Throughout the past decade, online marketing has become of vital importance in the marketing mix for companies of all sizes. The rise of Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and other online networks gave advertising platforms the chance to emerge where marketers could perfectly target their audience. Online marketing became the silver bullet of advertising and marketing managers began to deprioritize traditional marketing channels.

As of today, the internet audience is overloaded with online ads. Ad blocking software is getting popular, and consumers are unable to focus on offers that are actually interesting for them. Online marketing metrics are distorted by click baiting tactics and botnets.

While many marketing channels have come to a saturation point, the methodologies in offline marketing have remained roughly the same. A balanced combination of online and offline marketing is the key to a successful marketing strategy. The challenge for marketing managers is to understand how to leverage different channels effectively to achieve high customer lifetime values by means of powerful brands and sustainable customer relationships. The close cross-linking of several channels into an integrated marketing strategy is frequently referred to as omni-channel marketing. Your customers don’t care about the actual channel, what they want is a floating customer journey across different media – no matter whether online or offline.

Next to optilyz’ powerful offline marketing channels, others are arising and gaining relevance. One of these channels is live communication. Live communication can be a powerful channel to deliver a lasting brand message and create sustainable customer interactions. While the outcome of live communication events had been difficult to measure, they always provided real life experiences for potential customers.

5 steps for successful live communication

1) Find the right location

Finding the right location is key to a successful live communication event. Companies need to define their target groups and find the location with strong potential to reach potential brand advocates. Customer footfall is the second essential factor when choosing a location. Finally, the timing of the event is vital. Seasonal changes can have a strong influence on both, customer footfall and peoples’ interest your product or service.

2) High-class booth concept

Your booth is the business card of your company. Based on your live communication display, potential customers will decide, whether or not they want to spend more time with your brand. Your booth is the physical counterpart to your digital touchpoints like your website and social media accounts.

3) Professional staff

The promotion staff is the center of attention for your customers and its significance is often underestimated. These people foster the direct interaction with your most important asset: your customers.

4) Measuring the success of live communication

It is common practice to measure, evaluate and optimize marketing campaigns. Measuring the effects and the success of live communication events is naturally more difficult, but has become possible through modern tracking technologies. Companies like store2be allow their customer to track and measure similar metrics such as those used in online marketing.

5) Scaling live communication

For a marketing channel to be successful, it needs to be scalable. Live Communication is transformed in a scalable channel when it is provided as a one-stop-solution. Companies like store2be provide such a service.

By organizing staff, exhibition booth and the right locations from one partner, marketers are able to plan and execute their live communication events more efficiently. The concept of a one-stop-solution for live communication allows companies to create physical customer touchpoints in multiple locations at the same time or successively

This article was written by Dr. Marlon Braumann, founder and managing director at store2be. The mission of store2be is to build a global market network that enables brands to book targeted, measurable and scalable live communication events. The team of store2be helps you to find and book the perfect location, promotion staff and high-quality booths for your live communication event.