marketing Archives

How to Use Email Marketing for Driver Recruitment

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Jake Peters

A truck driver’s email inbox is one of the best places to recruit drivers. However, email marketing is not a walk in the park. Here is how to use email marketing for driver recruitment.

Find an ESP That Best Fits Your Needs
Build a Strong Email List
Segment the Drivers Accordingly
Keep Emails Personal and Entertaining
Create a Pipeline of Top Performing Drivers
Semi-Frequent Job Alerts

Email Marketing Campaign concept. Digital Inbound advertising (useful newsletter, interesting promotional material) or Outbound (cold emails, spam) advertisement business strategy.

Find an ESP That Best Fits Your Needs

ESP stands for Email Service Provider. Email service providers allow companies to send email campaigns to a list of subscribers.

At the most basic level, ESPs do two things: store email addresses and send emails.

In addition to storing email addresses and sending emails, ESPs will help you build segments, create engaging email content, and report campaign performance.

Picking the best email service provider can be a difficult decision. To effectively make the decision you need to figure out what kind of features you are looking for before looking at different ESPs.

Ask yourself:

How much are we willing to pay?
How many people need to access the ESP?
Do we need extensive spam filters?
Do we need an ESP built specifically for trucking companies?
Or can we use any ESP?
How much design help do we need?

The answers to the above questions will help determine the best ESP for your company. It is good to ask these questions so you do not end up with an ESP that has too many features or not enough.

Build a Strong Email List

Your driver recruitment email campaign is only as strong as the list you are sending the emails to. If the drivers on your list are not interacting with the emails then the emails are being wasted.

One of the best strategies to get potential drivers engaging with your emails is to get them to sign up for your emails via different lead generation methods.

These lead generation methods can include:

Offer a joining incentive
Provide a free downloadable resource
Registration for a free webinar.

Another strategy you can use for building your email list is creating a Facebook group for drivers and asking for emails to join the group.

Drivers signing up for your emails are interested in hearing from you. A list of willing participants is more valuable than a list that you purchase from another company.

Segment Drivers Accordingly

Groups of wooden people. The concept of market segmentation. Marketing segmentation, target audience, customer care. Market group of buyers. Customer analysis and customer relationship management

Even though your email list will be composed entirely of truck drivers, that does not mean that they will all want the same content from you.

Your campaigns will see much more engagement if you send drivers relevant content based on their preferences.

For example, if there are drivers on your email list that you have hired recently, and you don’t segment the list, then they are going to become annoyed seeing emails about job openings from the company they work for.

Common segmentation criteria for driver recruiting email include:

Experience level
Certifications
Location
Employment status
Activity level

Segmenting lets you provide drivers with tailor-made content which reduces your unsubscribe rates and increases open rates.

Keep Emails Personal and Entertaining

People do not want to read cookie-cutter emails containing boring content.

Personalized emails have a 29% higher unique open rate and 41% unique click rates than non-personalized emails.

Drivers want engaging content that feels like it was personally made for them. A quick and easy way to make emails feel personalized is to use automation to address readers by their first name.

In addition to using their name, you can send birthday emails, skill-building opportunities, and industry updates for drivers with the same qualifications as the reader.

Create a Pipeline of Top Performing Drivers

As you implement email marketing into your driver recruiting strategy, you are going to hire drivers from your email list.

You need to keep tabs on the drivers you hire and measure their performance. The drivers you hire and are top performers need to be added to a special segment.

Having a pipeline filled with top-performing drivers is a huge asset for your company. Once the pipeline is built out, you will have constant communication with people you know for certain fill your driver criteria.

Even after the drivers leave your company you get to keep recruiting them and hopefully rehire them in the future.

Semi-Frequent Job Alerts

The purpose of the email marketing campaign is to keep drivers engaged with your company. It is not intended to bombard drivers with your open positions.

Your first goal needs to be engagement. Once that has been established you can start sprinkling in job alerts.

However,

Make sure that the alerts you are sending match the segments you send them to. If the position you are hiring for requires certain endorsements then only send that segments of drivers you know have the necessary endorsements.

Make sure you are only sending job alerts a couple of times a month. Do not overwhelm drivers on your email list. Doing so will result in drivers unsubscribing from your emails.

Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective recruiting strategies. Once your company nails the process, you have a direct line of communication with truck drivers. Follow this guide and begin email marketing for driver recruitment.

The Basics of Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Posted on November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 by Jake Peters

Social media marketing has become more popular than television advertising for businesses. However, there are not many resources that teach transportation companies how to market their company on social media. Follow this guide to learn the basics of social media marketing for trucking companies.

Start With Facebook and Expand to Other Platforms

Facebook is by far the most useful social media platform for trucking companies. The platform provides carriers with the ability to post multiple forms of content that share the company’s story.

Other platforms (Instagram, Twitter,etc.) all specialize in one area of content. Instagram is for visual content. Twitter is for short-form written content. If you start on a platform other than Facebook then you will limit the amount of content you can create.

Here is the real benefit to Facebook:

Facebook is a top-three cost-per-hire driver recruiting strategy.

By effectively marketing your company on Facebook, you will attract quality drivers to apply for your company. Considering that over 96% of professional drivers have a Facebook account, the pool of drivers using Facebook will never run dry.

Truck drivers that are interested in working for your company, no matter where they are exposed to your company, will search for your company on Facebook. They want to know what it is like to work for you before they apply.

Facebook is the most important platform when it comes to social media marketing for trucking companies. Starting on the platform will enable you to effectively tell your company’s story and recruit truck drivers.

Build Your Company Page

Now that you have decided to begin your social media marketing campaign on Facebook, you need to build your company page. This is the page that drivers will land on when they search for your company.

Visit this link to get started building your page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create

Facebook does an excellent job of walking you through each step of the process. It will be clear what information is needed for the page and what content you need to publish.

However, certain strategies will further optimize your page.

To have an optimized Facebook page you need to keep things as simple as possible. Instead of describing your company in length with words, use pictures.

Keep your company description succinct and make sure that you link to your company website.

Join the Right Groups With Your Page

After you finish creating your company page you can join Facebook groups with your page. You do not need to join the groups with your personal account.

Go to the search feature on Facebook, type in “ trucking”, and filter to only see groups. You will quickly realize there are thousands of trucking-related groups across the country.

Go through all of the groups and join the ones that make sense for your company to join.

When you join a new group make sure to read the group rules so you can avoid being kicked out of any of the groups you join.

Creating Content for Social Media

For a more in-depth content creation guide check out this article: https://driveteks.com/guide-to-content-creation-for-driver-recruitment/

Content creation is what will motivate drivers to learn more about your company and potentially apply to drive for you.

You need to create content that people can read, photos/infographics, and videos. Creating different forms of content allows drivers to engage with your company any way they wish.

Not all of the content you create should be sales content. You need to create content that your target market will find interesting. Your content will lure people to your page and/or website where they will then consume your sales content.

Gathering Followers

The more followers you have the better. Your published content will reach more eyes for free as your following grows.

As you publish your content keep track of which people are interacting with it. These are the people that will be most likely to follow you. You should reach out to them and encourage them to follow your page.

Another great way to grow your following is by highlighting individuals that work for or with your company in an occasional post. The individuals you highlight will want to share the post about themselves and will expose you to all of their friends.

Finally, you should ask your current employees to follow your company.

Paid Advertising

Doing everything above will help your company get started on social media; however, to experience success you need to implement paid advertising.

Each of the social media platforms makes large sums of money from ad-buying. Because of this, their algorithms are built so that companies have a limited reach with free posting. They have built a product that requires paying for a large amount of exposure.

Paid advertising on social media is a complicated process. If you do not do it properly, your company will waste their money on an inefficient campaign. Done the right way, a paid advertising campaign will boost your web presence which increases site traffic and drive applications.

It is recommended you hire a professional to handle the campaign due to the complications of paid advertising.

Social media marketing is a necessary element of any business marketing strategy. Trucking companies need to take a different approach than other industries because of the nature of the industry. Follow this guide and you will cover all the basics of social media marketing for trucking companies.

7 Tricks to Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Jake Peters

Social media marketing can be one of the most beneficial forms of marketing for your company. The highest performing trucking companies have figured out that, when done properly, social media boosts recruiting and generates business. Follow these 7 tricks and you will be on your way to social media marketing for trucking companies.

7 Tricks to Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Develop a Strong Company Mission
Spotlight Drivers and Customers
Testimonials That Earn Trust
Cross Platform Promotion
Leverage Communities
Specific Platforms Require Specific Posts
Geofencing, Paid Media, and Other Tech

Develop a Strong Company Mission

Having a strong and authentic company mission is one of the best ways for your messaging to strike a chord with your audience.

Another way to look at your company mission is to think of it as your “Why”. It is why you exist to do business. Potential clients or drivers with personal “Why’s” that align with your company “Why” become loyal supporters.

Once you have developed your company mission, broadcast it to all of your followers across all the social media platforms. And NEVER post something that contradicts your mission.

For example, C.R. England’s mission is,

“Our mission is to deliver excellence to our team members and customers.”

When you look at C.R. England’s social media accounts, they are constantly promoting their awards and overachieving team members. They make sure to go out of their way to make it appear as if working for/with C.R. England is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Spotlight Drivers and Customers

Everybody loves to be acknowledged for their hard work. Each month your company needs to take one day to highlight a high performing driver. Once a quarter your company needs to take one day to highlight one of your clients.

Spotlighting drivers and customers helps your social presence in two major ways.

The first is that it makes your company come off as an enjoyable company to work with/for. Potential drivers will see your posts and want to work for someone who recognizes them. Potential clients will want to work with you because it looks like an enjoyable experience.

The second reason you must spotlight drivers and clients is because it broadens your audience. The drivers you spotlight will share your posts and everyone within their personal network will be exposed to your company. Your clients will also share your post about them which exposes you to all of their professional network.

Spotlighting your company’s drivers and clients attracts more people to work with you and expands your audience.

Testimonials That Earn Trust

Testimonials are one of the most influential pieces of content you can produce. It is one thing for the company to sing its own praises. But it is a completely different thing when other people sing the praises of your company.

Drivers do not fully trust employers; however, they really trust each other. Getting your drivers to discuss how much they enjoy working for you will go a long way in boosting your recruiting efforts.

Potential clients will not fully trust your sales people because they know they have ulterior motives. Seeing other companies talk about enjoying work with your company may be the final piece of content they need to trust your sales people.

Cross Platform Promotion

Each of your social media accounts across all the platforms will have different followers. This can be used to your advantage.

Make it a common occurrence to mention your other accounts on each of the platforms you post on.

For example, you should be posting your Youtube videos to your Twitter account, and on Linkedin post about all the success you are seeing on Facebook.

Doing this will remind people that follow you on one account to go follow you elsewhere. This grows your followers on all platforms.

Leverage Communities on Social Media

One of the best things about social media is that it is filled with groups of people that match your target market. Before you have a single follower, you can post in these groups and reach the people you want to.

If you are looking to hire more drivers, there are groups dedicated specifically to that. If you are looking to connect with brokers, there are groups dedicated specifically to that. There are even social media groups that connect trucking recruiters with each other.

As you begin building your social presence, the first thing you should do is join groups within your target market. Interact with the people in this group and post meaningful content. This will help grow your social media following.

Specific Platforms Require Specific Posts

Creating content can be an exhausting task. Because of this, it is very tempting to post the same piece of content across all platforms.

Do NOT post the same content across all platforms. Each social media platform was built to highlight different types of posts.

Instagram is a very visual platform. Post more photos and videos here and less words. Linkedin on the other hand, is a great place for long form posts that establish your company as a thought leader.

Each time you go to post, make sure you are conscientious of the type of content you are publishing to which platform.

Geofencing, Paid Media, and Other Tech

It is possible to grow your social media presence organically; however, it takes a large amount of time and effort.

Properly using tools that cost little money can kick start your business’ social presence.

Geofencing will place ads for your company in front of people that are physically located in your desired area. PPC advertising will place your ads in front of the people that match your desired characteristics.

In today’s world, social media marketing is a necessary element of good business. Social media is the best way to boost recruiting efforts and generate business. Improve your company’s social presence by following these 7 tricks to social media marketing for trucking companies.