The importance of wifi in marketing for consumer facing businesses
Monday, 21 November 2011 15:56
In the 18th Century it was the canals. In the 19th Century it was the railway network and in the 20th it was the construction of the road network.
The vital element in the UK's industrial infrastructure of the 21st Century has to be the provision of high quality, easily accessible, high speed broadband.
Increasingly, more and more people are coming to depend on the internet not only for their livelihoods but also their social life. Furthermore, mobile internet has exploded to the extent that by the end of 2013, more people will access the internet from mobile devices than PCs.
Instant access to sites like Twitter and Facebook are now accepted and, like it or not, people feel almost naked if they can't get online. However, 3G coverage in the UK is patchy at best, meaning many businesses find themselves in blackspots.
The solution, is to provide free wifi access to your customers. Whether you are a hotel or restaurant, farm shop or hairdressers, it is vitally important that you think about providing high quality wifi in your place of work.
Not only are you providing an extra, free service, but people can virtually 'check in' to your business, thus providing you with excellent free advertising on Facebook.
Even better for you, if they are happy with the service they have received, they will be able to write about it on Facebook and Twitter and even upload a video to YouTube - such is the nature of social media.
Take two country house hotels as examples. Both are in areas where there is little phone signal and certainly no 3G or even 2G network nearby. Both also deliver an extremely high quality of service to guests ranging from 18 to 80 year olds.
However, one has free wifi, making it easy for their guests to check in online and rave about how great their stay is. The other does not and will miss out on this on-the-spot bonhomie.
So, if you want to make a small investment in your marketing which could reap rewards for you in the long run, provide a decent wifi network for your customers.
