How Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi partners with Cloud4Wi to enhance visitor experiences and boost engagement

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is a vibrant cultural hub in Florence, Italy, renowned for world-class exhibitions featuring old masters, contemporary artists, and captivating installations. Thanks to its one-of-a-kind educational center, Palazzo Strozzi stands out in the global art and museum scene as one of the most inclusive destinations, providing specialized courses for people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, and autism. This Renaissance-era architectural masterpiece uniquely combines a historic setting with cutting-edge programming, making it a magnet for global visitors and a dynamic platform for artistic exploration.

In today’s crowded cultural landscape, foundations like Palazzo Strozzi must create memorable and engaging visitor experiences. Arturo Galansino, General Director of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, highlights the necessity for museums to evolve beyond static exhibits:

“Today more than ever, museums and art performing centers must become visitor-centered, aiming at creating a 360-degree experience that involves visitors both physically and digitally.”
— Arturo Galansino, General Director, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

To achieve this, Palazzo Strozzi sought an enterprise WiFi platform that would seamlessly onboard visitors and understand their on-premises behaviors, enabling it to provide rich experiences and compelling digital services.

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi partnered with Cloud4Wi to implement a next-generation WiFi solution designed to create unified visitor experiences throughout the venue. From the courtyard to the exhibition halls, Cloud4Wi enables seamless connectivity, letting visitors stay connected and access engaging content — audio guides, historical background, interactive features, and special offers for the museum shop — directly through their smartphones.

Cloud4Wi enabled a beautifully branded captive portal, customized in look and feel and tailored in terms of policies (privacy, terms of use, promotional communications). Thanks to Cloud4Wi’s powerful, seamless integration, Palazzo Strozzi created a two-way conversation with its stakeholders — collecting full names, email addresses, and marketing consents, and automatically transferring visitor data into the marketing hub to personalize communications.

Offering WiFi services paved the way for Palazzo Strozzi to:

• Personalize interactions: by understanding visitor behavior and preferences, Palazzo Strozzi can personalize future communications and marketing campaigns, fostering deeper connections.
• Fuel marketing activities: visitor data helps Palazzo Strozzi target marketing efforts more effectively, attracting new visitors and encouraging repeat visits.
• Build a two-way conversation: Palazzo Strozzi can gather feedback through surveys and polls, tailoring future experiences to visitor preferences.

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi implemented Cloud4Wi during the “Donatello, Il Rinascimento” exhibition in March 2022. Since then, across five additional exhibitions — including “Olafur Eliasson,” “Reaching for the Stars,” “Yan Pei-Ming,” “Anish Kapoor,” and “Anselm Kiefer” — Palazzo Strozzi has collected over 80K contacts with a 48% marketing opt-in rate and a 42% profiling rate. Promoting the availability of guest WiFi in the press kit and through digital signage across the venue was crucial to this success.

The Cloud4Wi solution empowered Palazzo Strozzi to create a more engaging, interactive visitor experience. The foundation also sends a customer-satisfaction survey by email to all visitors right after their visit. For example, the email for Refik Anadol’s courtyard installation, “Machine Hallucinations – Renaissance Dreams,” achieved a 45% open rate across 1,600 emails sent.

The partnership between Cloud4Wi and Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is poised to reach new heights. By leveraging the rich visitor data collected through the WiFi platform, Palazzo Strozzi can enhance its fundraising efforts and convert occasional visitors into loyal donors. Granular insights into visitor preferences and behaviors enable personalized communication, fostering stronger connections and deeper engagement. This data-driven approach will boost fundraising initiatives and help cultivate a dedicated community of patrons, ensuring long-term support for the museum’s cultural mission.