Wow everyone must be getting up for the day or finishing their day at work.

One of my main concerns is cost. I don't want to pay for the ad, then have to pay to ship them out, the cost of the phone line, etc. and start this thing out where I am 1-2k in the hole and losing money every month.

I figure with the price tag it will make the response less, but hopefully allow me to break even on the front end or not lose so much.

Vince you bring up some great points that I'll have to think about for sure and Travis you do as well.

I will get the testimonal in there somehow but the space is limited by the price I am paying, but it will be on page with a bunch of other ads as well.

My head hurts

Oh and the Report is free by the way, they are just paying for the shipping and handling.

Hi Tim,

Man, I hate to say it but I'm in agreement with most of what has been suggested. I just don't think the ad is going to work like it is. And I'd hate to see you whiff this thing.

These points have been made but I'm going to say things my way:

1. The $9.95 shipping and handling... I appreciate what you're trying to do. You're trying to make the ad pay for itself and not get a bunch of lookers.

That's all well and good, but if you're asking for $10, you have to do some selling, even if you call it "S&H". So you either need a bigger ad where you can sell more or you need to give the report away, 100%.

Is that scary? Hell yes, but if you're report is well written, it will convert well enough to more than pay for your ad.

2. Lose the phone consultation. Everyone thinks its a pitch even if it's not. You can do the "Call for a free recorded message" thing, but not a live call. You're scaring them away.

3. If you have a story/testimonial, I love the idea of using it with a testimonial headline.

The bottom line is, this is a "lead generating ad", your own words. You're qualifying them with the prehead so everyone that responds should be a body shop owner or manager.

If you want to protect yourself a little bit, carefully word it they must have a business name & address.

You're getting a lot of good advice here. Believe me, you don't want to run this thing and hear crickets chirping.

Couldn't agree more. You're turning a perfectly good 2 step ad into a pseudo one step ad by requiring the $10 S/H fee. As I see it, you've hardly done an adequate job of selling them on calling for the free report, let alone selling them on paying $10 for it.

Come up with a pithy curiosity and benefit laden headline and a non threatening call to action (such as the 24 hour recorded message as Bruce mentioned). All you want them to do is request the free report (a.k.a. sales piece). Just get them in the funnel.

Otherwise, take out a bigger ad and go for the one step approach.

To everyone -

Thanks for the great advice. I took a long drive tonight (which only cost me about $57 dollars thanks to current gas prices and reflected on what people offered as advice.

1st. I am going to drop the consult and make the report free. I thought the consult would be a benefit but my idea of that and the customers are two different things.

I decided to make the report for a couple of reasons that I'll share here in case anyone has the same problem as I did. If I was going to charge for the report I'd have to hire a call center, get a merchant account, type up a sales script, and an upsell (maybe), etc, etc. Not only would this take time, it would cost me at least as much as the ad, if not more

That just wasn't for me, right now.

So instead I am going to setup an 800 number and a voicemail system (anyone have any suggestions for places that don't cost an arm and a leg, can have a ton of messages, and don't have to sign a long term deal?) because if the ad bombs I can just cancel everything and be out a fraction of the cost of what option 1 would be.

The second fact is if I get a 1% response rate and it cost me $1 to $1.50 per report it would run me the same price to do that free as it would to pay the start up cost for charging. I have enough money to take the initial hit, but my plan better include a start up program to recoup some of that money.

Also in my other business I send out a free promo kit and would never think of charging so why would I do it here.

So below is the reworked ad - complete with a nice testimonial that I wanted in the first ad but couldn't fit in.

I just hope this ad is good enough to stand out in a page of nothing but ads.

In closing I want your opinion on the new ad but I also wanted to thank everyone who took the time out of their day to put their 2 cents in.

I took that advice and here is the result of it -

One more to look at -I added the limit to try and throw a little scarcity into the mix.

I'd lose the $47 value part as well as the first 100 callers limit.

Those things just give people more reasons to be skeptical.

They may start to think..."Why would anyone give away something worth $47?" "Why bother, 100 people have already called?"

You don't want them thinking...you want them dialing.

You simply want to pique their interest to the point they pick up the phone.

Perhaps give the report a title that builds curiosity.

I don't know...maybe the scarcity tactic would work. I'm just not sure it's the best route with a free report. WORTH TESTING I SUPPOSE!

Lance -

You and I must be the only ones on here tonight

As soon as I did that last draft I wasn't happy with it to be honest. The problem with these ads is there is so much to do, you try to do to much (or at least I do). I think I'll keep it simple - qualify the lead, Attention grabbing headline, offer, way to order.

If it bombs I can screw with it then. Here is the final product (so far).

Tim, that's the best one so far IMO. Hope it does well for you. Let us know what your results are.