Episode description

Smart marketing is smart marketing, regardless of the venue. On this edition of OFB Brian, Tommy and Ken, along with our guest Chris Reimer explored some applications of smart marketing, and some not so smart marketing moves as well.

Our first Hot Potato was ReferralKey.com. Describing itself as an online community of connected people sending lots of referrals to each other, we all concluded that what they really do is SPAM people and offer little in the way of new business opportunities. Our guest Chris Reimer wrote an especially insightful and funny blog entry on the topic --

@RizzoTees Chris Reimer Blog about Referral Key

Our next Hot Potato stop was WalMart who is going somewhere no retailer or channel partner has gone before -- they are discounting iPhones and iPads. We initially thought this demonstrated the power of WalMart as a discount retailer. But maybe not. There’s real value in hearing Brian’s astute insight about channel conflicts and this being a somewhat desperate strategic move by WalMart to counter Amazon and other online retailers stealing their business.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/walmart-cuts-prices-on-some-iphones-and-ipads/?emc=eta1

Our third Hot Potato was time of the year appropriate -- Resoultions -- do they work? We pretty much concluded they do not. Tune in to hear our clinical analysis of this annual and always important debate.

Our focused discussion was about smart marketing and how it really applies anywhere. The in thing in marketing is social media, inbound marketing, and the connection to the website. A recent article highlighted some well known websites and how they exhibited brilliant home page design. What they actually exhibited was smart marketing, whether it’s on a home page, in a mail piece, in an ad, or face-to-face in conversation. The principles espoused in the article are below and they don’t change; just the venue changes.

Clarity on who you are and what you do
Messages that are important and valuable to your target audience
Compelling Value
Easy to understand
Call to action
Relevant and timely

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34006/15-Examples-of-Brilliant-Homepage-Design.aspx#i

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Open for Business #62 – more great information than you could hope for in less than an hour.