A hot topic within online advertising circles is how to leverage traditional trade promotion and co-op ad spending in the online advertising arena. I wrote a blog post about it a few months ago - and continue to dig deeper.

Rather than re-invent what trade promotion tactics can be executed specifc to the online industry - I've found it very helpful to first learn what traditional tactics are effective and try to apply those learnings to "our" medium ...

A big help in that process has been Bob Houk, Executive Director of the Trade Promotion Management Association (and author of the book "Trade Promotion Marketing"). Below is Part 1 (of 2) of our conversation. These first 5 minutes cover trade promotion basics. Part 2 will talk about specific online strategy ideas.