One of the most intriguing aspects of engaging with a company like BSN for your event attendee WiFi services is the potential to defer a big chunk, if not all, of your attendee WiFi expense.
Because providing attendee WiFi is well within your live event budget, it’s also definitely actionable, achievable — and best of all — affordable. Here’s how.
EXPLORE SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
One of the primary ways to defray, or even eliminate, the costs of attendee WiFi is to fully explore engaging with sponsors who will help you monetize your attendee WiFi.
Attracting sponsors is easy when you provide them a clear picture of what’s in it for them via attendee WiFi hot spots. Through targeted splash pages, engaging video and more, this offers them tremendous potential to reach just the right audience. What’s being offered at a particular hot spot — whether it’s beer or merchandise connected to a specific lifestyle brand — the opportunities are virtually limitless.
In fact, there are a number of ways sponsors can advertise to attendees before they even gain WiFi access at your event. This will, in turn, allow you to collect data from them and even monetize the data you gather.
Data analytics is becoming increasingly important to live events because understanding who your customers are is a huge part of generating future sales. And attendee WiFi provides an opportunity to capture data that you might otherwise never get.
For example, you can sell a sponsor on a branded opportunity via physical signage that every person will see before they access your local WiFi. When an attendee chooses your event-named WiFi network that appears on their phone, they’ll first see a splash page featuring an ad, video, special offer or coupon before they gain online access.
SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
Additionally, attendees could be prompted to get online using their social media login, which connects via their Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn social media accounts. Then, the information that they’ve made available publicly on their social media profile becomes accessible and usable by the sponsor. Event sponsors can utilize promotional opportunities on social media to increase the likelihood of page follows and likes to target attendees. Sponsors can use social media logins to market to customers during, and even after the event, which can increase current and future sales.
PAY FOR ACCESS
Another way to monetize your attendee WiFi is for event owners to charge for access based on various tiers or levels. For instance, a half-hour of access might cost one dollar versus a full day of access which costs $10, or similarly can charge for speed and data packages.
CAPTURE ATTENDEE DEMOGRAPHICS AND MORE
Selling advertising space, sending attendees SMS text messages or emails and engaging with attendees on social media enables you to capture a lot of valuable information. This can include attendee demographics as well as insights about what attendees like or don’t like. All combined, that will provide an even higher level of value to your attendee WiFi investment.
At BSN, we’ve been providing attendee WiFi for several years now. While previously an expensive undertaking to deploy for our clients, we’ve invested heavily in the equipment and technology that now make attendee WiFi much more affordable. Based on the potential impact of additional revenue generating activities mentioned here, the costs associated with attendee WiFi that might have taken our clients years to recoup will now only take a few months.
Read More: How to Ensure Your Event Internet and WiFi Services are Trouble Free.
SECURITY ADVANTAGES, TOO
Attendee WiFi connected to location positioning can offer both additional financial as well as security benefits for your live event.
It’s important to know how and when people are moving throughout your event space. When an attendee is walking by a beer merchant, they could receive a timely notice offering a half-off coupon for a specific brand of beer.
And being able to track devices throughout your event space, especially when attendees log in to WiFi using social media, can benefit your event security team. Potential threats can be analyzed and tracked through location-based services on WiFi-connected devices which could give critical details to mitigate risks before they occur or escalate. Additionally, risks identified via a social media post on Facebook, for example, or an image taken of an attendee who may have verbally threatened another attendee, can be mitigated with a fast response from your event security team.
In 2019 and beyond, the demand for WiFi access at live events will only continue to grow. In fact, post-live event polling continues to place attendee WiFi as the number one request among attendees.
By successfully providing what’s becoming high-demand attendee WiFi at your next event, you won’t have to listen to complaints afterward from disgruntled attendees with comments like, “our smartphones didn’t work properly” or “yeah, we really could have used WiFi at that event.”
DON’T LET ATTENDEE WIFI INTIMIDATE YOU!
There’s no need to shy away from providing attendee WiFi at your live event. A host of sponsorship opportunities, the potential for gathering great data analytics and the right technology platform all add up to a sound investment decision.
