Category: WiFi Technology

Register your 1:1 with Purple at HITEC Amsterdam 2018

Are you attending this years HITEC event in Amsterdam? If so, make sure you book in some time to visit stand 176. Purple will be on hand over the course of the three day conference to talk you through how you can increase customer retention by 24%.

Intrigued? You should be. Here’s a brief overview.

It starts with customer data.

Efforts to engage with customers and make the most of revenue opportunities fall flat when you can’t identify who is in your venue. So, taking a proactive approach to identifying your customers is crucial. Why? Because if you know who your customers are and what they want, you can then engage with them on a more personalized level and drive retention.

How do we do it?

Through the installation of WiFi analytics, you can provide a high-speed and secure wireless connection for guests whilst also collecting valuable data and demographic insight.

Unlike many digital forms of data capture, WiFi analytics enables you to paint a full picture of your guests; from key demographic data such as name, DOB and gender, to contact information, social interests, footfall, dwell and frequency of visits.

Couple this data with a centralized reporting dashboard and cutting edge integrated marketing tools, and you can begin to understand and engage with your guests like never before.

Key features

Social login – connecting to the WiFi is simple and flexible, using either social media authentication or a short registration form that is fully customizable, enabling you to collect the guest data you need
API access – quickly and easily integrate the data collected with your internal CRM system
Webhooks – there’s no need to poll for data every few minutes to find out if new information has hit your system, with Webhooks enabled you can get new data in real-time, enabling you to engage with guests in the right place and the right time
Logic Flow – set-up complex, and multi-staged marketing campaigns in minutes. Trigger an action such as an email, SMS, webhook, website redirect or splash page and personalize this engagement based on specific guest demographics and behaviors
Reviews – increase the number of reviews for your hotel with our TripAdvisor connector that allows you to send ‘leave a review’ reminders to guests when they leave your venue
Multilingual – customize your splash screens and landing pages and promote offers in different languages to ensure an exceptional experience worldwide. Purple is available in 24 languages

Contact details

HITEC Amsterdam will be held at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre on April 11–13, 2018. You can visit the Purple team at stand 176 or if you would like to book a meeting, please use the contact information below.

James Radcliffe, Enterprise Sales Manager – james.radcliffe@purplewifi.com or view calendar.

James Dale, Regional Sales Manager, EMEA – james.dale@purplewifi.com or view calendar.

About Purple

Purple is a cloud-based platform that focuses on turning WiFi networks into revenue generation tools for businesses through social media integration, intuitive analytics and profile-based remarketing.

With over 50 million users worldwide across 34,000 venues, Purple works with a number of leading hotel brands, including the W Hotels, Mercure, Hyatt, Choice Hotels Europe, and Radisson.

27th March 2018

Purple appoints new Director of Sales – US and Canada

Global WiFi analytics provider, Purple, has named Amy Horowitz as their new Director of Sales – US and Canada.

The appointment comes shortly after Purple announced a whirlwind 2017. During this time the company demonstrated a 367.2% increase in revenue compared to the previous year in America alone.

Horowitz has more than 15 years leadership experience in the technology sector, and a history of leading high-performing sales teams in the software space, that drive market and profit growth.

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO at Purple commented: “Amy brings a wealth of knowledge and experience that will be essential in building on and accelerating the growth of our business in the US and Canada. We have a number of exciting developments planned and Amy will play a crucial role in supporting the execution of these plans, and ensuring the Purple message is heard on a global scale.”

Wheeldon continues: “The US is our largest market. Investing further in our presence is a logical decision that will really help drive the business forward. We’re excited to have Amy on board to steer our sales strategy.”

“WiFi analytics is an emerging market, one that I am very interested in. With Purple, companies can begin to gather key demographic data on their customers and understand how they interact within their venue. This kind of data is invaluable and allows our customers to analyze and respond to customer behavior, which in turn helps with overall customer retention,” explained Horowitz.

“I’m excited to help the company build on its prior success across North America, to grow and remain a definitive leader in the market”.

Horowitz will operate out of the company’s new office in Austin, Texas, creating and implementing high growth strategies and cultivating key client and channel partner relationships.

Purple made the move earlier this year to TechSpace, a vibrant and creative shared office space, enabling the company to execute plans to build on the existing team.

In addition to the appointment of a new Director of Sales, Purple have also hired two Partner Success Managers, Shelly Parker and Katie Elston, and are currently recruiting an Enterprise Sales Manager and two Account Managers.

America is Purple’s largest market and having already collaborated with a number of businesses across the region including Miami Heat, Legoland, LifeWay and Michael Kors, the number of US customers is expected to soar in 2018.

The Purple platform now has 50 million users worldwide across 34,000 venues, and with offices in the UK (headquarters), US, Chile, Spain, Singapore and Australia, Purple’s growth shows no sign of slowing.

23rd March 2018

How our end users have absolute control over their data

End users of WiFi should have control over the data they are willing to share with companies. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into full force on 25th May this year, the biggest revision to data privacy and security in 20 years by the European Union parliament, but there is no reason end users around the world shouldn’t also benefit from more transparent terms of use.

We were proud to unveil our new Profile Portal in July 2017, as the first WiFi provider to give end users complete transparency of the data collected about them. GDPR outlines that individuals have a “right of access” to the information a company holds on them, and if requested the firm must supply the individual with their data within one month.

At Purple we’ve gone one step further by providing users with ongoing access to all personal data captured after signing up for WiFi, as well as providing the functionality to update their marketing preferences and export data, via our Profile Portal. This was not a mandatory part of the EU’s GDPR legislation, it’s a differentiating level of transparency we wanted to achieve for our end users around the world, as well as the users affected in the EU.

Individuals logging into WiFi at a Purple venue have ‘unambiguous consent’. This means they are fully aware of the terms they are agreeing to. When a guest WiFi user ticks the consent box on the WiFi splash page, they will be presented with a “Terms Overview” screen explaining exactly how their data will be used.

Our Privacy Policy within the login journey has also been reduced from 1600 to just 260 words, which means no more tedious legal jargon, just simplistic language that clearly outlines what we collect, why we collect it and what we do with the data.

At Purple, we know all too well how end users fail to read terms and conditions when signing up to guest WiFi. In July last year, we carried out an experience by adding a spoof term to our terms and conditions of logging into WiFi. Shockingly, 22,000 people agreed to 1,000 hours of community service to clean festivals toilets, paint snail shells and scrub gum off the sidewalk, just for free WiFi access. This two-week experiment proved why it was necessary to improve transparency for our global network of Purple WiFi end users, while meeting GDPR compliance.

More details about the Purple Profile Portal

The Profile Portal aggregates all of the information collected on the user when accessing WiFi at any Purple supported venue and is split into 3 main areas:

My Personal Information

This area allows the user to view all of the personal information that has been collected about them, which can include their first name, surname, email, date of birth and gender.

My Activity

Users can access a breakdown of their activities, including the venues they’ve visited, marketing communications received, surveys completed, devices used to login to the WiFi and the method used to connect to the network.

My communication settings

We’ve given users the ability to view their marketing preferences and choose which companies are permitted to send them future marketing communications in this area of the Profile Portal.

The Profile Portal eradicates the big brother element of data capture and instead opens the doors and invites users to find out exactly what data is collected, how it will be used, and by whom. We have received overwhelming feedback from our partners and customers on how beneficial the early changes have been as the GDPR deadline looms (it’s only two months away!) and are proud to be leading the way in transparent WiFi data collection.

Purple takes home the Judges’ Award for International Success at Northern Tech Awards

Purple, global WiFi analytics providers, were last night presented with the Judges’ Award for International Success at the Northern Tech Awards, hosted by GP Bullhound.

The awards, held at The Hub in Edinburgh, recognized key players in the region’s digital sector and celebrated the fastest growing and most promising technology companies in the North.

Purple took their place at the top amongst a number of other leading innovators including Touch Networks, Sykes, MusicMagpie and Peak AI.

Purple has been well established in the UK for over 5 years, however, in recent years they have seen significant global year-on-year growth, largely down to the success of their US and APAC regions.

Just this month, Purple expanded their operations in the US, appointing a new Director of Sales to drive further growth across the US and Canada. The appointment came shortly after Purple announced a whirlwind 2017; during this time the company demonstrated a 367.2% increase in revenue compared to the previous year in America alone.

Purple CEO, Gavin Wheeldon said: “It’s an absolute honor to take home the Judges’ Award for International Success. We have worked hard to raise our global profile over the last couple of years and this award is testament to those efforts. We’ve got a big year ahead, and we are working on a number of exciting new developments that will help take our solution to the next level.”

22nd March 2018

All access WiFi lands at Miami HEAT’s AmericanAirlines Arena

As part of the Miami HEAT’s commitment to make the AmericanAirlines Arena the premier sports and entertainment venue in South Florida, a wide-spread and secure guest WiFi network has been introduced to enhance the customer experience.

In July 2017, Purple was expertly installed across over 350 access points throughout the AmericanAirlines Arena to help the HEAT elevate the fan experience and encourage return visits.

Matthew Jafarian, Vice President of Digital Strategy and Innovation for the Miami HEAT, said: “Fans want to see video replays and real time statistics, and they want to be able to share their experiences instantly with friends and family. We needed to introduce a WiFi network that could meet those expectations.”

Following a directive to make the Arena’s network “the best WiFi out there”, in early 2017, the Miami HEAT went through an RFP process that looked at WiFi gear providers. Jafarian said: “Purple has provided a platform that has helped us achieve our goal of elevating the fan experience. Not only do fans have easy access to the WiFi throughout the Arena, but with the customer data we are collecting, we are able to personalize our interaction with new and returning guests and send automatic updates and information based on specific demographic criteria.”

Jafarian continued: “Online ticket sales mean that we don’t have the ability to collect as much data as we’d like on our visitors. Whether that’s through one fan buying multiple tickets, or fans purchasing tickets through third party websites; not to mention ticket resales. We miss out on a lot of data. Through the installation of WiFi analytics, we have been able to start bridging that gap.”

Since the installation in July, the Miami HEAT has seen over 230,000 people connect to the WiFi, with an average of over 28,000 visitors connecting each month. The HEAT has also reported that on average, around 20% of attendees are connecting to the WiFi during an event, whether that’s for an NBA game, concert or other activity. These numbers have “far exceeded our expectations”, said Jafarian.

From the data collected, the Miami HEAT has been able to confirm that 90% of people who come to the Arena are singular visitors. The HEAT are using the data collected on these individuals to try and maximize spend through custom splash pages; offering discounts on various food and beverages and merchandise from The Miami HEAT Store.

Jafarian concludes: “The guest experience has been and remains our primary focus and we feel like we have found an organization with similar values in Purple. Their team has been responsive and collaborative and we look forward to continue working with them.”

Gavin Wheeldon, Purple CEO said: “People have come to expect personalized content and experiences, so it is crucial that venues are able to identify and engage with their fans. The amount of data that is being collected is really impressive and I’m excited to see the impact this will have on driving retention and revenue for the Miami HEAT.”

Click here to read the full case study.

21st March 2018

Transforming the fan experience: What if Amazon FC was real?

Increasing the number of times a fan visits your venue has a direct and measurable impact on revenue; as does extending the duration of their visit. To do this, stadiums need to have a clear understanding of who each of their visitors are and how they behave when they are in the venue. However, with multiple ticket purchases and the increasing influence of the resale market, most stadiums don’t have the data they need to directly influence the fan experience and behavior that truly matters.

Companies such as Amazon, Alibaba and Google, are beginning to shift from an online-only business into the realm of brick and mortar stores, bringing their data capture methods with them into these physical spaces. If ignored, this merging of business intelligence represents a genuine threat to organisations.

Efforts to engage with billion-dollar stadium audiences, maximizing revenue opportunities, fall flat when stadia can’t identify who is at their events. More than half of visitors are anonymous, either because they are among a large group where only a single purchaser’s details are held, or because they have bought a ticket through a reseller. This makes it impossible for venues to build a relationship with them, or market to them intuitively.

Amazon FC

What if Amazon had a team? They would play their home games at the Prime Arena and treat the stadium like a website. Amazon FC’s marketing, CRM and ticket reps, will know who every single person is who enters their stadium. They know whether it is their first visit, or their 51st visit at the stadium.

They would know where ticket holders go in the stadium, what routes they take, what they spend their money on, and how much they spend per second in the stadium. They would then use that information to optimize their fan experience so fans are able to spend money more quickly, as well as make recommendations on other things they might like, such as merchandise, refreshments, or upcoming A-list concerts.

Content to engage and excite

On top of all this, they are merging the offline into the online. Amazon FC’s brand managers would share content that enriches the fan experience within the stadium – whether that’s interviews with the players, in-game stats and replays, or access to online gaming. As they collect all of this rich intelligence, ticket reps would be able to utilize the insights when fans aren’t in the stadium to encourage their return and interact with the club before, during, and after their visits.

Driving behavior that matters

Amazon FC will have merged the offline into the online world of data to offer a personalized fan experience that encourages them to arrive at the stadium earlier, stay longer, and return again in future.

Stadiums and entertainment venues wanting to get people returning to the website to purchase tickets would look at data on core demographics, website traffic, dwell times, frequency of visits and social media channels. So why wouldn’t you look to your physical space for the same information on who is in your venue in real-time to build a campaign that was personalized using the information you had about them?

Click through to our Customer Algorithm guide to find out how you can combine online and offline data to design new, fan-focused models with full consideration of a personalized end-to-end fan experience.

20th March 2018

Introducing the Customer Algorithm: Bringing your digital and physical analytics together

The digital economy is facilitating a new era of engaging with customers. And so, businesses are always looking for new and innovative concepts to improve the customer experience.

We wrote a piece earlier this month around ‘new retail’; a strategy first introduced in 2016 by Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma. We have taken this concept and the principles it carriers, and extended it far beyond the retail sector into hospitality, entertainment, transport, healthcare and more. We’re calling it the Customer Algorithm, and it applies to all businesses that have a physical venue.

The Customer Algorithm is a concept that aims to combine data from both the online and offline worlds, and leveraging this data to enhance a customers experience through personalization.

Your customers have their own ‘digital algorithms’ – design for them

Personalizing a customers experience can have a significant impact on retention and revenue. However, efforts to engage with customers and make the most of revenue opportunities fall flat when you can’t identify who is in your venue – more than half of customers can be anonymous entities.

Customer segmentation is key to anticipating customers needs, and a proactive approach to removing customer anonymity and identifying their needs and behavior is critical.

You must place customers’ at the center of your operations, with full consideration of the end-to-end customer experience, from awareness right through to purchase and referrals.

You therefore need to commit to embedding data and smart technology into your operations, because in order to place customers at the center of your operations and understand their ‘digital algorithms’, you need to know exactly who they are and understand their buying requirements; both in the online and offline worlds.

The value of data capture

Understanding customers and how they engage with your brand means collecting data. Specifically data around demographics, interests, engagement, dwell and frequency of visits.

You can begin to gather this data through a number of different methods including, website analytics, social media, e-commerce etc. Although, notice that these methods of data capture focus on the digital world, and not the physical.

Remember that the customer algorithm concept is one that aims to combine data from both the online and offline worlds in order to achieve personalization. Offline makes up a huge proportion of your customer base and the importance of capturing this kind of data should not be underestimated. If you fail to do this, you risk being left behind.

Where online metrics aren’t available to paint a picture of customers’ demographics, likes or dislikes, transforming your venue itself, embedding data and smart technology into your operations, is the future of the customer experience.

Data capture methods in a physical space can include; point of sale, location analytics, and WiFi analytics, just to name a few. Using these methods, you can not only begin to understand who your customers are, but you can start to build an in-depth understanding of how they engage with your venue. This data is crucial in allowing you to design for their ‘digital algorithms’ and in enabling you to reach a proportion of your customer base that will be missed through deploying digital data capture alone.

Combining this data with your online efforts to enhance the customer experience through personalized engagement is key to implementing a successful Customer Algorithm strategy.

To help businesses understand the importance of marketing personalization and how it can impact revenue and customer retention, we have developed an in depth guide covering every aspect of personalization from understanding the Customer Algorithm, to achieving personalization through data capture, to creating a business case for marketing personalization.

Click here to open the report: How to amplify revenue through customer personalization

14th March 2018

PTC join Purple’s global partner network

Purple has formed a new technology partnership with PTC, specialists in enterprise data management solutions, to provide businesses with in-depth data and analytics around their customers and physical spaces.

Founded in 1991, PTC have been providing IT solutions and consultancy services for over 26 years with the aim of simplifying data management, data access and improving network performance for their customers.

PTC work with a number of high profile partners including, Netapp, Dell EMC, Cisco and VMware, and through partnering with Purple they hope to demonstrate how customers can monetize their WiFi infrastructure investment through the implementation of WiFi analytics and marketing.

Mr. SS Lim, Founder of PTC, said: “Everything is data driven. If you can harness data and utilize this data in a way that is beneficial to your customers, you will positively impact business outcome.”

Saurabh Madan, Enterprise Sales Manager at Purple said: “We are thrilled to have PTC join our partner ecosystem. PTC have a strong presence across Southeast Asia, in particular, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. This gives Purple a well-established partner to work with and provide us with strong region-wide coverage.”

To demonstrate to customers how they can monetize their WiFi infrastructure, PTC will be creating a ‘Purple Lab’ at their Singapore offices. Through installing a number of Meraki access points in their building with Purple’s cloud-based WiFi analytics solution enabled on top, any prospects interested in learning about the solution will be able to try it first hand by simply connecting to the WiFi. Prospects will experience custom splash pages, social login, and real-time email and SMS marketing features.

Mr. Madan continued: “We’ll be supporting PTC and the team with their Purple Lab setup in the next few weeks, and in the following weeks we will be looking to invite potential customers to their offices to experience the technology with live demonstrations.”

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple commented: “It’s a really innovative idea that will enable customers to ‘try before they buy’. We’re excited about our partnership with PTC and it will give us the platform we need to expand our operations across Southeast Asia.”

9th March 2018

Purple and Airship land a winning solution for Revolution Bars Group

Revolution Bars Group have commissioned CRM provider, Airship, and WiFi analytics provider, Purple, to deliver a new welcome journey for their first-time visitors to increase customer retention.

Purple and Airship have implemented a solution that enables Revolution Bars Group to collect key demographic data on their customers and drive engagement through a hyper-personalized experience.

Purple’s WiFi analytics solution has been installed over 231 access points across 68 of the groups 72 locations; enabling customers to access the WiFi in exchange for a few personal details by logging in with their social media accounts or a short customized form. Airship’s integration with Purple enables them to send the data, collected in real-time, to Airship’s CRM and segment the data to create specific customer profile groups.

Airship created a four-stage marketing communication strategy that included a series of targeted email broadcasts with incentives aimed at encouraging repeat visits and driving revenue.

Airship used a mixture of unique codes (with an offer to redeem in venue) and click for call back mechanics to generate warm leads that could be followed up by Revolution’s sales teams at individual site level.

Over the course of the initial campaign, which ran between 1st June – 31st August 2017, Purple collected data on 95,869 guests. This made up 64% of the total data collected and used for Airship’s campaign. Using a combination of incentives like 50% off food and a free round of shots when making a booking, Airship achieved an average click rate of 17.47%, 425 visit redemptions, and generated 440 warm leads. This amounts to a total of 4.5% redemptions from engaged customers.

Dan Brookman, Airship’s Commercial Director, said: “Revolution were thrilled with the results that we managed to achieve from this campaign, generating hundreds of warm leads for their sales teams to take up. Without our partnership with Purple, we wouldn’t have been able to acquire such valuable data. Purple’s WiFi data, combined with our CRM and email marketing expertise, has allowed us to deliver a campaign with a significant return on investment for our shared client Revolution Bars Group.”

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple, said: “It’s great to see that almost 100,000 people logged into the guest WiFi. Offline makes up a huge proportion of a business’ customer base, particularly in the hospitality industry, and the importance of capturing this kind of customer data should not be underestimated.”

Wheeldon continues: “Airship have executed an exceptional campaign, and with access to Purple’s real-time customer insights and behavior, it’s clear to see that they have been able to make a big impact.”

2nd March 2018

Big data and the part it’s playing in ‘new retail’

Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, used the term ‘new retail’ in 2016 to describe a future that would blend online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain. The strategy aims to establish the business as a consumption solution provider, leveraging big data to enhance consumers’ shopping experiences.

And we haven’t had to wait long to see these plans begin to unfold.

Alibaba recently announced that they have set out plans to open 30 Hema supermarkets in Beijing this year as the e-commerce giant continues to develop and expand its ‘new retail’ strategy. The expansion will bring Beijing’s total stores to 35; providing consumers with greater access to its merged online and offline shopping experience.

The concept, which is a joint collaboration between Alibaba affiliates Hema, Tmall, bike-sharing platform Ofo and mapping and navigation services provider Autonavi, aims to create communities that are empowered by convenient, online-offline services driven by Alibaba.

There’s more – with Alibaba’s examples from the Double 11 Shopping Festival and other test case examples in China, here’s what the future of retail looks like:

A connection to an online payment system is established to enter the store. In Alibaba’s case, Alipay must be scanned to enter their smart stores.
Price tags are electronic and prices vary in real time based on certain factors.
Facial recognition technology is used to track customers. Discounts are offered on items they smile at or that they have searched for online.
Items can be purchased for later delivery. Home delivery details don’t need to be given as the system already has the purchaser’s home address on record. Delivery in major cities in China is already very fast taking from 15 minutes to 3 hours.
Customers can receive location-based store recommendations and discount notifications through their Taobao or Tmall app on their mobile devices, driving traffic to offline stores.
Customers can “try on” apparel and makeup items virtually, with the help of RFID (radio-frequency identification) and AR (augmented reality) technology.
Customers can scan images using AR technology to visit product listing page and collect coupons.
Consumers can purchase items using vending machines by scanning a QR code and they can also have the products delivered home with a few clicks.
There are also innovative technologies like a “Cloud Shelf” that stores purchasing behaviour data, facial recognition information, mobile gamification, etc.

It’s not just Alibaba transforming the retail industry. Last year, Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion with a vision to revolutionize the customer experience through delivering faster, more convenient in-store shopping.

Full details are yet to be confirmed but features could include a faster, tech-based checkout process, using Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ technology that launched last year in Amazon’s pilot Amazon Go store. High-tech sensors throughout the store completely eliminate the checkout process; a pain point for many shoppers.

Amazon’s prowess of data means even more tracking of how customers shop – including offline, if Amazon deploys the Amazon Go high-tech sensor technology to Whole Food stores. Customers’ mobiles would enable monitoring of how they move around the store, as well as when they check-in and out. Just as with online shopping, Amazon could track what items a customer has looked at, for how long, and which ones they decided to put in their basket. That is valuable data, not just for re-targeting and linking to Amazon Prime membership and Whole Foods’ customer rewards data, but it could also give Amazon great leverage with grocery suppliers.

Just recently, Amazon announced a new cash-back scheme; enticing Prime members to shop at Whole Foods. Prime members using the company’s Rewards Visa card will get 5 percent back on Whole Foods purchases. It is worth noting that this is the first time Amazon has extended its 5 percent back perk to a retailer.

These leading brands are gaining an edge through using the emergence of ‘new retail’ as an opportunity to build new consumer-focused models while at the same time improving the efficiency of their business operations.

To stay in the game, businesses must put customers at the center of their operations, with full consideration of the end-to-end customer experience; from awareness through to purchase and referrals. Businesses need to commit to embedding data and smart technology into their operations, because in order to place customers in the center, they need to know exactly who their customers are and understand their buying requirements.

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple said: “The importance of capturing customer data in the physical world should not be underestimated; businesses that fail to do this will soon be left behind. Collecting key customer demographics and data around buying trends in a physical space enables businesses to personalize their marketing communications; engaging with consumers on a very relevant level. This type of engagement will be the difference between businesses that embrace these new technologies and businesses that don’t.”

22nd February 2018

Purple: Introducing our new MailChimp Connector

We are pleased to announce that our WiFi analytics solution is now fully integrated with MailChimp; the world’s largest email marketing automation platform. The integration will allow marketing teams to quickly and easily create new mailing lists and deliver personalized communications to customers, increasing customer satisfaction and revenue.

Through integrating with MailChimp, we are removing the need for teams to manually extract and input data across different systems, saving time and enhancing business efficiency. And with MailChimp’s automation feature, businesses can now stay in touch with their visitors every step of the way.

We’re always looking for new and innovative ways to meet the demands of the market, and in this case, the decision to provide integration with a leading mailing platform was a simple one. We want to create fluidity for our customers, making it as easy as possible for them to get the most out of the data they collect through Purple.

How will it work?

As visitors login to the WiFi, their data will automatically be pushed into a specific mailing list in MailChimp.
MailChimp will automatically pull through the visitors first name, last name and email address.
Any visitors that have not accepted the terms and conditions on login will be highlighted in the system as ‘unsubscribed’ – ensuring GDPR compliance.

What are the benefits?

Integration – businesses will benefit from a constant feed of new contacts as and when visitors authenticate onto the WiFi.
Automation – setting up automation enables businesses to stay connected with visitors throughout their journey.
Advanced reporting – businesses can quickly see who opens their emails, how often, and who engages with their content; enabling further personalization based on how visitors interact with the content.
Monitor trends – see which email addresses bounce (and why) and see which visitors unsubscribe (and why). Unsubscribes will automatically be removed from future lists ensuring they’re not accidentally contacted again.
Industry comparison – businesses can compare their campaigns against other MailChimp users in their industry; gauging the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns, relative to competitors.

Getting set up

It’s very quick and simple to get MailChimp set up. First, you’ll need a MailChimp account. If you don’t have one, they’re free to set up – head to: login.mailchimp.com/signup/. Free accounts will let you add up to 2,000 new subscribers per month and send out up to 12,000 emails – if you wish to add and/ or send more, upgrading options are available.

Once you’re up and running, head to the Purple Portal. Select Management from the left navigation panel, then select Connectors. Click Add on the MailChimp Connector.

Next, to set up the MailChimp Connector, you’ll need to complete three short sections.

Connector name – this can be anything you want.
API key – this can be found in MailChimp. Head to your Profile (top right), go to Extras, and click API keys. Here you can create your key. Once you have your key, copy and paste it into the Purple portal.
List id – again, this information can be found in MailChimp. Select Lists from the main navigation at the top of the screen, then create a list. Once you’ve created your list (and you’re in the list view), you’ll notice a small drop down arrow on the right hand side of your list, click this. From the drop down, click Settings, then Unique List ID. The list id can be found at the bottom of the page. Copy and paste this into the Purple Portal.

The MailChimp Connector can be configured at both company and venue level and is now live on the Purple Portal, ready for customers to use.

Not yet a Purple customer? No problem, sign up to a trial of our Enhanced Licence today to see how Purple and MailChimp can transform your marketing and customer engagement.

1st February 2018

MarketsandMarkets™ announce Purple as a key player in the managed WiFi market

In a recent report by MarketsandMarkets™, Purple have been named as a key player in the managed WiFi solutions market.

Other named players include Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, Vodafone, Verizon, Ruckus Wireless, Aruba, and Mojo Networks.

According to the report, ‘Managed Wi-Fi Solutions Market by Networking Service (Network Security, Network Planning and Designing, Network Consulting), Infrastructure Service (Survey and Analysis, Installation and Provisioning), Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to 2022’, the global managed WiFi solutions market is expected to grow from $3.07b in 2017 to a staggering $6.11b by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.8% during the forecast period.

The report, released last month, lists a number of factors driving the market. These include:

An increasing adoption of enterprise mobility services and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trends
A growing demand for high-speed and widespread network coverage
An increasing adoption of cloud managed WiFi solutions and associated services

Commenting on the findings, Purple CEO, Gavin Wheeldon said: “We are seeing a definite trend of our partners moving to a managed service model, where they can add value on a regular basis and generate recurring revenue. We expect this trend to continue as the demand for connectivity and wireless continues to grow.”

Shekhar Waje, Analyst from MarketsandMarkets™ says: “Managed WiFi solutions and associated services feature advanced wireless and centrally managed connectivity; lessening the burden of day-to-day WLAN maintenance operations on IT departments. These benefits alone are empowering enterprises to offer guest and private WiFi. It’s no surprise to see that by 2022, the market is predicted to double.”

For more information or to download the report, please visit: MarketsandMarkets™

MarketsandMarkets™ provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies’ revenues. Currently servicing 5000 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets™ for their pain points around revenues decisions.

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