Another Stop on the Retail Conference Circuit?

Greetings from sunny San Diego, where I'm covering the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) for sister publication eM+C. I know, San Diego in February, tough gig. Along with my primary role as senior editor for Retail Online Integration, I hold the same position for eM+C. So I traveled out here this week with the intention of covering this conference for eM+C. The sessions were being presented by leading online marketing brands such as Google, LinkedIn and CBS Interactive, and retail didn't seem to be a big part of the conference's agenda.

But a funny thing happened while out here looking for content for eM+C: I realized the event held a lot of value for retailers, both B-to-C and B-to-B. From sessions on website optimization to social media to integrated marketing, there's a decidedly retail feel to the event. Yet I look around and there's nary a retailer to be found. Is there not enough money or time on retailers’ conference budgets to add OMS to the rotation of the National Retail Federation's BIG Show, Shop.org's Annual Summit, Internet Retailer and eTail? It seems to me that the first week of February would be a convenient time for retailers to regroup from the fourth quarter holiday rush and begin to plan their strategies for the year ahead.

Heck, any chance to get out of the snow in February should be incentive enough, let alone the fact that the conference offers quality content that can help your business keep ahead of the curve. When you think about it, there's a lot of synergy between online marketing and retail. I mean, what retailer doesn't have an e-commerce site these days. Optimizing your website for search engines, integrating web analytics and CRM, creating a mobile marketing strategy around QR codes, these are all topics that should rank at the top of cross-channel retailers’ to-do lists. Maybe attending OMS 2012 should be too.