Today, the topic is about Gift Marketing – It’s not just powerful to “give away” content for inbound marketing – giving unexpected gifts of your physical goods (consumer goods and food manufacturers, I’m looking at you) can provide a huge sales rise as well.

Welcome to IAM Talking, a periodic podcast interview series, with your host, Dan Keldsen, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Architected, Inc. (IAI).

Today IAM Talking with Ethan Bloch CEO and Co-founder of Flowtown, and we’ll be talking about Flowtown’s evolution (thru two pivots or restarts) into the Gift Marketing platform it is today. Keep your eyes open for what they’re up to – this is a shift in marketing that everyone should pay attention to. It’s an interesting twist on influence, guerilla marketing, and stunning people with great products and services, not beating them over the head with TV ads and traditional media.

Free Samples aren’t just for Costco Aisles

Ethan is a whip-smart entrepreneur, tied into the best of both technology (a given), but also into deep roots of marketing and human behavior. He and his Co-founder, Dan Martell (with the rest of the Flowtown team) are bouncing right on the waves of the social media revolution to do things a bit differently.

We talk briefly about the pivots/restarts of Flowtown, where the earlier incarnation to the current model was experiencing rocket growth only to be shutdown and rebooted entirely.

The newest version of Flowtown, off to a great start since the launch in November 2010, focuses on Gift Marketing.

Gift Marketing?

Never heard of it?

Pay attention to the stories Ethan mentions of a little coffee shop in San Francisco down the street from Flowtown’s offices, and the “Crush It” success of Pretzel Crisps, which Ethan almost forgot to mention, but is (ahem) tremendous food for thought.

Unexpected gifts, customer engagement, listening to the market – that’s right folks, it’s a new world, but the good news is… it works. It’s cheaper. It’s faster. And you should be trying it right now if you haven’t already.

Comments or Questions?

Wondering how to apply Gift Marketing to your company? Can you use similar techniques inside your company? Comment below, and we’ll answer and discuss together.

Listen now!

IAM Talking: Digital Gifts and the Gift Marketing Economy with Ethan Bloch from Flowtown [ 30 min 07 s ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download