One of the greatest call-to-action questions ever asked is, “Will you marry me?”

For most men who have asked this question, the answer has been yes. Yet some men – and women, these days — never seem to close the deal, waffling between trial closes and broad open-ended questions, never getting to the real question.

Friend with benefits may be OK for you, but in the car business, the goal is to sell cars and service and that’s something you often must explicitly ask the customer for, as in, “you like the vehicle, you selected the color and your credit is great. So if you’ll sign here, I can have you on your way in your new car quickly.”

Closes like this can work great in the showroom, but lacking face-to-face interaction when customers shop your vehicles on line, you need other ways to move the shopper to close. You need call-to-action tools for your website and online inventory marketing.

Create your own “calls to action” tools for generating immediate leads from your online vehicle inventory and create the kind of offers and visually compelling presentations that set your online listings apart from all the rest.

To utilize these tools, be sure to feature them prominently in all online inventory listings. These tools should display prominently on your listings – including your website inventory pages – to entice shoppers to click through for special offers and/or connect with your dealership.

Here are five hot call-to-action online sales tools:

1.    Make an Offer – a direct e-mail lead into your dealership

2.    Name Your Payment – a direct e-mail lead into your dealership

3.    Value My Trade – customer form becomes automated e-mail into your dealership

4.    Bargain Button – cause a special incentive offer to pop up

5.    Contact at Once Button – create urgency and links to preferred dealership contact via e-mail, smartphone or combination to ensure the fastest response to requests.

I was always instructed to “Ask for the business.” In the impersonal virtual world, call-to-action tools like these help you move shoppers’ distant relationship with you closer and more intimately so you can engage them in dialog leading to their signature on the bottom line.