New and old freight forwarding businesses understand that you cannot sustain your business in this industry without a well-thought-out and practical marketing strategy. And this marketing strategy must be all-inclusive.
You cannot rely only on offline marketing in this digitalized world nor can you stop networking and building relationships and depend solely on digital marketing to keep bringing in business for you. You need to work on both fronts and stand out to sustain your operations and grow.
While offline marketing remains the same over decades, the face of digital marketing is changing for every industry and every business. What’s more challenging is that you must understand the changing rules that apply to your business before others and apply them to remain compatible.
This post will discuss how the basics of digital marketing rules you must abide by to win the marketing game for your business.
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A Complete Plan
Your digital marketing strategy needs to focus on two aspects of generating leads: inbound and outbound. The content you will produce will attract potential clients, gain their trust, answer their questions about freight forwarding, or convert them into your clients.
Of course, content is the prime concern of this strategy but the platform where you will share this content also matters. The funnel to attract adequate business starts with social media. From there, you bring this traffic to your website or blog and serve them offers for their first order or consultation.
Of course, you need to also consider search engine optimization of your content so Google and other search engines can also send some traffic to your website. Get attention from influencers and ask your customers to leave reviews on your online presence to establish your authority and authenticity.
Content
You will need a mix of visual content and text. Videos and images work well for the transport industry and speak about the business’s efficiency and goodwill. Charts and infographics will show the company’s progress and commitment in the past. These content types also give a glimpse into the operations allowing the readers to know what services will be offered.
For example, you can use your content to tell your potential clients your role as a corporate citizenship b telling them how you take up non-skilled labor and train them through LGV theory tests and practice to higher skill levels of sophisticated heavy vehicle driving.
Transport agencies rarely use text-based content for social media content. But you will see that these types will help a lot with the conversion of your readers into customers once they are on your website. Again, add visual content to it to make it more appealing. Some forms of content you will need on your website include blog posts, success stories from customers, and case studies to show how you can customize your services to answer your client’s unique needs.
You will need different types of content for different platforms. For example, social media requires content that is easy and quick to understand. Besides, it should be engaging and entertaining for the readers and viewers.
Social Media
Note that as a B2B business, transport agencies have only selected venues in the arena of social media to use. Although each platform is capable of gathering a few leads for your business, ROI on some platforms will always be lower than others.
Till now, LinkedIn and Instagram have proved to be the best B2B marketing apps. You can add YouTube for a more aggressive approach. Use a mix of organic and paid marketing campaigns by sharing your content as well as boosting the most converting of them as ads on these platforms.
Include your website link in the profile if it's not allowed in the posts you are sharing.
Website
It only takes your potential customer to watch your post on the right to include your business detail in their business contacts. Now, they will check out your profile as soon as the need has arisen for them. Make sure that when they approach you, you have the right material and a welcoming environment to ensure that you’ve got them covered.
Your website needs to be speedy and user-friendly. Make sure that it’s tested for these features as well as ease of navigation and intuitiveness. Plus, the copy you write for your website should match the layout and should include all the important features of your service.
Your blog posts should be relevant and should answer the key concerns of your clients. Also, the contact information should be available on the landing page. A better practice is to use a 24/7 chat service that will reply to your customers’ key concerns and connect them with the right representative for a quote.
Cold Pitching
Another method to reach out to your key customers is by cold pitching. With it, you actively seek out your customers and contact them using email and phone. The best practice is to mix up this strategy with the knowledge-sharing strategy we mentioned above.
Takeaway
This post details the process of digital marketing for transportation businesses. It includes two important aspects of online marketing: inbound and outbound marketing. Understand that whatever route you take, the content remains at the center of any digital marketing strategy.