If you’ve just launched a new website for your automotive business- congratulations! You’re taking the first steps towards growing your business.

In these circumstances, sometimes you might feel like you’ve got website visitors and new people coming around your shop- but that they’re not becoming customers as quickly as you’d like. So how do you get them to become customers? You need to persuade these people, both online and off, that you’re the shop for the job and that they can trust you.

There are some techniques you can use to nudge those visitors who are considering you, further down the line and closer to a sale:

• Congruence

Create a flow on your website for visitors to follow. Starting at your homepage, visitors are encouraged to keep clicking on strategically placed links and buttons, wanting to learn more, until they find themselves setting up an appointment online or picking up the phone to call you.

You can do this by placing lots of “call to action” buttons and links that appeal to what the user is reading or looking at, and leads to a service offer or reason to contact you right away. You really want to make customers feel a need – a need that they should contact you right away.

• Scarcity

Show how special you are by highlighting what you have or can do, that other shops can’t. If you have a nice, top-of-the-line equipment that no one else does, it’s time to tell them about it, and show that off. This gives you a sense of speciality in your knowledge and equipment that most customers can’t resist. It really inspires trust.

• Social Influence

Subconciously, everyone has the need for acceptance and wants to be liked and respected. They can get this feeling of acceptance even by association. Showcase big name affiliations you are associated with or local community organizations you’re a part of. Also have great testimonials you’ve received right on your website- this gives those “on the fence” customers the extra push they need by showing how liked and respected you are, both by other customers, your community and professional affiliations.

• The Friendliness Factor

Especially when people are visiting your website, they need to see that you’re a real shop, with real people working in it. Be sure to include photos of your team, both together and at work around the shop, even when they’re taking care of customers. This gives visitors a mental picture of what experience they can expect when they come in to your shop, and makes them feel more comfortable about going into a shop they’ve never been to before. Even posting a picture of your shop dog subconsciously gives visitors a sense that you’re a loyal person, and can inspire them to be loyal to you too!

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