Tag: trucking

7 Questions Trucking Companies Must Ask About an Applicant Tracking System

Posted on by Jake Peters

Small carriers may be able to operate and recruit truck drivers without an ATS. However, as companies grow to be mid-sized and beyond they need to purchase an ATS to manage their driver applications. Here are the 7 questions trucking companies must ask about an applicant tracking system.

7 questions to ask:

  1. What is the Price of This System?
  2. Can You Use it to Contact Potential Truck Drivers?
  3. Will you be Able to Speed up Your Process? 
  4. How Easy is it to Use?
  5. Does the ATS Provide any other Tools?
  6. Can You Easily Visualize Past Data?
  7. Can Your Driver Recruiting Agency Send Leads to the ATS?

What is the Price of This System?

Service price symbol. Hand turns a cube and changes the words 'service' to 'price'. Beautiful orange background. Business and service price concept

This question may be the most obvious of all seven questions. Of course, you are going to try and figure out the price of any new system you need to purchase.

However,

There are many different pricing models used by companies. Pricing models include:

  • Cost per user
  • Cost per number of employees
  • Cost per hire
  • Cost per feature
  • A flat fee charged either monthly, quarterly, or yearly

Before you sign any contract, make sure to read the fine print. Some companies are going to try and charge you for things like support and employee training.

Can You Use it to Contact Potential Truck Drivers?

If the answer to this question is “no”, then you need to find another ATS.

Being able to communicate with truck driver applicants via the ATS makes the process significantly easier. Things like unread emails and missed phone calls will be reduced significantly if you can communicate through your ATS

Also, being able to contact drivers through the ATS is going to allow you to reduce the time from application to first contact. The moment the application hits your ATS you will be able to call the truck driver.

The faster you can call driver applicants, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Will you be Able to Speed up Your Process?

In addition to speeding up your time to contact new applicants, your ATS needs to speed up the other steps of your process.

The ATS needs to allow you to collect and file paperwork, collaborate with fellow recruiters, keep the driver informed, and facilitate background checks.

How Easy is it to Use?

make it easy banner. make it easy speech bubble. make it easy sign

An applicant tracking system is not good if none of the employees in the company know how to use it.

Also, keep in mind that some companies may charge you for company training sessions. So if you purchase an ATS that is too complicated and you need multiple training sessions, it can become quite expensive.

On the flip side of that, an ATS that is too simple may not provide all of the features you need. Think of yourself as Goldilocks looking for the “just right” amount of complexity.

Does the ATS Provide any Other Tools? 

Many applicant tracking systems are great at helping you keep track of new applicants and getting people hired. However, some ATSs offer features that go above and beyond.

If you have a large budget and can afford these extra features, they can come in handy.

Tenstreet, for example, offers applications that allow carriers to market to drivers, track their applications, hire them, and make sure the driver is following safety guidelines.

Can you Easily Visualize Past Data?

Looking back at past data is essential to any effective recruitment campaign. Your ATS should enable you to look at past results and see what works.

The truck driver recruiting strategy your company uses needs to be constantly evolving. Strategy evolves by analyzing the data of past campaigns and responding to the market.

If your ATS does not allow you to easily create visuals that depict past campaigns it may be tough to figure out what is working and what is not.

Visual statistics. Data visualization, creative office people and dashboard. Business technology, working programmers vector. Data infographic, digital statistics analysis, dashboard illustration

Can Your Driver Recruiting Agency Send Leads to the ATS?

What good is your applicant tracking system if your driver recruiting agency can not submit applicants to it? If you have to submit the applications by hand after they are sent to you by the agency, you are losing valuable time.

Having a truck driver recruiting agency run your digital advertising and sending the leads they generate to your ATS is the most efficient way to get applicants.

A process where your digital driver recruiting agency feeds leads into your ATS for your recruiters to contact is best. This allows recruiters to focus on recruiting and not worry about anything else.

If you are a small carrier looking to expand into a mid-sized carrier, you will undoubtedly need an ATS. Use the 7 questions trucking companies must ask about an applicant tracking system to ensure you get the right ATS for your growth.

The Basics of Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Posted on 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.

Hand holding a smartphone with Facebook pulled up

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.

Three cartoon women creating 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.

Web marketing managers with gadgets working on paid search and SEO strategies, closeup of hands. SMM spesialists planning brand promotion budget, raising company awareness in social media

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.

Picking the Right Trucking Company Advertising Agency

Posted on by Jake Peters

In today’s market it is necessary for all trucking companies to utilize digital advertising. Digital advertising will boost your overall business. The large carriers have the resources to employ an in-house ad team. Small to midsize carriers can save money and hire a third party agency. Here is how to pick the right trucking company advertising agency.

First Decide Why You Are Hiring an Agency

Are you looking for an agency to help your company acquire more business? Or are you needing to hire an agency that specializes in truck driver recruitment advertising?

The reason you need to know this is because it will guide your search for the right advertising agency. Also, you will be able to negotiate more effectively and the agency will respect you as a company that knows exactly what they are looking for.

If you are looking for a trucking company advertising agency to help you generate more business you have far more options. There are countless advertising agencies that specialize in growing business for their clients. They will have clients in multiple industries and bring you more clients.

However, if you are looking for an agency that will boost your truck driver recruiting, you are going to need to find a specialized agency. Truck driver recruiting agencies know how and where to advertise so specifically truck drivers will apply for company.

Also, traditional advertising agencies will not be familiar with advertising on job boards. Truck driver recruiting agencies will use your ad-spend to place your job openings on the job boards that produce applications.

Man confused about which trucking company ad agency to choose

Research Different Agencies and Contact Them

Once you have decided the type of agency your company needs (traditional or driver recruiting), start your due diligence.

You can begin by googling to find agencies near you. Then begin finding agencies in other parts of the country. The internet makes it possible to work with an agency on the other side of the country.

Read through multiple company’s websites and put together a list of your 5 favorite companies. Then call them.

Make sure you are contacting companies that offer all of the services that you are looking for. Some agencies focus solely on social media marketing, some specialize in job boards, and others offer the complete package with everything.

After calling all of the companies, pick the agency that you felt you would get along best with. They need to have great customer service and prioritize your success.

If Possible, Visit the Agency’s Office

You may be thinking that after researching online and calling the agencies you are interested in, you are ready to hire an agency. However, keep in mind that when you call a company, you are going to speak to one of their sales representatives. They are experts at selling you on their company.

The best way for you to truly judge an agency’s culture, and whether you will work well with them, is by going into the office.

Take note on how all of the employees are treated while you are there. Do not focus solely on upper management’s attitude. Does everyone seem happy to be there? Or do the employees look distressed?

Agencies that have positive company cultures will be better to work with and their employees are more likely to go the extra mile for you.

Hire the Agency of Your Choice

Trucking company hires their trucking company ad agency

Now that you have gone through the steps above, it is time for you to hire the agency of your choosing. That does not mean that your work is done however.

In order to experience the best results you need to make it a priority to be in constant communication with the agency. It should not be up to you to initiate contact, but when a member of the agency reaches out, you need to make time to talk with them.

The reason it is so important to communicate with the agency is because it enables them to update your campaign in real time. If you are not seeing the results you were hoping for, tell the agency. They will update the strategy to improve results.

Digital advertising has to be used by your company. Large carriers are using in-house advertising teams that enable the carrier to continue to grow and hire drivers whenever they want. Small to midsize carriers can experience the same benefits if they follow these steps to pick the right trucking company advertising agency.

7 Tricks to Social Media Marketing for Trucking Companies

Posted on 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

  1. Develop a Strong Company Mission

  2. Spotlight Drivers and Customers

  3. Testimonials That Earn Trust

  4. Cross Platform Promotion

  5. Leverage Communities

  6. Specific Platforms Require Specific Posts

  7. Geofencing, Paid Media, and Other Tech

Word collage to social media marketing for trucking companies

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.

icon of testimonial that earns trust

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.

Pushpin on map that symbolizes geofencing for truck driver recruitment

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.

5 Tips for the Best Trucking Website Design

Posted on by Jake Peters

Having a strong trucking website design is mandatory for recruiting quality truck drivers and generating business. Your company’s website is the first interaction drivers and customers have with your company. First impressions matter! Follow these 5 tips to ensure that your company has the best trucking website design.

Top 5 Tips for the Best Trucking Website Design

  1. Avoid Clutter

  2. Repeat Your Main Message

  3. CTAs Throughout Your Website

  4. Mobile First Design

  5. Easy to Digest Content

magnifying glass searching for the best trucking web design

You Must Avoid Clutter!

Keep it simple stupid. Nothing turns away site visitors like a cluttered home page. Visitors should be able to instantly know your company’s main mission. Sometimes your mission may be hiring drivers, other times it is promoting business.

You only have 50 milliseconds to nail your first impression with site visitors.

Site visitors will be able to process your message better the less they have to read, click on, or watch. Images and videos are excellent pieces of content, but not when they are overwhelming.

Each page of your site should have only a couple high end images and any videos need to serve a purpose. Do not put videos on your site for the sake of having a video.

Having a strong heading structure will make it so that visitors will be able to skim any writing on your website and understand the gist of what you are saying.

Be Redundant… Tastefully

Your main goal is displayed loud and proud on your home page. Now what?

As visitors interact with your website and scroll through different pages they will forget about that main goal.

For example, if your main goal is to recruit more drivers you would say that right on the homepage for drivers to see. Then as the drivers click through your site to learn more about your company they will forget to to apply by the time something else grabs their attention.

This can be avoided if you are strategically redundant.

Each page of your website needs to have a call back to your main goal. This will ensure that site visitors do not forget about that goal and they will be far more likely to act in favor of that goal.

Calls to Action Littered Everywhere 

Call to action symbol

The call to action is where you reach your handout and invite the site visitor to act in a way that benefits your main goal.

Most websites have a call to action at the top of each page, which is good but not best. In order to maximize on your website, you need to sprinkle your CTAs throughout your site.

Spreading CTAs throughout the pages on your site gives the site visitor more opportunities to act. Placing only one CTA at the top of a page is asking for the site visitor to act before you have convinced them to do so.

However, having CTAs littered throughout allows the site visitor to click on the CTA the moment they are convinced to do so. They do not have to scroll throughout the site to find the CTA again.

Mobile First Design

The majority of people that visit your site will be doing so on their mobile device. Studies have found that in the second quarter of 2020, mobile devices (excluding tablets) accounted for 51.53% of global website traffic.

Mobile users on the web have become so prominent that Google now crawls your site for mobile usability first before desktop usability.

Your website must be designed to be easily navigable from a smartphone. Doing so will make your site more accessible which increases the amount of traffic you receive. More traffic leads to more driver applications and more business.

Easy to Digest Content

Content is king. It is the best way for carriers to build relationships with potential drivers and customers.

The reason that people visit your website is because they have questions about your company that they want answered. Easy to digest content is the best way for your company to answer those questions.

Plus, well curated content will be shared on social media platforms and generate awareness for your company.

Your website should be filled with short videos, well written blog content, and info graphics.

Content is King

The website is oftentimes your first impression, and the first impression is the most important. Having the best trucking website design compared to your competition will lead to your company hiring more drivers and booking more business.

How to Create a Trucking Recruiting Website

Posted on by admin

A well built website is one of the most impactful tools for recruiting truck drivers. Strong sites will generate positive impressions, inform the driver, and get them to apply. Here is how to create a trucking recruiting website.

What Are The Key Elements of a Good Website? 

Team of cartoon people work to create trucking website

Clear Site Navigation

Having an easy-to-follow website design serves two purposes. Clear site navigation makes it easier for visitors to consume your content and for search engines to index your site.

Your home page is the sun that your website-galaxy revolves around. Each page should always be one click away from the home page. Also, your homepage must highlight only the most important pages on your site.

One of the first things a driver should see when visiting your site is a link to apply.

An example of a site that shows the "Apply Now" link on the home page.

Well Designed Landing Page

A landing page is the section of the website drivers visit when they click on one of your paid advertisements.

Your recruitment landing page needs to be designed to sell the driver on working for your company.

Instead of using a bunch of text to tell drivers about the position and why they should work for you, use imagery. Include multiple photos of your current drivers happy on the job and video testimonials from drivers.

Show don’t tell.

Strong Call to Action

No matter how good your images are or how convincing your site is, drivers will not apply without a call to action.

Good example of a strong call to action.

 

Think of the call to action as the catalyst that gets the driver to actually submit an application. All the other content is used to persuade the driver that they want to work for you.

The call to action gets the application.

Mobile-Friendly

In today’s trucking world drivers have the capability to be checking new job opportunities 24/7. Mobile phones are the driving force behind this shift in trucking recruitment.

Last year, 67% of drivers used their smartphones to look for new employment opportunities.

Taking the time to make sure your site is mobile friendly is a necessary. If you do not have a mobile friendly site then you will miss out on all the applications from drivers that come to your site with their smartphones.

Positive ‘About Us’ Tab (Your Why)

Well done 'About Us' tab.
People are not motivated by what you do but why you do it.

Use the ‘about us’ tab to create a positive portrait of your team for drivers to see. Drivers want to work for a company that is going to value them.

Constructing a well done ‘about us’ page will stir excitement in potential drivers. They will see that your team is passionate about the industry, respect their drivers, and it will motivate the driver to seek greener pastures.

Content Content Content

Quality content works wonders. Done properly, content will increase awareness among drivers, get them to consider working for you, and ultimately increase applications.

Your site needs to have blog posts, videos, and photos, that all paint your company in a positive light.

Different people like to consume different types of content. That is why you need blogs, photos, and videos.

Excellent Visual Design

An aesthetically pleasing design with interesting visuals will create a strong first impression with drivers.

Excellent design sends the message to drivers that your company does the due diligence to get the job done right. This will attract the types of drivers that are true professionals and take pride in their work.

Optimized for Search Engines 

Your site is useless if no one visits. Optimizing your site for search engines will make it so that drivers will find you when they search for potential jobs.

Simple optimization practices like adding alt-text to your images, writing clear meta descriptions, and using effective SEO titles do not take much time and produce results.

What Should You Not Put on Your Website?

It is just as important to know what to avoid putting on your site as it is to know what to have on your site.

Dedicated Testimonial Page 

Testimonials are essential to any website. They are one of the most influential pieces of content potential drivers consume.

However, potential drivers are far less likely to engage with the testimonials if they have to go to a separate page. Do not have one page with all the testimonials

The best practice is to sprinkle your testimonials throughout your site. Mix the testimonials in on all the pages on your site.

Dead End Thank You Page 

After the driver applies, a lot of companies will show a simple “thank you” page.

Example of a dead end thank you page after application is submitted.

Having a dead end thank you page misses out on a huge opportunity. Drivers are at the peak of their interest right after applying.

Instead of a dead end page suggest to the driver that they engage with more of your content!

Confusing Messaging (K-I-S-S)

Keep in mind that your site serves two purposes: to increase driver applicants and increase business.

Do your best to keep your messaging as simple as possible. K-I-S-S. You should not spend any time on topics that do not serve either of those two purposes.

Create a trucking website that has simple messaging and applicants and business will both increase.

Automatic Sound/Videos

Nothing is more obnoxious than landing on a site that you have never been to before and getting blasted by automatic sound/videos.

Don’t do it!

In today’s market a well built website is mandatory to effectively recruit truck drivers. Follow this guide to create a trucking website that is a great truck driver recruiting website.