If you get most of your bookings from OTAs like Airbnb or Booking.com, it’s challenging to build relationships with your guests. 

Listing sites are notorious for restricting communication between property managers and guests. They withhold guests’ phone numbers and email addresses, so you can only contact them through their own messaging system. 

This creates barriers for property managers who want to inspire customer loyalty. How do you make sure that guests recognise your brand, recommend it to their friends and book directly with you next time?

If you’ve ever struggled with this, we’ve got good news for you. There’s a simple way to collect your guests’ email addresses, use email marketing to re-engage them and increase your direct bookings. 

In this article, we’re introducing StayFi’s game-changing WiFi marketing solution. We’ll show you how it can help your branding and remarketing efforts through the example of Upstay, a property management startup with more than 200 units in the US and Canada. 

Thanks to StayFi’s solution, Upstay has been able to standardise their WiFi across their entire portfolio and built a direct relationship with all their guests.

Let’s dive in!

Collecting guest data with WiFi splash pages

A WiFi splash page is the page that appears when guests try to sign into a WiFi network. With StayFi, property managers can create completely customisable, branded splash pages where they can collect guests’ email addresses and redirect them to their website.

This method has a number of benefits, like:

  • Reinforcing your brand so guests remember it.
  • Collecting guest data and passing it onto your CRM.
  • Introducing guests to your website where they can make direct bookings.

StayFi directly integrates with popular email providers such as Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor and Constant Contact. This makes it easy for property managers to build mailing lists and send guests automated email drip campaigns to attract repeat bookings. Furthermore, it allows you to remarket not only to the guest who booked the rental, but to everyone staying there.

Thanks to this, StayFi can be an invaluable tool in a property manager’s tech stack. It can help you keep guests coming back and booking directly on your website, which helps you become less reliant on OTAs. 

Did you know that StayFi was one of the three startups to pitch at the first VRTECH Connect event? If you’d like to find out about more innovative startups out there, join our next online event on 8 April 2021.

Doing away with WiFi issues for good

To understand how StayFi helps avoid WiFi issues, let’s look at how it works. 

In short, StayFi uses a cloud-managed WiFi system that’s easy to install and monitor remotely. 

All you need to do is plug the StayFi device into your router – it can be set up in 5 minutes. The device’s coverage is up to 600 feet, but you can extend it with another device, which automatically meshes with the first one. 

This is especially useful for property managers who manage multi-unit buildings because they can build a single mesh network to cover all their units. Consolidating networks this way helps to save a lot of money.

The remote monitoring aspect is essential because it allows you and your team to check up on your WiFi network remotely whenever you want. This ensures that when a new guest checks in, your WiFi is always good to go. 

There’s nothing worse than arriving at a rental and having to spend precious minutes of your vacation time trying to connect to the WiFi. With StayFi, you can save your guests the trouble and make sure that their WiFi experience is instant and seamless.

How Upstay implemented StayFi’s WiFi marketing solution

Upstay is a hospitality startup that offers beautifully furnished vacation homes designed for exceptional comfort and contact-free service. As such, they needed a WiFi solution that would contribute to offering an enhanced guest experience and meet their standards for high-quality living. 

 “Prior to working with StayFi, the challenge we were tackling was: how can we build a direct relationship with ALL members of a group visiting our homes, as opposed to solely the person who facilitated the booking?” said Andrew Lenjosek, CEO at Upstay. 

Sure enough, one of StayFi’s main advantages is that it captures the email addresses of the entire party, not just the booker – assuming everyone uses their smartphones to connect to the WiFi, which is generally the case. 

But it also has other benefits, like simplifying the WiFi experience for your guests. When all your properties have the same branded network, WiFi instructions can be standardised across your entire portfolio – which means you won’t get questions about passwords and how to use the WiFi ever again. 

“StayFi’s solution provides a low-cost, non-invasive way of connecting with nearly every visitor who stays at our properties,” said Andrew. “It also allows us to customize our WiFi and standardize it across all properties and markets, which makes life easier for our customer service team.”

Upstay uses industry-leading technology to provide top-of-the-line hospitality services. As a result, it was also important for them to find a solution that would seamlessly integrate with their existing marketing tech stack.

“StayFi currently works in tandem with our CRM (Hubspot) and our email marketing system (MailChimp) to help us (a) better understand each customer and (b) create customized marketing flows according to their preferences,” Andrew told us. 

After months of working with StayFi, Andrew is more than happy with the results. 

“I would recommend StayFi to any short-term rental operator interested in building their brand and a closer relationship with their guests – probably anyone with a 25+ unit portfolio,” said Andrew.

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