How to Write Blogs that People Will Actually Read and Share

Blogging is one of the most underutilized inbound marketing strategies within the automotive industry today. There are very few dealers who are doing it, and those that are, use it as another way to promote vehicles.

Outside of the automotive industry, blogging is still one of the most effective organic, inbound marketing activities for the world’s top online marketers. There is real ROI that can be sourced to blogging when it’s done the right way.

Sadly, it can be overwhelming to get started. Not knowing what to write about, or how to stay consistent usually gets the best of us and we put blogging on the shelf.

I know because I’ve been there. I’ve spent hours in front of a blank word processor just letting the blinking cursor taunt me. I’ve put blogging on the shelf more than once.

Looking back, I share the same regret as other top online marketers. We wish we would have started blogging sooner. It has had a tremendous positive impact on my business, has increased my reach and has helped separate my company from the competition in many ways.

But enough about me, let’s talk about you. You have an incredible opportunity to differentiate in your marketplace. You can become the credible authority. You can build relationships of trust through blogging for your dealership.

Acknowledging some of the reasons why you might be hesitant to dive in, let’s explore some of the elements of blogging that work extremely well for myself and others.

1. Know Your Audience

Something businesses traditionally struggle with is trying to go broad with their messaging. To be effective at marketing your store or brand, you need to focus on being valuable to somebody, not worthless to everybody.

Most dealers view their customer base as, “People who purchase vehicles”. Your market runs deeper than that, though. There are more segments involved, not just “people who purchase vehicles”.

They are seniors and young families, students and civil servants, construction workers and minorities. Each segment of consumers have specific needs and wants. Each vehicle you sell can solve those specific needs.

Rather than trying to address the needs of every consumer at once, get specific. Blog about a topic that only one or two would find interesting.

2. Write Compelling Headlines

If you want people to click on your blog posts, write a compelling headline. Headlines are much like email subject lines. If they suck, it doesn’t matter if you wrote the best content of your life, it won’t get read.

Instead of writing a blog post titled, “Check out our 2015 Honda Odyssey” (which I’ve seen more times than I care to admit), try going with something like, “The top 5 Reasons Why Young Families Prefer the Honda Odyssey”.

One of those two headlines will garner more clicks. The other will get passed over completely.

Focus on creating headlines that stand out.

3. Provide Transparent, Valuable Content

Your content should never be a sales pitch. It should enrich and enhance someone’s life.

As I mentioned, you need to be valuable to somebody, not worthless to everybody. The content is not about you. It’s about people. People that are searching for answers and solutions.

When the content of your blogs is open and transparent; when the aim is to help provide a solution for someone, you become the credible source of information.

You will forever own the relationship of providing reliable information, and the market will begin to trust you.

If you’re going to write a post about how the “Honda Odyssey is preferred by young families,” have legitimate reasons to back up the claim. Don’t just spout off about how your dealership is better than everyone else because that’s not what readers clicked to learn about.

When readers find your content helpful, it encourages them to share it.

4. Save Time by Repurposing Your Content

Trying to come up with fresh new content can be extremely overwhelming. If that’s what you’re currently doing, I sympathize with how stressful it must be to try and remain consistent.

You can save a load of time by repurposing your content. Repurposing is a simple strategy that I use to take one piece of content and turn it into many.

Here’s an example of how it works:

Recently I wrote an article titled “The 19 Best Content Marketing YouTube Videos.” In that article, I included (as the title suggests) links to the 19 Best Content Marketing YouTube Videos.

From there, I wrote a repurposed post for my agency titled, “What Wikipedia Can’t Teach Your About Blogging.” I took 5 of the 19 Videos and included them in this post.

Moving on, I wrote another repurposed post for Medium titled, “If You Can Only Write One Type Of Blog Post, Make It This One.” In this post, I included 1 of the five videos from my previous post.

Each post came with its own Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram post. I was also able to get subject matter for a live Periscope broadcast.

To sum up every piece of repurposed content, I was able to get three blog posts, 9 Social posts, and a live broadcast. ALL from one blog.

I actively use each of these blogging tips to produce blog posts that people will actually read and share. They work extremely well during the creation process and can help your store rise above the clutter and THRIVE online.