When I first saw the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercials from Old Spice, I literally fell off the coach laughing.  The last line “I’m on a horse” was such a classic line that I am actually withholding using it until life presents me with the perfect opportunity – it’s not a line to be squandered.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it now before continuing on this with this post because how they’ve leveraged an already great commercial using Twitter and YouTube is pure marketing genius.  (Yes, Alyssa Milano you were right, it IS genius.)

Ok, that’s pretty good right?  Here’s where it gets even better.

When people (often people of note, like Alyssa Milano, Perez Hilton and a particularly hilarious “get well” message to Digg.com founder Kevin Rose to name a few) mention the Old Spice guy and these hilarious commericials.

Consider the reach these celebs have (yes, even Kevin Rose is a celeb in tech circles) within their fanbase and how their tweets are being retweeted throughout their community and you’ll quickly see how cool this is from a viral marketing perspective.

The original video has almost 13,000,000 views as of this writing!

How would your business do if you could get even a fraction of that kind of market visibility?

If you’ve got some specific ideas or examples about how you’ve created a similar (if smaller) viral buzz for your content, product or service using the power of online video combined with the social web, post it in the comments below!

For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the “response videos” that Old Spice Guy posted for Alyssa, Perez & Kevin.

Hope You’re Feeling Better, Kevin Rose…

You’re Right Alyssa, This is Genius…

Question for Alyssa – Did He Actually Come To Your House Barefoot???

Accolades for Accolades to Perez Hilton

My big question is… does the Old Spice Guy favour celebs and people of massive influence only?  Or will I be the recipient of an upcoming video?

Only time will tell.  But I’ll have to start with saying something witty on Twitter…

P.S. Leave your comments (or links to your fav Old Spice Guy video messages) below.

It’s happened to the best of us… you create a powerful ad with a strong headline, great offer and a compelling call to action.  The ad goes out and people are responding to in droves, visiting your website at an unprecedented rate…

But no one is buying!

All that time, effort and money gone to waste.  But it could have been avoided.

The culprit is probably misaligned marketing and it can be a conversion killer – but it doesn’t have to happen to you.

The Integration of Marketing & Sales

Ah, the classic confrontation.  Marketing v Sales.  Which is better?  Which one is more important to business success?

The truth is that one cannot exist without the other – they are two sides of the same coin.  Marketing makes people pick up the phone and sales makes them take out their credit card.

If the marketers don’t do their job, there’s no one to sell anything to.  And if the sales folk don’t do their job, there’s no money coming in.

Why am I telling you this?

Because if your marketing & sales efforts aren’t perfectly aligned and in synch with one another, your conversion rates will suffer.

A Straight Line To Success

In order for your marketing efforts to have the desired result of generating top-quality leads that can be converted into sales, you have to put the right message, in front of the right audience, with the right offer.

The first two elements are marketing elements but the third is all sales.

If the message doesn’t fit the market, there will be dismal results.  If message and the market are aligned, but the sales offer doesn’t fit, all of your marketing efforts will have been wasted.

That’s why it is so important to ensure that your marketing and sales teams are working closely together, that they are in agreement about who your customer is, what they want and how your specific product or service will help them relieve their pain or achieve their desire.

Aligned Marketing, An Example

Consider a pay-per-click ad, similar to one you might find on Google Adwords.

The ad is only displayed when a user searches for a particular search phrase on Google’s website – keywords that you determine prior to setting up the ad in the first place.  This is one of the most powerful elements of Adwords – the potential customer is actually activating the ad based on the words they use to find what they’re looking for!

When the ad appears, it MUST be aligned with the phrase that the searcher entered or it will be completely ignored.  If someone types in “strategic marketing book” your ad had better reinforce that search parameter.

But if your headline reads: Sales Tactics That Sell you probably won’t get much of a response from this individual.

On the other hand, if your headline reads: Strategic Marketing Made Easy! then you’ll find that your click-thru-rate (CTR) is much better.

Once the user clicks, they’ll come next to your landing page… which had better support the same aligned message about your strategic marketing book.  And the offer had better be for a marketing book that the user can purchase then and there.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of small business owners and entrepreneurs forget to align their marketing right through to the end of the sales process and their conversion rates suffer needlessly.

The more aligned your message is from beginning to end, the better response rates you’ll see.

On Monday I published a post about using a free marketing incentive as an idea for small business owners to use to get better response rates on their offers.

Today I received an email from the video conversion software company ImTOO that perfectly demonstrates how to use this marketing idea when sending email marketing messages to your subscriber list.

I’m a customer of ImTOO, using their conversion software to convert one type of video format to another.  I’m a big fan of this company because of how easy their software is to use…

Now I’m a fan because of their effective marketing.  Here’s a screen capture of the email I received that illustrates perfectly how to use a free marketing incentive offer.

There are four important elements to note (and to model) for your own “free marketing incentive” offers.

1. The Subject Line (a.k.a. Headline) FEATURES the Free Offer – notice that they are very specific and clear about the fact that they are offering something free with my purchase.  It’s also related to the actual product they are selling, making their marketing aligned (more on aligned marketing next week)
2. They Provide a REASON for the Offer – this is a psychological trigger and has to be reasonably valid; in this case, to “celebrate the release of iPhone 4″, which they have a supporting product for.
3. Sell The Main Product AND The Free Markting Incentive – it’s not enough to sell one product or the other, both need to be viewed by the reader of as being EQUALLY valuable and worthwhile – the free item needs to be perceived as being worth the investment in the primary product, even if it has a lesser value!
4. Create URGENCY Through Limitation – in this case, this is a “Limited Time Offer” as noted at the bottom of the advertisement.

Hopefully this example illustrates how you can take the model of product bundling and use it to create a free marketing incentive for your next advertisement.

P.S. Do you have experience working with a free marketing incentive?  Share your experience by leaving a comment below.  Also a great way to get a question answered about how to apply this small business marketing idea to your own business.

Related Post: Small Business Marketing Idea – Offer a “Free With Purchase” Incentive

If you’re going to market your small business through advertising, you want to ensure the maximum possible customer response, resulting in the highest possible number of sales, right?

Here’s an idea you can use to motivate and persuade your target audience to respond to your small business ad by visiting your store or website and making a purchase:

Offer a “Free With Purchase” incentive for anyone who makes a qualifying purchase within a specified period of time.

This is a powerful marketing idea that can work for many different kinds of small business owners.

Let’s use a golf equipment retail store as an example.

Create Your “Free With Purchase” Incentive Offer

Let’s say it’s spring time and you’re a local golf equipment retailer planning a marketing event to kick of the season. The first thing you will need to do is determine what product to give away.

You’ll do this by selecting something that is purchased fairly frequently and which costs very little to purchase, but has a high perceived value and a high margin or mark-up.

An obvious example might be a package of golf balls since every golfer is constantly losing golf balls and needs to replace them on a regular basis.

Ideally, you’ll contact your golf ball supplier and try to negotiate a discounted rate on a bigger order of golf balls under the assumption that you’ll have more foot traffic in the store during your sale event.

Next, you’ll need to determine under which circumstances you’re going to give away those golf balls.

You can select from a minimum purchase amount such as ‘anything over $50 or $100’; or the purchase of a specific item such as ‘free with every putter sold’.

You’ll also want to set a timeline parameter so that you maximize the immediacy and the urgency to act quickly.

Creating The “Free With Purchase” Incentive Advertisement

Now that you know what incentive you’re going to offer and under what conditions, you’ll need to create a compelling advertisement to let people know about your special offer.

First, you’ll need to craft a powerful and compelling headline that advertises the key benefit and catches the attention of your target audience.  It should be VERY specific and engaging.

Something like: FREE Sleeve of Golf Balls With This Ad!

That will grab the attention of most amateur golfers and at least get them to read more about how they can get free golf balls.

In the body of the ad, you’ll write about whatever it is that you’re trying to sell, either the minimum purchase amount, the specific putter you’re promoting or whatever else you’ve decided to offer.

You’ll also mention the dates during which the offer is valid and remind them to “clip this coupon” and bring it in to the store in order to claim their gift.

Tracking & Measuring Your Marketing Results

Finally, you’ll want to include some kind of identifying code on the coupon itself that lets you know which newspaper, magazine or flyer it came from.  You’ll also want to write down the items purchased by the person redeeming the offer for tracking and measuring your results.

This is critical because after the promotion is over you can then review your coupon redemption and count the number of people who responded to the ad by coming in to the store and claiming their free gift.

If you’ve done a good job of targeting the placement of the ad, the message and offer to the desires of the target market and combined that with a strong call-to-action, you should end up with a positive return on your marketing investment.

You’ll know this by adding the order total of all the coupons that were redeemed and then deducting all of your costs including the cost of the advertisement.

If the result is positive, you have a winning formula that you can repeat.  If the number is negative, you lost money on this advertisement and it needs additional work to make it successful.

P.S. Got something to say?  Leave your comments below!

Related Post: Free Marketing Incentive – A Real World Example from ImToo

How To Create A Killer Elevator Pitch… In 60 Seconds or Less!
by Paul Keetch

Being able to succinctly describe your business is an essential networking skill for two important reasons.

First, the person you’re talking to can quickly and easily understand if they, or someone they know, is a potential customer of yours.

Second, knowing specifically how to communicate your business essence allows you to spend more time speaking to people who are genuinely interested in what you do and how you do it and less time trying to “sell” prospects who are never going to become your customer.

Here is my 3-step system to creating a killer elevator pitch!

Step 1 – Identify The Pain You Solve In The Market
There are two things you want to accomplish in this step – identify the specific pain you resolve in the market and get the person you are talking to agreeing with you.

You do this by stating the problem you solve in the form of a question such as, “Do you know how the vast majority of new businesses fail within the first five years?”

This states the pain (the rampant failure of new businesses) and gets the person you’re talking to in agreement with you (everyone knows this to be true).

Step 2 – Describe Your Perfect Customer & How You Work With Them
Here you want to be very specific about what niche (or micro-niche) that has the problem described in step 1 and how you help them overcome that pain.

For example, you might say, “I mentor coaches and other personal service providers on strategic ways market themselves more effectively and on a shoe-string budget.”

Already, if the person you’re talking to self-identifies with the pain you’ve described in step one and now fits into the category of who (coaches and other personal service providers) and how (mentor them to market themselves more effectively and on a shoe-string) their interest is piqued.

Step 3 – Outline How Your Customers Benefit From Working With You
This one gets a little tricky, but is still pretty straight forward. The real benefits of working with you don’t come from the specific result you help bring about (more customers, better relationships, fitness, health, etc) but from what those results create for them.

More customers may actually mean that they earn more and are able to provide for their family or travel the world and live the life they’ve always dreamed of.

In the example above, this may look like, “So that they can have a steady stream of qualified clients coming in every month, helping more and more people while creating a generous income for themselves!”

The primary benefit here is that they can help more and more people as well as create a generous income, a challenge faced by many of the coaches and personal service providers I work with.

Bringing It All Together!
Here is what an elevator pitch would look like when you bring all three elements together:

Do you know how the vast majority of new businesses fail within the first five years? I mentor coaches and other personal service providers on strategic ways market themselves more effectively and on a shoe-string budget, so that they can have a steady stream of qualified clients coming in every month, helping more and more people while creating a generous income for themselves!

That’s all there is to it. A killer elevator pitch you can easily remember and that flows off your tongue will allow you to spend more time marketing to truly qualified prospects.

Marketing at any time should be a carefully managed process, but this is even more important when trying to sustain or grow your business during a recession or other economic downturn.

Here are 3 tips to help you get the most out of your marketing in any economy:

Recession Marketing Tip #1 – Determine Your Profit Point

Determine the profit point (the point at which sales from your marketing expenditure breaks even and pays for itself) by dividing the average profit per sale into the total marketing or advertising cost.

For example, if you spend $1000 on marketing a $100 product, you might think that 10 sales is your break-even point. Unless you have a 100% profit margin, this could be a potentially fatal error! Assuming your profit margin is 20%, your profit per sale is actually only $20, which means that you would need to generate 50 sales $100 in order to break even.

When you know your break even number ahead of time, you will know without a doubt whether a particular campaign generated a positive return on investment or not.

Recession Marketing Tip #2 – Track Everything

One mistake many business owners make is not tracking each individual marketing or advertising campaign. You cannot properly determine whether or not a particular campaign is hitting your pre-determined profit point or not without knowing where your leads are coming from.

Use custom web addresses such as www.YourCompany.com/adsource or vanity URLs (www.YourCompanyNow.com for example) to easily track advertisements that drive people to your website. Coupon codes, customized extension numbers or “virtual employee names” where you give the phone number to call and the instruction to “ask for Sally” (who doesn’t exist) or instructions to “clip this coupon” or “mention this ad” when visiting your physical location.

Make it part of your internal process to ask people where heard about you and make note of it in a spreadsheet so that you can track your results over time.

Recession Marketing Tip #3 – Do More of What Works, Less of What Doesn’t

When and if you find a marketing campaign that is consistently failing to produce enough sales to cover your investment and reach the profit point, you should immediately make a decision to either change the advertisement in some way in order to get a better result or simply stop the activity immediately.

Unless you know that your initial $100 sale will be worth many thousands of dollars over the long term (because you know your average lifetime customer value) then continuing with a money-losing campaign without at least trying to improve it is a sure way to reduced profits or even losses on your bottom line results. Even then, you should always seek to improve the results you’re getting from every marketing campaign.

On the other hand, when you find a campaign that is consistently hitting or, even better, exceeding your pre-determined profit point, then you should find ways to get more exposure in the same or similar sources.

For example, if you are advertising in a particular magazine bi-weekly, you may want to test a weekly advertisement instead. If the campaign is paying for itself and producing a profit over and above your initial investment in one magazine, you may want to try reaching a similar audience in a different, but related publication.

When you follow all three of these tips and apply them consistently and in order you will see definite improvements in your overall marketing results.

Paul Keetch is a seasoned entrepreneur and marketing coach who has helped hundreds of small business owners grow into bigger business owners. He is co-author of the acclaimed ebook Make My Marketing Work: How to Win Customers and Make More Money. Get a copy of his book online at http://www.MakeMyMarketingWork.com.