The new challenges of retailers to engage customers in-store

A recent report written by 99 firms regarding the Mobile Marketing statistics for 2020 showed that nearly 80% of smartphone users rely on SMS opt-in to make a purchasing decision while shopping. While 68% of retailers have chosen to adopt a new marketing strategy based on the latest mobile trends, there are still almost 30% of them who are falling behind.

Now with all the safety measures implemented in stores, retailers have to deal with new challenges to keep interacting with their customers.

How can those retailers enhance their current marketing strategy by introducing a new way to collect opt-ins from their visitors and therefore engage them in-store?

The new measures undertaken by retailers

Last month, Retail Dive published an article revealing the new challenges that retailers have to face after establishing safety measures in their stores including social distancing, putting a mask but also avoid touching the articles as much as possible.

Today, it is essential for a store to offer a unique experience to its customers in order to attract them more and to make them come more often, especially to cope with the emergence of e-commerce. However with these new safety measures, retailers find it challenging to keep providing experiences while allowing few interactions.

That is why some experts suggested new methods to adopt such as “bridging the gap between physical and virtual experiences”.

Why in-store opt-in collection is key for your marketing strategy?

After the lockdown, your customer decided to pay a visit and go back to your store to do some shopping while respecting the safety measures implemented. Your client may have waited in line to enter the store to respect the limited number of people inside.

Obviously, your visitor could have just stayed home and made that purchase while sitting on his couch. However, he preferred to come to your store and enjoy his purchasing experience there like he used to do before the pandemic. Don’t you feel privileged? Well your customer deserves more then… That’s part of the phygital world. A world where your customer enjoys a seamless experience both online and in-store and where he receives personalised offers based on his interaction with your brand and his previous purchasing journeys.

Indeed that is something you can provide to your customer through the guest WiFi. Let me explain: when your customer signs-up to access your WiFi network he will find a checkbox which invites him to receive personalised offers and newsletters from your brand simply by providing his e-mail address or any other useful information.

Through this operation, you as a brand will be able to keep in touch with your customer wherever he is and get to know more about his interests and increase your CRM database. Also, what’s better than the user’s phone to interact while maintaining safety measures?

What are the best practices for a successful opt-in collection?

1. Promote the access to guest WiFi
   ‍When your customers authenticate, they will already be able to choose to receive promotional offers which will be displayed on the landing page through personalised and exclusive deals that they can enjoy.
2. Comply with all the local and global regulations
   ‍The customer is free to accept or deny receiving promotional offers. However, according to the country and the regulation in force, there is a possibility to pre-tick the checkbox which will provide a better conversion rate.
3. Give the possibility to the user to opt-in and opt-out
   ‍In line with the previous point, the user should be able to unsubscribe, edit or delete his personal data freely.

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Cloudi-Fi helps  leading retailers in Europe, US and Asia to improve in-store shopping experience by improving authentication, connectivity and Wi-Fi onboarding experience. You can learn more about Cloudi-Fi cloud based captive portal solutions for retailers from our Captive Portal use case page.

Système U a large French supermarket has accepted to share about their experience to launch our cloud based authentication solution to improve Wi-Fi connectivity and use experience in their shops in France and Europe improving engagement with their new loyalty program. Making wifi onboarding easy for the Système U customers improved in-store visitors engagement with their newly launched loyalty program improving both customer experience, brand engagement while simplifying network administration for the network management and cyber security teams.