The Magic Free Offer

I'm always amazed at how little original thought many advertisers put into their ads. And how they consequently throw away money. Right now I am looking at several full-page Yellow Page ads for local law firms. These are mostly general practice firms who handle the usual plaintiff's cases: personal injury, personal bankruptcy, family law and criminal defense. They aren't blue chip firms on Wall Street, their business is on Main Street. There is a need for these types of firms and they don't appear to be ambulance chasers. But there really is nothing about their ads that set them apart from their competitors. In fact, each ad says essentially the same thing as the next ad: 1) a laundry list of the cases they handle, 2) how much experience they have, and 3) grim, no nonsense photographs of lawyers who mean business and are ready to go to war on your behalf. One thing is for certain; all of these full-page ads cost these firms a lot of money. But what if they could greatly increase their response rates from these ads, and make their ads outperform all of their competitors' ads, without spending an extra dollar? Here's how: By offering free information. Free information lowers the bar for a person to respond to your ad. Instead of having to call, set an appointment and meet with a lawyer, the person can just call or send an email for a free booklet (or you can send a free white paper, a free ebook, a free audio CD, a free DVD, a free tip sheet, a free interactive software program or anything you like as long as it is genuinely informative). What kind of free booklet? Let's just focus on criminal cases for now. What if your ad offered the following free booklets: