What do you want to accomplish through marketing? Better yet, what do you need to accomplish? And, when? (Most need their marketing done yesterday.) Whether you are a small or large fleet owner or a salesperson providing products or services to the trucking industry, most marketing goals fall into one of the following categories:
- Engage existing customers
- Engage potential customers
- Create (and sustain) awareness
- Your brand (aka knowing who you are and what you do)
Start marketing today! Focus on your resources. Most require only a phone or computer.
Engage existing customers. The longer you retain a customer, the more the company benefits. They save you money in some ways and increase revenue in other ways! Existing customers are 50% more likely to buy new products from you, and they spend 33% more money with you than new customers spend. Plus, existing customers tell others about your company (and you should consider this free marketing!).- Remember you have external and internal customers. All are important and require customized solutions. Communication is an easy example: companies should communicate differently with customers than with professional drivers. Both should be meaningfully engaged. One is an external customer and the other an internal customer.
- It costs an average of five times less to keep an existing client than to find a new one. How do you make the most of your relationships with existing customers?
- Figure out where your customers are – physically and online. Use this information to make better choices involving them.
- Communicate with them in ways they prefer to communicate. If you have fewer resources, select one and do it right and well.
- One idea for external customers is a periodic newsletter including client pictures, the newest product, and interesting information (about the industry, community, company, or employees).
- Another idea, especially for internal customers (your employees), is texting. Text them your latest company news. And most importantly, reply when they ask questions!
- Invite your clients to engage further with your company.
- Interview them on your podcast.
- Ask for a testimonial to include on your website.
- Grow the relationship by calling your client just to say hi!
- Engage potential customers. People are always looking for a better experience or deal. New customers mean new revenue – a crucial component for building a business. New customers remind a company what customers need and respond to. Then after you successfully attract each new customer, retain them!
- You know where your existing customers are – physically and online. Next, determine where your potential customers are. Are they in specific zip codes? Part of a certain Facebook Group?
- Visit potential customers. Talk. Listen. Leave something with them to remember you.
- Provide industry and company information to the Facebook Group. Benefit them, and they’ll benefit you.
- Offer a discount to first-time customers. Get them in the door, ensure their first experience is outstanding, then engage them as existing customers. They’ll look forward to returning to your company!
- Be the industry expert you are! Provide educational content in a way that makes sense for your company – via social media, a podcast, a blog, a monthly news piece staff share with potential clients, etc. In time, potential clients will think of you as a resource and will engage with you intentionally.
- You know where your existing customers are – physically and online. Next, determine where your potential customers are. Are they in specific zip codes? Part of a certain Facebook Group?
- Create (and sustain) awareness. They can’t buy from you if they don’t remember you. You probably remember the old wives’ tale of the Rule of 7…of their need to hear a message seven times to remember it. Repetition has always been key. Yet today, people see approximately 5,000 ads every day! That means you need to cut through 5,000 ads! To combat this, one current recommendation is for a message to be heard between 10 and 20 times to be remembered. Repetition is more needed than ever. Then, once you get on their radar, stay there!
- Existing clients: Highlight them in your social media, newsletter, and/or on your countertop! How? Take a picture of them buying the product or receiving (or benefitting from) the service.
- Potential clients: Engage in a Facebook Group of potential clients, interview on someone else’s podcast, and/or call and meet them in person!
- With your community: Do something! Does a school need two volunteers a month to move things around? Does a little league team need volunteers for a day for a special event? Does a nonprofit need meeting space? Be engaged with your community to build awareness and create long-lasting goodwill.
- Your brand (aka knowing who you are and what you do). When you have a clear brand, clients are more likely to understand your company, its products, services, and their experiences with you. When clients receive the same, consistent messaging and experience of your company through its office employees, front-line providers, and even your trucks and paperwork, the more easily they hear your message of new products or services! Consistently presenting a brand across company platforms can increase revenue up to 23%! Plus, branding is now part of Google’s ranking formula, incorporating expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in search results.
- Ask existing and potential customers what they need or want. Ask, then listen. “Double-click” on an issue particularly important to the customer by asking questions to find out more. Do this informally over the phone or formally in a focus group.
- Proudly compare your company to competitors. What makes you different? Is it a product or brand you sell? Or, rather the feeling people get when they walk in your door? That difference is why potential and existing customers choose you! Talk about it.
- Practice introducing your company to a stranger. Perfect your message.
- Then, train all employees at every level to say the same thing! Allow them space to personalize it for themselves, but make sure it’s manager-approved.
- Repeat the new messaging everywhere and with everyone.
You should already have several practical marketing tools in place as you add the above. If you already do them, great! Continue them each day. (Yes, really, every day.) If you don’t have any of the following yet, start today with just one at a time. In time, you’ll build your own successful marketing department!
- Use truck load boards. (Remember they won’t use your services if they don’t think about you!)
- Participate in trade industry associations, specifically GMTA!
- Attend GMTA events.
- Place ads in GMTA publications.
- Buy/sell first within GMTA.
- Have and offer incentives – coupons, gifts (company merchandise), discounts.
- Have a website, even if you don’t think you need it. (It makes it easier for potential customers to find and learn about you.)
You already know more than you may have thought. Companies of every size can accomplish the above four goals in different ways. By implementing the above specifics, you achieve your goals and are current with this year’s trends:
- Clients want to be informed and knowledgeable about the company
- Personalization
- Conversational marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Social media stories
- Content marketing
- Omnichannel marketing
- Predictive analytics
- Geo-fencing
- User-generated content
The Consultancy is a new GMTA Affiliate Member. It provides marketing, sales, and communications services. Save yourself time. Allow The Consultancy to do the work for you or to teach you to do it. Schedule a time to talk with your Consultancy Representative at your convenience.
www.fortheconsultancy.com
