Dallas Burston Polo Club in Warwickshire is now delivering free, fast WiFi to visitors and has seen a 63% increase in social engagement following the installation of Purple Free by Smart Wireless.
The club, which is set in 600 acres of grounds, had no form of public WiFi and sought a solution that would not only ensure people could share their experiences online, browse the web and connect with others, but also increase awareness of the polo club on social media. However, they didn’t want to fork out large fees for guest WiFi, which is why Smart Wireless, a fully Certified Purple Partner, recommended they install Purple Free, along with Cisco Meraki equipment across the entire estate.
With Purple’s free WiFi and analytics solution, the club was able to implement fully branded login pages and track usage, sessions, new vs repeat visitors, most popular venues, time spent on the WiFi, gender split and the most popular age range. This information is not only helping the club to measure the level of usage from their WiFi investment but will help them to generate offers and communications that will suit their core age range and drive traffic to quieter areas of the club.
Purple Free officially went live in June 2017 and has already attracted almost 1600 users, with the most popular age range being 25-34-year olds. Purple allows them to measure the level of interaction on their Facebook pages and in just under two months the Dallas Burston Polo Club page has seen a 63% increase in Facebook likes per a month. The club has also been very impressed with Purple and has seen usage levels increase dramatically during weddings and at the weekends.
The team chose to initially roll out the free version of the solution rather than enhanced as they wanted to ensure it would have a successful uptake in other zones. However, having originally trialed Purple Enhanced, the marketing team does recognize the value of potentially gaining access to more visitor data in the future rather than just from online sales or physical requests. By upgrading to enhanced they would not only gain access to CRM records, but they would also be able to take advantage of other analytics and connectors such as Micro Surveys, TripAdvisor, NPS, and Salesforce.
Commenting on the results from Purple Free and the enhanced trial, Major Richard Carney MBE for Dallas Burston Polo Club, said: “Smart Wireless has provided a complete solution that we can now build on with confidence. In the first week of our trial, we were able to double our mailing list and have seen an influx of customers at the Millstone Hare since Purple went live. In fact, it’s actually become busy enough to start opening 7 days a week and extend our service hours. We now do about 150 covers at the weekends, selling out of roasts on Sundays, and are constantly increasing our popularity mid-week by providing excellent service and improving our customer engagement.”
Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple, said: “Dallas Burston Polo Club evidences why we launched Purple Free, we wanted to deliver a product that is of a superior quality but without the large price tag of other paid-for-utility WiFi solutions’ out there. I’m delighted to learn that the club has been impressed both with the Purple Free solution and the initial trial of our enhanced license product. The WiFi network is receiving a good level of traction, so it’s going to be exciting to see what the next steps will be for the club in terms of licensing, connectivity, marketing, and visitor engagement.”