How can exhibition enterprises make good use of the marketing chain in the WeChat ecosystem?

In the past two years, the WeChat ecosystem has launched multiple functions and undergone frequent upgrades. Especially the various functional upgrades mentioned at the Tencent Open Class Pro and WeChat Work new product launch event in January 2022, all empower the traditional exhibition industry to improve quality, efficiency, and achieve high-quality development, and should be highly valued by exhibition organizers and enterprises. From large-scale manufacturing to small physical merchants, what role does WeChat play in "digital-real integration"? What is its connection to exhibition activity marketing? The author believes that exhibition organizers and enterprises can quickly improve their digital system construction by relying on the WeChat ecosystem.

WeChat has become an indispensable mobile application in people's lives and work. This also means that marketing and business communication for exhibition organizers and enterprises are inseparable from WeChat. Currently, most exhibitions have their own official accounts, which serve as essential promotional tools, just like their own websites. How can mini-programs, video accounts, and WeChat Work be effectively utilized? Most exhibition enterprises may not yet know how to maximize the value and role of these mobile products, which are crucial for their marketing management. Therefore, based on practical explorations over the past two years, the author summarizes four suggestions for exhibition enterprises to make good use of WeChat ecosystem products.

First, make good use of the latest interconnected features of various WeChat ecosystem products to improve marketing efficiency and business conversion. Utilizing the interoperability features of the WeChat ecosystem is a characteristic of WeChat's digital ecosystem. The six major WeChat ecosystem products (mini-programs, WeChat Pay, WeChat Work, Souyisou, mini-games, and video accounts) provide low-cost digital solutions, reducing connection costs. Each platform has its own advantages and characteristics; regardless of the entry point, one can connect to other products and obtain corresponding content display and interactive functions, thus achieving high connectivity, dissemination, and conversion for exhibition projects. This also helps improve the experience and processes of corporate customer services. For example, the combination of "Video Account + Mini-program" ecosystem will create new ways of engagement. Through mini-programs, information about exhibition projects, online showrooms for exhibitors, and other content can be displayed, presenting the scale, features, and highlights of upcoming exhibition projects in a three-dimensional way, allowing attendees to prepare in advance. Exhibiting companies can also list their products in mini-programs to enable appointment scheduling, inquiry, and order placement functions. Video account traffic, as the most important traffic source in WeChat, has immeasurable development prospects. Furthermore, the "Video Account + Mini-program" combination is particularly helpful for exhibition organizers and enterprises to build a marketing chain from social engagement and traffic generation to conversion, becoming a new choice for promoting exhibition event brands and enabling diverse dissemination.

Second, make good use of mini-programs' positioning to connect on-site and services, achieving the integration of online and offline exhibition projects. Leverage the richness of WeChat ecosystem's marketing links to maximize traffic generation. The biggest advantage of the WeChat ecosystem lies in its social nature. According to data from the "2021 H1 Mini-program Internet Development White Paper," in the first half of 2021, the total number of mini-programs across the network exceeded 7 million, with WeChat mini-programs having over 410 million DAU and numbering over 4.3 million. Life services, video, and online shopping became the main scenarios. The estimated full-year transaction GMV is nearly 3 trillion. In the next three years, the strategies for mini-programs and video accounts will drive a rapid increase in WeChat e-commerce GMV, with the overall expected to exceed 5 trillion.

Third, make good use of WeChat Work to achieve efficient collaboration between organizations. It is predicted that 2022 will be the breakout year for WeChat Work. For exhibition organizers and enterprises, with WeChat Work's growing influence, the task of bringing customers (exhibitors) into private domains using WeChat Work becomes more efficient and convenient, also proving that WeChat Work will be an important stronghold for private domains in the future.

Finally, leverage the openness of the WeChat ecosystem to connect with enterprises' proprietary customer and business management systems.

All along, the author has been improving and practicing digital marketing methods for exhibitions, forming a marketing model under the WeChat ecosystem, and establishing the "Exhibition Butler" digital platform. Through the "Exhibition Butler" exhibition digital platform, users can import digital ticketing processes for exhibition projects into communities or live streaming rooms, allowing online live streaming communication to drive the implementation of ticketing marketing and maximize the promotional value of live streams.

In other words, exhibition enterprises, exhibition organizers, and exhibitors urgently need to utilize the interconnected functions within the WeChat ecosystem to achieve more diversified marketing. For example, by slightly developing the WeChat ecosystem and combining it with their own business operations, they can maximize the digital marketing potential of the WeChat ecosystem, achieving transformation and upgrading.