This week I’m gonna critique an ad I found in an old magazine while doing some “on the spot shredding” (aka getting into the recycling bin and causing havoc in my Mom’s office). Wowsers! Take a look at this ad! Is this guy a bulldog or what! First of all, good on him for taking a stand on something instead of being all wishy washy and trying to please everyone. Will he turn people off? Yup. But will he likely attract the people he’s targeting with his powerful headline

“In God We Trust. All Others We Sue.”

He sure will.

His headline is far better than the usual tripe put out by injury attorneys: “Injured? Call us…”

Zzzzzzz…

B-o-r-i-n-g.

But here’s how this snappy dresser could have made his ad a LOT better.

First, he should have picked one specific area of law to focus on. Instead, he has just about every area you can think of written in tiny font around the edges.

Next, he needs to make it easy for people to call him (and not so scary). There’s the name of the firm (blacked out to keep me out of hot water with him), but no number to call. And does he charge for an initial consult? What’s the offer, dude?

Then, how about throwing in a few killer client testimonials and giving some proof? That’d surely help his response rate.

And finally, this ad, even though it’s better than most, is still an image ad and not a direct response one. So there’s no way for him to measure his response rate from it other than to guess.

Well, gotta scoot. I see two squirrels chasing each other around a tree and I need to go supervise.

Woof!