A SHOPPING centre in Huddersfield has introduced a free WiFi service for its customers.
Purple WiFi has rolled out its social WiFi service at the Kingsgate Centre to help businesses build brand awareness and attract new customers to their premises.
The service is designed to enable anyone using the internet in a social space such as a bar, café, shopping mall or restaurant to “like” the relevant Facebook page or “tweet” about their location.
This means that any business can receive constant promotional access to their customers’ friends and followers.
The development team at So Purple works with clients such as Kingsgate to design a targeted login page that can be used to promote offers, communicate news and generally engage with shoppers. Total user control enables the business to amend its messaging at any time.
The business is also given access to a secure customer portal with tools at their disposal to view their customers’ WiFi usage behaviour in addition to the number of new Facebook fans and Twitter followers with whom the business has achieved “social exposure”.
Updates can be carefully targeted to attract new footfall according to the age, gender and WiFi patterns of the users – and to reward existing loyalty.
Kingsgate centre manager Jonathan Hardy said: “We wanted to provide our customers with easy access to the internet while allowing us to promote real time offers in the centre. This way both our shoppers and our retailers benefit.”
Richard Stangroom, sales director at So Purple, said: “Everyone expects WiFi wherever they go, but the business sharing the internet connection doesn’t gain anything in return and can end up with a slower, less secure internet connection for their own business needs. Purple WiFi allows them to gain an understanding of their consumer demographics while building brand awareness through social networking.”
