Happy Thanksgiving Week! This week I am featuring an insightful fourt-part interview featuring hospitality marketing guru, Ryan Chambers, principal of Adapt Marketing & Design.
“Adapt is a hospitality-focused, integrated marketing firm based in Texas. If your organization operates in the hospitality industry, or if it targets or serves those who operate in the hospitality industry, then we’re definitely the marketing folks for you,” Ryan shares. “We provide strategic, creative social media and mobile marketing services to those wanting to elevate their brand and strengthen their bottom-line within the hospitality space.”
Ryan graciously took time out of his whirlwind schedule to chat with me about Adapt’s newly-launched innovative Wi-Fi hotspot technology, Social Wifi®
As a native-born Jamaican, Ryan was literally born into the hospitality world so it is a natural fit for him to partner with hospitality clients. His dad was an executive chef for a major hotel in Jamaica for 35 years, and his mom was an executive with Hilton Hotels.
In Part One below, Ryan discusses his inspiration behind Social Wifi® and why the hospitality industry still hesitates to use Wi-Fi platforms.
PART ONE
How and why did you and your co-founder, Risi Avila, create Social Wifi®? What inspired you?
RYAN
It was one of those things where the stars aligned - I grew up and worked in the hospitality industry and my passion is to help those in the industry to market effectively and smarter. We were in the same place with the same mindset, at the same time. We met in Arlington, Texas in late 2009 at a restaurant that had retained us to help them with their marketing, and Risi was doing their Wi-Fi.
I don't remember the sequence of events, but we began talking about things that could be great to do with a Wi-Fi platform - like email opt-in, social media integration, block porn websites and a bunch of other novel ideas. We quickly realized from our first meeting that we had the same vision, so we moved into quick action by creating the proprietary Wi-Fi platform that our clients love and use today.
What's the biggest reason WHY these business operators won't touch Wi-Fi platforms? What are their biggest complaints/fears?
RYAN
The biggest one is "I don't want customers camping out at my restaurant." The other top two are: "Our customers don't use or need Wi-Fi here," and "Our corporate office looked at it and they don't want our computer systems to get messed up."
How have your clients - who currently use Social Wifi® - seen improvements in their business?
RYAN
We've been piloting for the past 6 months and have noticed great results. A Fort Worth restaurant grew their customer email database to a little under 300 opt-ins in less than 90 days and their Facebook 'friends' and 'Likes' dramatically grew in this same timeframe. By creating video and integrating it on one of our Arlington client's Social Wifi®, they couldn't have enough watermelon salad prepped. People log on to see what treats await them.
Stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow...Ryan tackles the big social media debate: why hotels and restaurants are still hesitant to use social media.
