi network.
WiFi Cafe: Advantages for Businesses
Everyone who walks into a coffee shop today expects to find a stable and fast WiFi connection. Looking for a WiFi cafe is common nowadays. That’s why offering it can attract a whole lot of customers, especially remote workers and digital nomads. However, stopping there is like having a Ferrari and leaving it in the garage. Your WiFi can become a pillar to implement your cafe marketing ideas.
By leveraging your WiFi connection with a social WiFi hotspot, you can gain several benefits:
- Gather data about your customers
- Improve the overall experience
- Automate your marketing campaigns
- Leverage Email Marketing
- Grow your reputation on local review sites
- Reinforce your branding
- Secure your connection from intrusions and hackers
- Optimize the performance of your WiFi by managing bandwidth easily
- Get real followers on social media
The interesting part is that the prerequisite for getting these benefits is only offering WiFi to your customers. Then, WiFi marketing solutions will take care of everything else according to your commands. However, not all provider offers the same features and are transparent about their pricing. You’ll read more about this later in the article. For now, let’s explore the best use case of WiFi for Cafes.
How a Cafe Can Use WiFi To Grow
As mentioned, WiFi marketing platforms help businesses capitalize on their internet connection. The setup process for these solutions, most of the time, is intuitive and straightforward. However, it will depend on the provider. Let’s focus now on the best way to use WiFi marketing for a coffee shop.
The first way these solutions help is by letting businesses get more positive reviews. A WiFi marketing platform can prompt customers to leave a review after they use your cafe’s WiFi. Business owners can customize the prompt and when it gets to the customers. Therefore, upon logging out or after a certain duration, customers receive a message or email asking for reviews. As this is the moment people are the most receptive, you’ll get much more reviews.
More reviews can lead to a better online reputation, which is crucial for attracting new customers. Positive reviews also influence the results on search engines and apps like Google Maps. Moreover, WiFi platforms let owners manage their reputation on one single dashboard that integrates with the most popular review sites.
WiFi marketing can also lead to faster and bigger growth on social media. The platform can encourage users to follow your cafe’s social media pages in exchange for WiFi access. For instance, your captive portal can require logging in with a personal account and asking to follow your business page.
Besides specific marketing campaigns and strategies, WiFi marketing can help a business improve the overall experience. By collecting customer data, businesses will have much more information to make effective decisions that improve the customer experience. Additionally, this data can improve the results of marketing campaigns, whether organic or paid advertising.
How To Get Your Venue To Appear in “WiFi Cafe Near Me” Searches
When people search for a ‘WiFi cafe near me’, there are no shortcuts to appear. The secret to popping up as the first results on search engines is leveraging local SEO. This term refers to the actions a local business can implement to appear on Google Maps and for local searches.
In order for your business to appear for similar queries, you have to:
- Claiming your Google MyBusiness page and optimizing it with descriptions, pictures, and useful information.
- Optimize your website (if you have one). Otherwise, create your social media pages and use your venue address for them.
- Getting reviews consistently. When it comes to local business, Google reviews and SEO go together. Therefore, learn how to get more Google reviews, and your business will show up for these queries frequently.
- Answer to reviews, even when they are negative.
- Having other companies and local magazines talk about your venue.
- Manage your reputation on other local review sites such as Tripadvisor or Facebook.
The key to showing up for local queries is to keep your Google Maps listing updated and curate your overall reputation. And guess what? WiFi marketing solutions streamline the most important aspects.
Picking a WiFi Marketing Provider for Your WiFi Cafe
Out there, there are hundreds of WiFi marketing providers. However, some companies offer hundreds of features that small and medium businesses do not need. On the other hand, some provider has hidden fees, and the pricing change depending on your size. In other words, your software won’t scale with you.
Most WiFi cafes need basic and effective features to be effective:
- Captive portal customization
- Automation of marketing campaigns
- Email and SMS marketing
- Prompt automation for getting reviews
- WiFi security management
- Password rotations and bandwidth management
If these features sound interesting to you and you want an established and effective solution, try out Beambox. It has no hidden fees and requires no additional hardware. Over 12,000 venues are using Beambox to grow their business. Do you want to be next? Start your free trial today!
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