Issue #17: Marketing and Brand Identity in the Freight Industry
Marketing can be hit or miss for companies in the freight industry. Most companies focus on shipper acquisition, ignoring carriers and potential employees.
Marketing can be a hot topic in this industry. It generally seems like people have polarizing opinions on it, either they think it’s the key to their success or that think it’s completely useless. I rarely come across someone who feels like they’re in the middle on the topic. Everyone in the industry has different layers to how they think about their brand.
Shippers will get better pricing if their freight is perceived as more appealing to providers. Their brand within the industry is very different than the brand they aim to present to their end customers, typically consumers. Some shippers are known as being price sensitive, others are known as being tech-forward, some win prestigious “shipper of choice” awards.
Brokers are marketing their various service offerings to shippers, they offer their benefits to carriers, and they offer a fun workplace to prospective employees. Some brokers include their tech in their service offerings, or they embed it in their overall service offering. The reality, though, is that effort goes into different audiences at different levels. And oftentimes, you come across the same stock images of European trucks in the mountains.
Carriers, meanwhile, seem to spend the least time focused on their branding. Yes, there are some carriers who invest a bit more in their marketing, whether it’s their website or their social media presence, but there’s a lot of carriers with a very limited online presence. When I search for a random carrier, it’s more often that I find their CarrierSource profile than I find a website (if you’re a carrier, I strongly suggest claiming your profile). I think this boils down to these carriers having a small set of customers (likely a combination of shippers and brokers) that keep their trucks moving. The owner is typically the main salesperson for smaller companies, and you might find a Facebook profile for them, but not likely a website or LinkedIn profile.
Personally, I think marketing can be everything for a business. I write this with my untrained experience involved in marketing. Marketing is the voice of the company, it’s the content and communication that the company shares, it’s the logo and the way it’s used, it’s the way that the overall company, its leaders and its services are portrayed to the rest of the industry.
Your business can have a voice that is typically a representation of the founder/CEO and/or the marketing leader that helps breathe life into it. A fun brand can attract the right talent or the right customers. A forward-thinking company pulls customers in who share similar perspectives. Establish credible thought leadership by sharing deep content that people can learn from and share with their networks. Document and share experiences that others relate to and it’s likelier that they’ll become fans of your product.
Yes, you need a great product and a great business. You need to make money. Marketing does not cure everything. We’ve seen that in the freight industry. You need sound unit economics and a business plan that generates value. But, marketing can be a force multiplier if you invest in it correctly.
I've been enjoying all of your newsletters recently, particularly your deep dive expertise on cross-border freight, so I figure I'll return the favor a bit with some insight from my marketing side of the fence on this one! I've been working with a variety of carriers, logistics and technology brands over the last decade and the interesting thing about carriers is that the vast majority of that time they've solely had to focus marketing on driver recruitment. Their sales efforts were even inherently limited by their ability to recruit and retain drivers so as a result I have also noticed very slow adoption of technology and digital efforts at sales enablement in that world as a result. Not to say there aren't industry leaders out there, but they're certainly not the norm! The other funny thing is that if you turn to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and even X there are a ton of owner operators and 2-5 truck carriers out there marketing themselves really well, but they're often marketing themselves as entrepreneurs selling business courses or pursuing brand deals as influencers vs. truly using those channels to grow their transportation businesses. It's interesting now in a down market to see two stories unfolding: companies perhaps realizing they should have been marketing all along (or that they need to double down) and companies cutting all efforts as they struggle to stay afloat. I certainly get the latter one, when you need to make payroll sometimes things that aren't essential "have to go," but I know from experience that marketing doesn't inherently have to be expensive to be successful! Anyhow, thanks for giving us marketing folks a shout out, and for the chuckle with that graphic sitting on top of your line about "stock images of European trucks in the mountains!"
Well said, Matt!!