Harris KhanWith the shipping industry digitally transforming, it’s time that you thought about digitalizing your marketing for lead generation. In the past, networks built through personal relationships were enough to sustain freight forwarders, but not anymore. Freight forwarders need to find new ways to reach customers and create new channels of acquisition.
We created a challenge for ourselves, and most importantly for you, to re-invent your marketing strategy.
So, here’s how to be the best freight forwarder on the market.
- Purchase a continuous flow of new leads.
To be the best, you need to be up to date with changes in the market and like any competitive company, you need to keep your productivity high with fresh new leads.
In today’s market, every customer is turning to the internet in order to find the best deal. Because of this, more marketing channels are emerging, all of which are competing for clients’ attention.
Lead generation companies are finding that online lead generation is growing more effective and efficient than offline methods. Lead generation that is based on digital, repeatable processes is a much simpler way to create constant revenue.
It’s time to take a look at your sales team’s online marketing and web presence. Like Google, you need to invest in digital marketing that allows fresh leads to stream into your pipeline.
If you don’t invest in digital marketing now, then your competitors will.
- Generate more leads outside of your local footprint.
Maybe you are an independent freight forwarder with a local footprint. If so, you should use a lead generation technique outside of your local area to gain a global footprint.
For example, you could benefit from digital marketing tools that are location-independent such as:
- Online video marketing
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Pay per click advertising
By using a digital marketing strategy that does not rely on a geotargeted customer, you can reach a global audience. Freight forwarders need to invest in digital marketing because it is cheaper and easier to track than traditional methods.
These new online tools can easily be used in order to build a global presence.
- Use social media.
Social media is a free and effective way to reach a global audience. Customers are on social media ( and we will not discuss Facebook’s recent and problematic decision to “curate” its newsfeed).
Social media shares do not require a significant investment, thus, you can save money.
Freight forwarders need to use social media to reach a global audience based in different geographical areas.
Social media helps to broaden your network and provides room for personal interaction. You don’t need to be a genius in social media to understand its key role in business nowadays.
No matter where your customers are, social media provides you with the opportunity to reach them in a variety of ways:
- YouTube
The social media of your choice, can provide you with a steady flow of new customers.
As a result, you can grow your business in new geographical locations, which is the best way to keep your workload manageable.
- Transform your business model.
There’s no need to create a world-class freight forwarding company from scratch every single time. The solution for rapid growth and growth sustainability lies in your company’s current model. Are your clients local or global?
If they are local, then you should try to get more global clients. Also, you can try to retain and grow existing clients.
If you have existing customers outside your local area, then try to boost your sales by retaining and growing your existing customer relationships.
- Use a software for lead generation.
Lead generation is an important part of your supply-chain management. Freight Forwarding entails shipping of goods to clients at various locations. You need to know where the right clients are to get the right lead, and the same applies to the case of cargo as it has its own specifications to meet.
Lead generation is a critical part of your sales process, but you can’t do it effectively without a tool for lead generation.
6. Don’t miss the opportunity for acquisition due to lack of market knowledge.
Data is more readily available than ever before, but this can also create marketing challenges.
The data is so abundant that it can be difficult to know what to do with it. Every day, a motor freight forwarder like you has to digest new information so they can decide how best to serve their customers. But how do you decide which data is good, and which data is not?
Just like SEO, sales, and marketing, data science is now important for your freight forwarding business. Analyzing your data can help you make better assessments, i.e. targeting keywords for SEO, making better decisions for sales, and finding better opportunities for marketing.
Analytics and data science can provide support for your current freight forwarding practices. It will empower your business with opportunities and insights that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
- Integrate your data.
You probably store data in several locations. But how do you gather and extract data from all of these locations?
It may be time to stop using your manual methods of data collection and bring them together. Most modern Salesforce CRM systems have a field that connects to Google Analytics. This can be a convenient way to bring together data from search and social media to increase your intelligence and streamline your efforts.
- Find the gems in your data.
When you receive your Google Analytics data each month, you may not know what to do with it. There are thousands of rows of data and you need to know how to find what’s valuable.
This can be achieved by using a software to extract the important information from your data. AgentCompare does this automatically, so you don’t need to worry about manually extracting data or wasting time with reports that don’t mean anything.
- Create digital marketing ads.
You might think that you don’t know how to create digital marketing ads for your company. The good news is that you don’t need to hire a designer or learn Photoshop to do this anymore.
There’s a lot of creativity and intelligence in your industry that you can tap into if you use a software. This is what AgentCompare is for. By using our software to create digital marketing ads, you can get leads while saving your time and money.
Summary.
Instead of fighting the digital wave, try to master it. It’s time for your freight forwarding company to use digital marketing in order to achieve their goals.
Agencies work in the same way as any other business. It’s time to update your marketing strategy to gain more clients and profit.
