Logistics is a critical part of the supply chain management process and is proliferating.
According to an Allied Market Research report, the logistics market was valued at $7,641 billion in 2017 and is forecasted to surpass $12,000 billion by 2027, with a growth rate of 6.5% CAGR.
The primary reason for such massive growth is the exponential rise of eCommerce post-COVID-19 Pandemic. Because of this, the logistics industry is growing fiercely competitive.
With hundreds of thousands of logistics businesses vying to grab a piece of the market, it’s high time you figure out how to optimize your logistics business to stay competitive in the coming years.
Most logistics companies prioritize increasing operational efficiency, reducing overhead costs, and streamlining internal processes, while neglecting an essential aspect of logistics — Marketing.
In this article, we will discuss 11 effective marketing tips to optimize your logistics business.
11 Effective Marketing Tips for Logistics Businesses
Here are the 11 most influential marketing tips for your logistics business to expand your brand visibility, reach more customers, and boost revenue.
1. Improve your Website
We live in an era where the internet is the first place people go to find out about almost everything. The same goes for your potential customers. Put another way, if your potential customers search for services your business offers, they will likely land on your website.
So, a website is a must-have for every logistics business. Though having a simple website isn’t sufficient to stay competitive. Your website needs to make a stunning first impression. Otherwise, your potential customers won’t engage with your website further.
Your business website is one of the most critical aspects of your business. So, we highly recommend working with experts to improve your website in every possible way, such as making it look professional, having intuitive navigation, excellent user experience, and loading quickly.
You can also leverage welcome lightbox pop ups to surprise visitors when they interact with your site.
In addition, make sure to include everything to know about your business on the website. This includes services offered, contact information, company location, etc.
2. Provide Exceptional Services & Support
As you might already know that logistics is mostly a B2B-type business. And word-of-mouth advertising can play a pivotal role in the success of any B2B-type business (including your logistics business!).
One proven way to garner word-of-mouth leads is by providing exceptional services & support to your existing customers. Doing so will encourage them to share their experience with other business owners in their professional network.
This, in turn, will help to acquire new customers without putting much effort into reaching them.
As per G2’s recent B2B sales and marketing report, 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after hearing a positive review about a business.
The point here is that you must provide exceptional service to all existing customers to land new clients effortlessly.
3. Introduce Real-Time Tracking Feature
For any logistics business, having a real-time tracking feature on its website is critically essential. For starters, it helps make your logistics services more marketable and improves the shipment tracking process for goods on the move.
Besides, real-time tracking helps to reassure your customers regarding the movement of their parcels by keeping them in the loop with the up-to-date status of their shipment.
So, if your logistics business does not yet have a real-time tracking feature, you must develop & implement it on your website as soon as possible.
4. Offer Competitive Pricing
While this is not exactly a marketing strategy, offering competitive pricing can help get more customers and increase the overall revenue of your business.
You see, the logistics market is fiercely competitive. To survive, logistics companies are often slashing their pricing with lucrative offers such as express air freight, sea freight, same-day delivery, etc., at regular fees for a limited time to bring in more clients.
To do the same, you’ll have to focus on bringing down your operational costs. One way to do this is by integrating the latest logistics tools & technologies, which directly help to cut down your expenses.
Once the operational costs are down, you can begin to offer competitive prices without affecting the quality of your services.
5. Build a Strong Brand Presence
As mentioned earlier, the logistics market is getting more competitive every day. So if you want your potential customers to notice, you need to stand out.
The best way to immediately stand out among your competitors is by building a strong brand online. For the uninitiated, branding is about giving your business a truly unique identity.
There are various ways to build a strong brand presence for your logistics business. You can develop a unique, eye-catching logo and create a tagline that instantly grabs your potential customer’s attention.
Besides this, you must also develop a clear value proposition and core values your business stands by no matter what. This will help in establishing a solid brand identity for your logistics business.
6. Start Blogging
Blogging is unbelievably undervalued in the logistics industry. But in reality, blogging has tremendous potential for logistics businesses.
For one, blogging is one of the cheapest yet most effective marketing strategies.
By blogging consistently, you can establish thought leadership in your market. To get started with blogging, you can publish informational content, how-to guides, tutorials, white papers, etc., to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a subject matter expert.
7. Optimize your Site for Google
Blogging is essentially a core part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
It is a cost-effective & highly-sustainable marketing strategy. This is mainly because, nowadays, as many as 70% of customers research a company on Google before conducting business with them.
Optimizing your website for Google can gradually increase its rankings on Google search results, attracting more traffic to your website and resulting in more leads and sales.
8 – Incorporate a Content Marketing Strategy
While creating and publishing content through blogging is highly important. But what’s more important than this is ensuring that your content reaches your potential customers.
A solid content marketing strategy helps you distribute the content you create on your website and ensure it reaches your targeted customers.
To do this, you need to start leveraging guest blogging, creating video content, running paid ad campaigns, and more in addition to blogging.
This will help to gradually increase your brand awareness, expand your reach, and establish thought leadership in your industry.
9. Leverage Social Media
Social media can be a game-changer for logistics businesses. Social media platforms, especially LinkedIn & Twitter, have become a primary hub for building business relationships and industry discussions.
As a logistics business owner, you can leverage social media to establish a personal brand and develop a strong network of professionals. Doing so can help to elevate your brand image, increase your visibility on social media, and acquire new clients.
10. Utilize Email Marketing
Email marketing is considered one of the most effective marketing strategies for all kinds of businesses, including your logistics business.
According to a 2019 DMA report, email marketing can help your business generate up to $42 for every $1 spent. This is primarily because email marketing hardly costs anything. Yet, it is a reliable source to create brand awareness, nurture your leads, and generate sales for your logistics business.
You’ll have to build an email list to utilize email marketing effectively. You can consider adding an email newsletter signup form on your website.
Once a visitor turns into an email subscriber, you can nurture them with email newsletters that include helpful, value-adding content at regular intervals and win their trust in your brand.
11, Optimize your Conversion Rate
Most people are reluctant to spend money, even if it’s a business purchase. So, you will need extra effort to convert your website visitors into paying customers.
This is where conversion rate optimization (CRO) comes to the rescue. CRO is a marketing tactic that helps businesses to generate conversion opportunities.
This tactic can be as simple as adding call-to-action (CTA) at appropriate places throughout your website to entice visitors with lucrative offers to subscribe to your email newsletter or try your services.
Conversion rate optimization must be a part of your marketing strategy to increase the sales and overall revenue of your logistics business.
Ending Note
Marketing is different for logistics businesses compared to B2B service-based online businesses. This sometimes makes it incredibly difficult for logistics business owners to devise a successful marketing strategy.
Hopefully, these eleven logistics marketing tips will help you to drive more visitors, increase your sales, and grow the profitability of your logistics business.
