One of the samples we offer for free on our website is a Review Request Campaign. And there’s a very good reason we chose it as a giveaway. But for you to understand, I need to first tell you a little story…
I have the greatest garage door repair guy in the world. I mean it. He always answers his phone. He makes arrangements to get to your house within 24 hours of your call. His pricing is unbeatable. And he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.
The last time my garage door “broke”, I spent some time talking to this guy about his business. Like most business owners, he’s completely overwhelmed. It’s not easy to offer the services he does (including always answering his phone), complete his work, and drum up new clients.
I told him about Ready To Go Copy and asked him what campaigns would be beneficial to him. His response was this:
“I need reviews. I can’t compete with the big guys in advertising, so I need better reviews than anyone else. The problem is I don’t have very many.”
Knowing people are happy to help – but not likely to do anything unless you ask – I created a Review Request campaign with this man in mind.
There’s only one problem…I doubt he’ll even get around to using it.
You see, in addition to talking about campaigns, I asked him if he ever emailed past customers. He doesn’t. I asked if he collected anyone’s email address. He doesn’t. Then I asked if he would be willing to. He’s not. In his mind, it’s just way too much work to sit down at the end of the day, enter data and send emails.
What he doesn’t realize is that this could all be a very, very simple process. It could be as easy as this:
- He completes a job.
- He says to his customer, “Can I get your email address and I’ll email you your receipt and keep you up to date with special offers?
- He sits in his truck, enters the email address, “tags” his customer as satisfied, and drives away.
The work is done. It took an extra 5 minutes (at most)! But now his system can get to work. An email receipt will be sent to the customer. Two days from now, his happy customer will receive an email requesting a review. Two days later, a reminder about the review will be sent. After that…well the sky is the limit.
In my experience, most of these technician turned business owners have no idea that life can be a lot more simple and business building can be a lot more effective. Sure, it takes a little work to get a marketing automation system up and running. But once it’s done, once the “holes” are filled, businesses can grow.
I’m a huge advocate of automation. Everyone needs it. Those who don’t use it are going to fall far behind their competition. And they’ll never get ahead.
I’m going to spend some time blogging about the importance of automation and how to effectively use it for any business. In the meantime, if you are a service provider who would love to have your customers write you some reviews, then be sure to download our free samples.
Note: the marketing automation system we use is called Infusionsoft. And we highly recommend it to anyone who wants to automate a significant amount of their business.
