Have you purchased an email or other marketing distribution list that did not produce new customers? Have you paid someone to design, print and distribute a mailer that didn't increase sales? If so, you know just how precious marketing dollars are. And, you don't want to make the same mistake again.
Knowing how and where to spend a marketing budget to maximize results is the key to any marketer's success. The same is true for managers who need to assess how to allocate their "resources" - i.e., their employees. And when combined, knowing how to best coordinate your operations to take advantage of your marketing efforts, and vice-versa, is an art many businesses are still trying to perfect.
Have you ever paid staff overtime because you didn't schedule enough people to cover a surge in foot traffic during particular hours or days? Or perhaps your service levels tanked due to staff shortages during unexpected peaks. Worst case, these errors resulted in negative social media reviews.
It is frustrating when you've trained your staff well and, although they are capable and ready to serve, your reviews don't reflect those efforts due to a simple staffing error. If you only knew when to expect peaks and valleys in customer arrivals, the reviews would better represent your efforts in delivering great service.
Or, maybe that seemingly fantastic promotional event--which was sure to generate profits far exceeding its costs--fell flat. Perhaps it was a great idea but the day or time was wrong for your customers. Maybe it required visitors to remain in your shop or restaurant longer than they had time to stay. Or, maybe it targeted the wrong customer altogether. Understanding your customer better with customer analytics might have saved you money and reaped the rewards you were seeking.
In the past, brick and mortar retail stores and restaurants were at a disadvantage to their online counterparts because of the latter's access to consumer data. Website analytics for online retailers provide volumes of information to the retailers about customer spending patterns, loyalty, interests, decision-making criteria, comparisons made before purchasing, age, gender, and zip codes, among others. With the development and growth of Wi-Fi Analytics, physical establishments can now have the same advantages.
As management consultant Peter Drucker poignantly noted, "what is measured is managed." Wi-Fi Analytics provide inexpensive, non-intrusive, real-time, on-going assessments of who your brick and mortar customers are, how they behave, and what they want. The more you know about them, the more targeted your promotions and other marketing efforts are, and the more your bottom line increases.
No longer will your store manager have to analyze sales receipts to estimate and project busy periods. With a Wi-Fi Analytics Platform in place, whether customers log-in or not, you will know how many visited, what time of day, and what day(s) of the week. Wi-Fi Analytics empower your store manager with constant information about peak and slow times so that staffing efforts will match demand and service levels will reflect the desired impact.
Website analytics for online retail businesses capture what items consumers compare before purchasing, what reviews they read, and how long it takes from the first time they looked at an item to the time of purchase. Now, brick and mortar stores have the same opportunity. Knowing the amount of time customers spend in different parts of the store can help store managers make smart merchandising choices.
Information about the amount of time your customers stay in your establishment is valuable, as well. In a coffee shop, for example, you may find that between certain hours of the day, visitors stay several hours without making another purchase after their initial cup of coffee. For these visitors, a 2nd coffee discount promotion might be all it takes to nearly double their spend each visit.
Wi-Fi Analytics allow you to segment your customers as first-time visitors or repeat customers. While keeping loyal customers happy is crucial to success, generating new customers is just as important. You will get a better understanding of what promotions, signage, and offers attract new customers. You will be able to target your messages to thank them for visiting, ask for their feedback, and invite them to return soon. With the data available, you can move them quickly and easily into repeat customers.
With Wi-Fi Analytics, you can also capture many valuable nuggets about your repeat customers. How long has it been since their last visit? What is their average spend in your store? knowing those data points allows you to identify how you can impact that spend or frequency of visitation with targeted messaging.
And, by understanding traffic flows better, you can now guide your marketing team as they roll out new promotions for customer loyalty, to ensure you have adequate staff in place.
Demographic information layered over repeat visitation and spending patterns can help in determining your best target market for new customers. From an Wi-Fi Analytics platform, you will learn valuable information about age ranges and proportions of male and female visitors of your establishment. Based on the social media networks and online communities they engage in, you will learn about their interests. Knowing who they are allows for effective and efficient target marketing campaigns for various groups of customers.
You probably know a great deal about your customers already, particularly if you spend a lot of time in your restaurant or shop. No matter how intuitive you or your store managers are, Wi-Fi Analytics raise the bar. Your new and improved targeted marketing efforts, promotions designed for your specific customers and excellent resource planning will drastically impact the profits of your store.
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