Last week Starbucks announced a new customer rewards program that in exchange for registering with Starbucks.com gives you 2 hours/day of free wireless access. For years customers have been begging Starbucks to give them free wireless access. The rationale behind free Wi-Fi is simple – give me free internet access and I’ll spend more time and more money at your store. Well Starbucks finally listened, thanks in large part to their terrific My Starbucks Idea, however what they did was far more brilliant than just free Wi-Fi.

By requiring customers to register a Starbucks card (in order to receive Wi-Fi) they are now able to track the frequency of customer visits, time spent at their cafe and of course customer contact information for marketing purposes. Most businesses spend thousands to gather this type of information, Starbucks is making a minimum of $5 for you to give it to them. With one simple idea Starbucks can now expand their customer list in a way that just opening up their networks could not provide.

Wireless internet access has become a commodity throughout the world. Unlike most commodities the price demand for public internet access is free, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t profit from it.

Many restaurants, stores and cafes already know that free Wi-Fi is good for business – it brings people in for longer periods of time. What an open network doesn’t do is tell you who that person is. By not requiring a customer to register with your network you’re missing out on the potential to get him back again. With a few simple tweaks to your wireless network you can require customers to provide you with their contact information before you provide them with internet access. Now, in addition to getting people in, you’re building an effective marketing list of people who are already familiar with your business.