How To Create The Best Offer For Your Auto Repair Clients

[Ron Ipach]

Maybe this has happened to a number of you auto repair shop owners out there… you put together an offer to send to your prospects and clients. Not just any offer, I mean a really, really killer, can’t-miss deal like "$50 off any service that you perform." Now you know that there will be skeptics out there looking for the hidden strings, so you announce that there is no minimum purchase required and no restrictions on what they can buy. And to prove that you won’t jack up the price first and then take the $50 off the total later, you tell them not to produce the coupon until after they’ve been presented with the bill. Oh, and for the icing on the cake, you offer a 100% refund if they aren’t totally thrilled with their experience with your auto repair shop.

The timing is right. Folks are always looking for the good deal. They need what you are offering. You send your no-fail offer to the right list of folks, and then you get ready for the bundles of people beating a path to your door… but they never come. What the heck happened? Did you miss something? Was the offer too good to be true? Wouldn’t you just love to ask every one of them why they didn’t take you up on your offer?

Even the most experienced of marketers aren’t immune to this phenomenon to a certain degree. A couple years ago, I offered to give away copies of a brand-new marketing course to the first 200 shop owners that wanted them. The offer was (I thought?) brain-dead simple. Invest $197 to get the course. Take 60 days to go through the course then call my office and get all of your money back. (WOW!) I also added a 30-day, no-excuses needed, 100% money back guarantee too. And to cover what I thought was the final hurdle, I assured everyone that there were no more payments and nothing else to buy.

While I still ended up doing very well with this campaign, even though I was a bit short of my goal of 200. What went wrong? Was the offer too good to be true? Was it too complicated? Did I miss something?

The point of today’s message isn’t to commiserate about the lack of response to our advertising efforts. Nope, it’s to tell you about a free online site called Survey Monkey that we can use to help us find out where we went wrong with our offers. With Survey Monkey we can set up a quick 2-minute survey and ask our prospects why they didn’t respond. And then, based on their answers, hopefully we’ll be able to craft or edit existing offers that will get a much better response the next time.

Because I was able to survey clients who the deal was offered to, I was able to improve upon my course offer and fill the last few spots to hit my 200 goal.

Hopefully if your shop can start surveying clients and prospects more often, you'll have a better handle on what they want and what offers will get them more excited.

- Ron Ipach (a.k.a. Captain Car Count)

• President/Founder of Repair Shop Coach
• More articles and content like this and originated through Ron Ipach's Car Count Daily campaign
• Auto Repair Shop Owners, Managers, and Automotive Industry Professionals are invited to join 'Car Count Daily Boosters' LinkedIn group to provide resources and gain insight on boosting car count DAILY and filling up the bays in their shops.

[mmotley]

*wrong topic

Edited June 13, 2017 by mmotley

[TheTrustedMechanic]

I think I initially responded to the offer you are talking about.  I was VERY quickly put off by the HARD sell tactics.  Overwhelming email solicitations (you'd call them "follow-ups" I call them SPAM).  If I am remembering the correct scam (there's so many out there) it was clear that the offer was promising the moon but not even willing to provide the telescope without BUYING on-going "coaching."  My BS detector went off very quickly that the offer was NOTHING but a thinly disguised sales pitch to sell continuing coaching, NOT a clear, concise self-contained course.  I don't remember the exact offer with complete certainty but I do remember it was from you and I do remember why I was put off and didn't follow through.

 

Oh, and by the way, there may be enough people to make you think SurveyMonkey works but I know I'm not alone.  The very offer of "Take our survey and be entered to win a gift card" SCREAMS that my time is of no value to the organization that is asking me to give them something they DO NOT VALUE, my time.  If you want my time, if you want my opinion, what is in it for me?  A "chance to win" is a definite LOSER proposition for all but one, and I'm never the one, not to mention that the $25 gift card for 100-1000 surveys to those of us who are smart enough to use our brains understand that you DO NOT VALUE us or care enough about our opinions to put any effort into it except what is in it for you.

 

I'm sorry to be critical, but I'm just telling you how I see it.  And like I said, I know I am not alone.