He ran out to the lot and climbed into his rig
And drove off without tightening down
It was a terrible thing
To see what remained of the rig that poor Danny was in
- Truck Stop Girl – Little Feat
So say you’ve gone, smashed up your ride and now you need to get some repair work done…..in Tulsa……….cuz dat be where ya live!
Considering you don’t know much about collision repair since you are Doctor of Veterinary medicine and you are pretty sure you can’t fix your car like you can a sick horse, after the tow truck driver drops you off at home, you perambulate (that means walk) over to the computer and do a quick search for repair shops for collision repair shops in Tulsa…maybe like this………”collision repair tulsa oklahoma”
Now, let’s take a step back for a minute to really get ourselves into the head space of someone who just trashed their car. In addition to being a big ticket, this is also an non-routine transaction for most people (unless you drive NASCAR on the weekends), so there are going to be lots of questions (costs, insurance, warranty, reliability, resale etc) and trust issues on the part of prospects. That means it’s an excellent opportunity for companies in the collision repair space to use the Internet to develop some trust by answering some of these questions and get some customer contact information in the process.
If you happen to run a collision shop, think of all the questions you answer with each new customer. I am willing to bet my last Fram Oil Filter that 70% of customers ask the same questions over and over and over again. I am also willing to wager that once you answer these questions properly, you find the customers start to trust you a bit……..so let’s see if we can save you some time while pulling in new prospects to your shop.
So looking at the PPC ads, do you see any that might even indicate to prospects that you can help them answer their pre purchase questions (otherwise known as research). Here are the ads? Do any make you want to respond. Remember the Internet is a direct response medium. Your goal is to get people to respond to you. To raise their hands and say “Dude, I just trashed my car!!!!”
Well, since we aren’t sitting in a classroom at the moment and no one has developed reliable ESP technology yet (I would probably be in jail already for thought crimes if they had). How do you tell if someone has raised their hand (I’m actually sitting here naked with both my hands up, but you can’t see). So how do you do this?……..
…………….
Give up?
You do it by getting someone to give you an email address. This requires a somewhat inspiring PPC ad. Look at those ads above? Do any of them look inspiring? Do any of them say “Ya, man I know you smashed up your ride. Here is what you need to know before you get it fixed.”
In fact, if I was writing these ads, here is what I would write:
This ad would then link to a landing page where I would offer the free guide book in exchange for contact information. This guide book would answer all the typical questions that you usually answer during your first meeting with the client. This builds trust and saves you time because you have voluntarily educated the prospect before hand. I would then follow up with the person via email with helpful tips and phone call to find out about the accident. Obviously, this is a quick conversion set up. Most people don’t let their cars sit broken for too long, but you get the idea.
So let’s see how our shops in the Tulsa market handle the post click process. Do any of them attempt to actively capture prospects? (click to blow up the image)
I’ve thrown the landing pages in to one big collage, but as you can see none of them bother to use their websites to build a relationship….they all just scream……….BUY BUY BUY while people who look at the website just say BYE BYE BYE…. not a single one of them attempts to build a relationship with prospects. They all just brag about their work, or how long they have been in business.
They all completely ignore the fact that most people have questions that need answering and on the Internet, the best way to turn prospects into customers is by answering questions, not by having your name posted on zillion useless directory sites.