• Restaurant Marketing

How to Get Your Customer Wi-Fi to Pay For Itself

by: Robin Johnston
3 min read

You want to integrate Wi-Fi into your restaurant. You know businesses that don’t offer free Internet often lose customers to competitors. Actually, one survey showed 70% of customers felt Wi-Fi made their restaurant experience better. You’re concerned about the cost, because the Internet will be free for your customers but not for you. As a smart business person, however, you should know it is actually possible to get your customer Wi-Fi to pay for itself. That may not make sense to you at first, but here are some of the ways it can be done to retain loyal customers and keep new customers coming back–both of which will result in more money, which can pay for the free Internet you will provide. 

Analytics Can Help Your Business Grow if You Have Wi-Fi 

You may or may not realize this, but you can use sensors, gather data and analyze your customers, even if they don’t log in to your Wi-Fi.  

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It will actually be possible to tell if a customer is in your restaurant for the first time, or is a repeat customer. Wi-f- can help you determine how often a customer will be likely to visit and even what his lifetime value may be for your business. 

Restaurants use Wi-Fi to drive sales and visits by rewarding, identifying, and retaining their top customers. It’s possible to send targeted promotions and messages, to enable a restaurant to strengthen customer loyalty, engage with those who patronize their business, and increase the chance of return visits. 

Use Your Landing Page to Promote Your Business

On your landing page, which automatically creates a customer profile, do the following things to promote your business, retain long-time customers, and bring first time visitors back. 

  • Promote your security, by having an increased form of security for visitor accounts and password logins, and consider blacklisting sites known to be dangerous to young children, if you cater to young parents. 
  • Highlight any special events your business is having, as well as your daily specials. Place the name of a special or well-known menu item with your business name, so customers will remember it longer. You might increase profits even more by adding beautiful, big color pictures. 
  • Provide access to your website or custom  mobile app with a link on your landing page. Add links or buttons that say, “Check Out Our Website,” or “Download our app.”
  • Provide a chance to order from your menu online. 

Offer Special Rewards 

Any rewards program doesn’t have to be complicated. It could include such things as giving rewards points, an early notification on special offers, and birthday gifts if customers download your mobile app. All of these will make your customers want to keep coming back. You could follow the example of the Chili’s restaurant chain, which offering points that provide the reward of a new menu item. Plus, customers can do this at their table with the kiosk provided. 

Use customer data To Build Your Business

This can be done a couple of ways. If a customer logins in with a social media account, you will have his or her name, email address and more. You could also get this information by requiring an email address or phone number to use your free Wi-Fi.  You can then send customers email newsletters, coupons, information about specials, and special events. 

Measure Customer Behavior  

The data you gather from customers will help you make smart business decisions. For example, what times of the day do you have the most customers? What days are the most profitable? Knowing this will help you decide when to use marketing opportunities to gain the most customer attention.  

Use Social Media For Your Benefit

If customers engage with your business by using your Facebook page or other social media online pages, you are getting the benefit of free marketing. Use your online presence to present your daily special, popular menu item, or event. Offer a free dessert or beverage for using your page. These kinds of promotions provide free marketing, gather customer data, increase customer satisfaction and profits, and engage the customer. 

These are only a few of the many ways Wi-Fi can increase your business and profits, and literally pay for this free service. 

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Restaurant Marketing FAQs

What is Restaurant Marketing?

Restaurant marketing is the process of getting people to visit your restaurants. Restaurant marketing creates loyalty, provides data to research, analytics, and allows restaurants to gain a better understanding of their ideal customer profile. It utilizes all customer channels: guest WiFi, website, social, rating sites, mobile apps, email, text, and advertising.

Learn More About Restaurant Marketing Here

What is WiFi Marketing?

WiFi marketing is a marketing technique that uses guest WiFi to collect & clean customer data such as names, emails, phone numbers, customer behavior, and demographics. This data is used to personalize marketing campaigns to increase customer loyalty, build online reviews, and save at-risk customers. The performance of every campaign can be tracked down to the tangible ROI of a customer walking back in your door.

Learn More About WiFi Marketing Here

What is Restaurant Reputation Management?

Restaurant reputation management is the process for restaurants to manage customer feedback and creating systems to improve customer experiences, passively build positive online reviews, and save at-risk customers. It is a very important aspect of running a successful restaurant business.

Learn More About Restaurant Reputation Management Here

How Does Bloom Identify and Bring Back Lost Customers?

Bloom Intelligence uses machine learning to identify at-risk customers. When one is recognized, the system will send them a message with an incentive to get them to return and re-establish their visit pattern. Bloom users are seeing up to 37% of churning customers return.

Learn More About Saving At-Risk Customers Here

SAVE TIME, INCREASE CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUES, CREATE NEW CUSTOMERS

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“Bloom Intelligence really is a step ahead in terms of marketing software and metrics. Their product is reliable, fast and innovative and has helped the company I work for really grow.”

John Marchetti

“Working with Bloom Intelligence has been amazing. They assist you every step of the way and work with you hand in hand to make sure you are optimizing your advertising potential. We are excited to use this tool to help learn more about our customers so that we can personally engage with them and understand our strengths/weaknesses.”

Ariel Ramirez

“In these challenging times, it has been a pleasure working with Bloom Intelligence to help facilitate our service offering to our clients. They were extremely responsive and provided support to mitigate risk and minimize revenue loss. Great partner!”

Stefan Kim

“We’re extremely pleased with the wealth of customer data that we’re able to gather, at a very attractive price.  In addition, we’re able to communicate our new product promotions by using  the landing page as a digital billboard.  A “no-brainer” for anyone working with limited Marketing $$.”

Bob Cross, Vice President of Operations

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