How Marketing Your Brand Grows Your
Trucking Company
Apex Experts: Sherry Leigh Offers Simple Branding Solutions That Work
Positioning your trucking company in the marketplace by building your brand is the difference between running and growing your business. And you don’t need lots of marketing dollars to do it. Sherry Leigh, Chief Product and Marketing Officer for Apex Capital, brings two decades of branding know-how to her role. She understands the power positioning, branding, and marketing has on big-picture growth, and she offers simple, low-cost marketing solutions for your trucking company.
How do you position your trucking company in the market?
To differentiate your company in the market, you must create a position for yourself, which is branding. A lot of people think branding is just your logo, the colors you use, the fonts, or a creative graphic. That’s one very small part of your brand. Your brand is your persona for your company. It is what your customers are going to think or feel when they hear your company name or when they see you.
When you’re building your company, it’s important to have a mission statement. The mission statement is your core brand statement and will become the heart of your brand. A mission statement should describe what you want your business to be known for. If you decide you want to be known as a reliable trucking company that provides exceptional service, that becomes the basis for how you will operate your business. If you say I’m going to be the most reliable trucking company out there, then be reliable. If you say I’m going to provide exceptional customer service, then do that. Be consistent with your actions so your brand lives up to your core brand statement. That’s how you build your market positioning and differentiate yourself from others.
How do you get your brand recognized in the industry?
Again, consistency and continually demonstrating your mission statement through your actions is how you build brand recognition. You, your employees, your logo, your interactions, and anything else that is a representation of your trucking company becomes part of that recognizable brand. That recognition can go both ways – positive or negative. That’s why it’s important to have a mission statement for your company that you build everything else around.
You must constantly work to protect your brand, so you then create the consistency that you’re looking for. What you don’t want to do is change who you are or how you do business all the time. You want to have a core statement that becomes the heartbeat of your company.
At Apex our mission statement focuses on providing legendary customer service to our clients and partners. That’s the center of our business and it affects every decision we make. Every thought we have, especially about new products or services, revolves around how the decisions we make will help us provide that legendary customer service.
What are low-cost ways to market your trucking company?
You want to go where your customers are. Your customer, a broker or shipper, is posting loads on load boards. Post your trucks to load boards so that they know you’re available. You want to go to events that include brokers and shippers and get to know people. Tell them about yourself and your company.
You can go online and look up brokers and shippers you want to work for, create an email list, and send them an email with some information about your company, how to contact you, and a short bio. Social media is huge. There are tons of social media channels, so find one that you like – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. You can create a profile on LinkedIn and start connecting.
When you haul a load for a broker or shipper, exceed their expectations. A lot of brokers have rating systems, so they’ll rate you as a carrier. Make sure that your rating stays high. You’re more likely to get contacted for another load from this same customer. Treat them with respect and dignity. Have a positive attitude, be professional. Make sure that you’re representing your brand and who you are.
Stay in contact with that customer once you haul a load for them, thank them, and then ask your customers for feedback. That goes a long way because they see that you’re serious about your business and about improving. Be genuine, care about your customer, and show your appreciation.
When you ask them for feedback and they say you’ve done a great job, ask them if they could give you a testimonial you can put on your social media feed or marketing materials. People do go online, they read reviews, they research before they work with somebody. Now you have people bragging about you, so they are marketing for you. That says a lot about you as a company.
Why should a trucking company prioritize building the business?
Most trucking company owners are so busy running their businesses, especially the smaller companies, that they sometimes forget about growing it. They are usually focused on hauling the load from point A to point B, not thinking about how to build a recognizable brand and growing the business. The key here for any small business, not just a trucking company, is making sure to invest time into growing your business and not just running it.
It’s a matter of prioritization, making time to do these things. A simple but effective way to make it easy to remember is to add a follow-up checklist to your routine. You can put it in your truck with the paperwork that you get signed when you deliver or add a note on your desk. A few suggestions to add to that checklist: say thank you, ask for feedback, ask for referrals, etc. You might also include a copy of your mission statement to help guide your decisions and to continually remind you to be consistent. Checklists and notes are effective tools to help you build a habit of growing your business. They keep things front-of-mind, and they make it easier to remember your goals. It’s something so simple, but the more you do it the more it becomes a habit.
Growing your trucking company is a sure way to make sure it’s successful. Apex factoring can help your business grow with fast cash, tools, services, and excellent customer relationships. Become an Apex factoring client today! Visit our website or give us a call at 855-369-2739.