Posted by
Barry Siskind
UFI’s Community Manager

The UFI Education Center is presenting a webinar on July 15 with the intriguing title, “The Omni-channel marketing for B2B, how to source and capture business opportunities.” It is being hosted by Eddie Chow, a founding partner of Frontier Digital and a columnist for Clickz.com.

The title piqued my interest so I asked him what the Omni-Channel was all about. Here is what he told me.

“Omni-channel marketing for B2B in a sense means integrated marketing. It should not be seen as “New” to the trade show organizers who co-ordinate on-ground events, recruit exhibitors via above and below-the-line advertising and reach out to the visitors through websites, etc. It looks like Omni-channel marketing is what we, the marketers in the exhibition industry, do everyday for living.

However, the new media evolution takes the planning and marketing process to a new level. Because of the newly invented intermediate technology such as mobile, wireless networking, QR codes, etc, the media convergence is being driven to a point that we couldn’t see possible in the past.

The offline and online integration also impacts the planning and strategy making process in our marketing plans.

In the webinar I intend to introduce and explain the key tactical considerations, approaches, and practices in managing an Omni-channel marketing plan. I will also explain the practice in an international scenario and scale because planning multiple marketing touch points across different media platforms in different countries should not be a linear process. The depth of engagement in each touch point such as for example print and social media in different countries requires a lot of tactical considerations.

Barry:

That sounds interesting but why is it important to look at different models for capturing opportunities?

Eddie:

Our target customers and audience live in a business environment where many important marketing milestones require special tactics and strategies to execute our marketing plan. The goal of “capturing opportunities” should not be seen as a single objective. For example, using an exhibition as a scenario, visitor’s promotion, event branding promotion, sales promotion and research are all actions to capture. Each of them is very different in nature and specific in goal supported by a variety of marketing practices. It is important to understand the characteristics of each model and how we can strategically integrate different models for an overall plan.

Barry:

Surely there are risks attached to change.

Eddie:

Technology becomes an important component in today’s marketing. The risk that I can imagine for someone who is already successful is the sense of losing control and stepping out from the comfort zone remain an obstacle. Furthermore, when marketing becomes more and more data-centric and permission-driven, the risk of information privacy and data security will essentially be a priority for marketers. The liberation of information makes the competition more transparent not only between you and your competitor but also between you and your customers. It is actually not a question of when to do it. It is how to do it right. In this case, the biggest risk is actually the loss in the competitive advantage.

Eddie convinced me. I’m going to register. If you are interested in this and other webinars at the UFI Education Centre click here: www.ufi.org/edcentre