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One common question I am asked is ‘what exactly is marketing for trucking companies?” Although a short question the answer can fill bookshelves. I will endeavor to condense the definition down to something you can understand and implement. I say understand because some of the textbook definitions are head scratchers. It’s almost as if authors, some prestigious, want to keep the definition complicated. Need immediate help? If so, call me. I am offering Free Marketing For Trucking Companies, Using a one to one personal approach I will offer advice and direction at absolutely no charge. I understand when it comes to anything that’s free we’re all skeptical. We’ve been trained to expect a catch that requires money being spent somewhere. You’ve seen the TV infomercials offering a buy one, get one free, then in the fine print “just pay separate shipping and handling.” For my offer, it’s all free including the shipping and handling! Back to definitions, here’s one from the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) : “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” For trucking companies I would simplify marketing as a series of specific company activities implemented consistently whose goal is to identify prospects, secure them as clients and then service them for a lifetime. What the AMA doesn’t make very clear is that marketing should influence all areas and departments of the company. Marketing is broken down in simple terms, consists of 4 P’s. These P’s are Product, Price, Placement and Promotion. Hang in there, it will get much clearer shortly, I promise. These marketing elements are generic to all industries but let’s analyze and adapt them to your trucking company. Obviously “Product” doesn’t apply to a trucking service, instead replace that “P” with “Service.” I will explain how the “Service” should have a unique selling proposition, that’s a feature or benefit that none of your competitors offer. The objective is to stand out from the competition. For more on unique selling propositions click the Free Marketing For Trucking Companies link at the bottom of this article. The “Price” should be competitive for the service being offered while realizing a profit for the trucking company. With branding pricing can be reasonably higher than competitors. Branding is much more than simply giving a catchy name to a company or service. For more on unique selling propositions click the Free Marketing For Trucking Companies link at the bottom of this article. “Placement” is the availability of your “Service” to your clients, such as proximity of your depot to the client’s facility. If you are located nearby, the client will take great comfort in that convenience. Placement could also mean website visibility in the search engines or something as simple as voicemail box not being full. The final “P” is “Promotion” and that’s how you reach potential customers. This could be any combination of advertising, direct mail, website or trade show exhibits, anything that puts your trucking company name in front of prospects. If your company has a sales staff their function would fall under “Promotion.” In many cases sales consists of direct interaction with qualified prospects and not generally directly involved with the other 3 “P’s.” Sales will benefit from marketing activities and can provide valuable feedback gained from the street. Ideally, the goal for all the marketing activities is to make “selling” obsolete where sales staff are “taking the order.” Without marketing the sales department wouldn’t have any inbound calls from prospects. Instead they would have to find their own leads. It’s the marketing department that sets the direction, softens the marketplace and provides the ammunition for the sales person to convert prospects into customers. All 4 P’s must work in unison. Having 3 P’s and 1 “Perhaps” is like a car with a wheel missing, it will not function properly. Operating with less than 4 P’s will work, but you will never catch up with another trucking company that is firing on all 4 cylinders. From this very simplified definition it is easy to understand that marketing has a much broader scope than sales and plays a much bigger part in the overall success of any trucking company. Marketing is involved at the front end and then all the way through the organization. Keith Hunt is V.P Marketing for GetFactoringForTruckingCompanies.com based in California. The company specializes in working with all trucking companies nationwide ranging from owner operators, large fleets and start-up enterprises with recourse and non-recourse factoring. Once freight bills have been submitted, funds are deposited directly into trucking company’s bank account within 12 hours. Unlike other factoring companies, long term contracts are not required. We offer month to month factoring where trucking companies decide which freight bills to factor. For information on factoring for trucking companies please call the main number 209-225-2852. If you prefer you can email me using the Contact Form Here. For more information please click here for Free Marketing For Trucking Companies.
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