Summary
Llechwedd Slate Caverns is an attraction in Snowdonia, which has 175,000 visitors per year. Situated near the historic slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, it combines a Victorian mine tour; slate workshop; and slate mining exhibition with a gift shop; café; and play area. There are also mountain bike tracks and three adventure attractions. As well as appealing to tourists, the venue is an education resource for schools and community groups.
Until partnering with Purple WiFi, the attraction had no WiFi offering for its visitors. The motive behind the partnership is to provide this additional customer service, while developing a new marketing channel to encourage return visits and increased revenue.
Objectives
Llechwedd Slate Caverns’ broad aim through working with Purple WiFi is to gain better interaction with its visitors, encourage repeat visits, and radically improve sales.
To achieve this, the venue wants to access accurate analytics about visitors, which to date has not been available unless a customer booked online. It aims to build a profile of its customers, through insights about their age, gender, hometown, interests, and so on.
Another important goal is to capture higher numbers of email addresses to facilitate a more effective email marketing campaign. It also intends to stimulate growth of its social media following and increase engagement (likes, shares, comments, conversations).
With greater awareness of its visitors, and more opportunity to interact with them, Llechwedd Slate Caverns wants to prepare for the future, evolving to suit the people that visit.
Installation
Llechwedd Slate Caverns partnered with Purple WiFi to install standard enterprise BT Broadband, linked on Purple WiFi’s recommendation to two Openmesh Access Points (in the café and Emporium). Purple WiFi will eventually add additional WiFi access points across the site.
Initially, positioning the routers in sales areas was tactical – encouraging visitors to stay and use free high speed WiFi to access the Internet increases dwell time and stimulates spend.
Challenges
The main challenge for Purple WiFi was identifying an affordable Access Point with which to demonstrate benefits. After consultation with our support team, it was agreed that the Openmesh AP would be suitable both on cost and ease of deployment.
From the client’s point of view, the installation was a first for Llechwedd Slate Caverns. The client felt that they were not highly knowledgeable about WiFi, so Purple WiFi took the opportunity to guide them through the process and resolve any issues quickly. By working together, and communicating effectively, the installation ran smoothly.
Results
Purple WiFi has been fully operational at Llechwedd Slate Caverns since July 2015.
The installation has enabled the venue to obtain detailed customer information, which they can use to engage with their visitors. They are now able to create a customer relationship management (CRM) facility within the portal, to facilitate e-shots and updates via social media. Thus, creating a new digital experience for their visitors, encouraging return visits and increased sales.
From the venue’s perspective, providing free guest WiFi has increased customer satisfaction, a primary objective for Llechwedd Slate Caverns from the onset. It’s also had a positive impact on their social media communities too.
To date, there has been a 400% increase in Facebook page likes, from an average of 100 likes per month to 500. The average number of views for each Facebook post has increased by 200%, from 400 to over 1,200. There has also been a substantial increase in follower numbers on both Twitter and Instagram. Viral impressions, linked to posts, likes, sharing and comments, have now exceeded 65,000.
Since installation, Llechwedd Slate Caverns collected over 2000 visitor email addresses, which provides an excellent means for them to contact customers and build relationships.
Why Purple WiFi?
Llechwedd Slate Caverns searched the Internet for a bespoke, all-in-one WiFi package with an online portal that would enable it to easily see the information it collected.
Purple WiFi impressed with its distinctive brand image and professional, easy-to-use guides on installation. In the venue’s opinion, there was no other company that appeared to be as user-friendly and eye-catching as Purple WiFi.
On Purple WiFi’s website, the example of its work providing Camden Markets with a large-scale free WiFi hotspot caught the venue’s eye. It felt a similar installation could work for their business. They were confident that Purple WiFi could deliver all its objectives, as it offers a bespoke product that could be tailored to their individual needs.
Purple WiFi responded to the venue’s initial enquiry by discussing its objectives, offering a bespoke solution, and installing it on a trial basis.
In practise, Purple WiFi’s dashboard, which enables multiple users throughout the company to access reports with deep insights into visitors, has proved extremely valuable. The venue finds the user interface easy to manage and is struck by how it empowers both the business and the consumer to maximise value from the WiFi setup.
Llechwedd Slate Caverns feedback:
James Cozens (Marketing Manager) Llechwedd Slate Caverns, comments:
“We are thrilled with how the partnership with Purple WiFi has worked in such a short space of time against the goals we set. Due to the success of the collaboration so far, we will be expanding on the current number of access points, to open up access across the rest of our site.”
Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple WiFi, added:
“The results at Llechwedd Slate Caverns have been extremely promising. The venue has seen an increase in Facebook likes by over 400% and the global viral reach of its Facebook page has reached almost 100,000. In terms of bolstering marketing efforts, driving awareness of the venue and increasing engagement, these statistics show that Purple WiFi is already delivering success against the venue’s main objectives.”