Marketing can be hit or miss for companies in the freight industry. Most companies focus on shipper acquisition, ignoring carriers and potential employees.
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!"
Agreed carriers spend a ton of time on driver recruitment and retention. All I hear about is driver turnover continuing to be through the roof. I assume those numbers are a bit skewed but also get why it happens so frequently. It's hard juggling all these different components of being a trucking company so something falls by the wayside, and it ends up being marketing and customer acquisition.
RE: the influencers - I'm excited to see where that goes. I've long been in Rate Per Mile Masters Facebook group and, while Chad isn't an influencer the same way some drivers are on TikTok, he definitely commands an audience and seems to be monetizing it through partnerships.
Marketing can be so much more impactful from a cost perspective than having one extra expensive salesperson!
Hear hear! As always, your perspective is nuanced and practical. The inclusion of the importance of marketing for recruiting success in our space is spot-on. Nicely put, Matt.
From what I’ve seen, the main challenge for many that are underinvested is understanding that even though a business relies on logic and data to run (something that people in the freight industry know all too well), the very process of selling relies on emotion. There are countless studies on this. By some measures, up to 87% of B2B decisions are made immediately and emotionally, and before anyone is contacted. (And then, the decision is rationalized.) In short, when you apply marketing, in the right way and time, you’re taking advantage of cognitive bias and accelerating sales. This is something that Behavioral Economics has been proving for many years. (And Alan Greenspan famously concluded after his retirement.)
After working in the transportation and supply chain spaces for almost two decades, I’m really excited to see our collective industries embrace marketing successfully and more holistically. It’s voices like yours that are empowering the next generation of leaders.
(I’m typing while traveling from my phone, so apologies for errors.)
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!"
Thank you for this comment! So much to dive into.
Agreed carriers spend a ton of time on driver recruitment and retention. All I hear about is driver turnover continuing to be through the roof. I assume those numbers are a bit skewed but also get why it happens so frequently. It's hard juggling all these different components of being a trucking company so something falls by the wayside, and it ends up being marketing and customer acquisition.
RE: the influencers - I'm excited to see where that goes. I've long been in Rate Per Mile Masters Facebook group and, while Chad isn't an influencer the same way some drivers are on TikTok, he definitely commands an audience and seems to be monetizing it through partnerships.
Marketing can be so much more impactful from a cost perspective than having one extra expensive salesperson!
Well said, Matt!!
Hear hear! As always, your perspective is nuanced and practical. The inclusion of the importance of marketing for recruiting success in our space is spot-on. Nicely put, Matt.
From what I’ve seen, the main challenge for many that are underinvested is understanding that even though a business relies on logic and data to run (something that people in the freight industry know all too well), the very process of selling relies on emotion. There are countless studies on this. By some measures, up to 87% of B2B decisions are made immediately and emotionally, and before anyone is contacted. (And then, the decision is rationalized.) In short, when you apply marketing, in the right way and time, you’re taking advantage of cognitive bias and accelerating sales. This is something that Behavioral Economics has been proving for many years. (And Alan Greenspan famously concluded after his retirement.)
After working in the transportation and supply chain spaces for almost two decades, I’m really excited to see our collective industries embrace marketing successfully and more holistically. It’s voices like yours that are empowering the next generation of leaders.
(I’m typing while traveling from my phone, so apologies for errors.)