I’ve called on hundreds of companies over my 22 year marketing career and have discussed strategic concerns with just about every size, mode and geographic focus possible within transportation. Many companies say they do a dozen things well and really do 1 or 2. Others have an extremely diversified menu but customers are unaware of the breadth of service provided. Both are immediate marketing concerns.

#1. You typically have to win customers over one service at a time. Even though an integrated approach is the end goal for the diversified model, if you don’t establish the necessary rapport and trust first… the big sell is a hard sell.

# 2. By casting too wide a net with your marketing you run the risk of not catching anyone’s interest. If you can’t back up a statement with tangible evidence of expertise, your entire message can get grouped together as being unbelievable.

# 3. You don’t want customers confused about what your service offerings are and you also don’t want to hear the words “I didn’t know you did that” by failing to create the awareness of your full service offering. If you can, lead with your best service first and remember “It’s the steady rain that soaks.”

# 4. As a general rule, we find transportation providers have a core strength(s), a secondary focus and what we would typically call a value added or convenience sell. It’s important to weight these accordingly in your marketing so customers understand fully who you are as a company.

# 5. Most successful diversification is through a dedicated model, something that has been developed for a single customer with very specific needs. It won’t typically role out to your general customer demographic…so don’t market it that way.

# 6. Decide who you are. Are you better suited as a handyman that does a host of things pretty well? Or is what you do a craft, with a more select target that’s tough for others to duplicate. Both have value. You need to make sure there is alignment between your skill set and your targeted market.

# 7. Markets change. Regardless of your business model, if what used to be the volume of your activity is shrinking, maybe it’s time to bring one of those secondary services front and center. As an example, what represents 50% of our market strength today (websites and branding) was only 5-10 % of our mix 4 years ago.

# 8. From listening to recent shipper panels, they want stability, service commitments, information exchange and relationships. It won’t be just about price going forward… they know the landscape is changing and that shrinking capacity is on the horizon.

# 9. Reset your thinking soon, as no one can beat you down any further on price. The value, innovation and focus you have going forward will dramatically shape your road to recovery…proceed with caution, and confidence!

Lee’s quote for the day:
“Truckers are like elephants. They work hard and have long memories. The shippers who forced their hand too heavily during the recession may soon be viewed like a male porn star after a very cold shower…small, unimpressive and no longer carrying a big stick!”

What I have heard the most from my fellow marketers is the statement “use the social media or be left out of something big.” I am always cynical about this statement, especially in the B2B environment. If you are operating in a B2B environment, you have probably noticed that everyone is caught up in this new trend. Before you dive into the social media, and believe it will fix all your problems, ask yourself the following questions:

1.  Who are your clients / customers?
Many of our clients are operating in a very niche market, with only one or two customers. Why waste resources and time on the cyber space, if you can have an old fashioned face to face communication with them, especially when the client prefers it this way.

2. Do you have resources for it?
Social media will help you to generate leads, but only if you do it properly. If you are not conveying the right message to your customers, the chances are you are conveying the WRONG message. Frankly, if you are conveying the wrong message, you are better off doing nothing at all. What does it take to do it properly? Marketing specialists on social media, time, and money. Many people think social media is cheap. Don’t get me wrong, it is. Social media a free platform for businesses, but marketing specialists and their time will cost you money, just like any other marketing campaign.

3. What is your short-term business objective?
Will social media help you drive sales? It will. But if you want it to happen tomorrow, forget about it. Social media is a very cost-effective channel for you to reach prospective clients; it is not a salesman however. Even if you are using the social media properly, it will take some time before it generates positive ROIs. Why? Because “creating transactional opportunities on the web takes trust, but trust takes time to establish” (Chris Brogran, Co-author of Trust Agent Says). If you are thinking of using it to drive short-term sales, there are better methods to leverage your efforts, such as direct mail, price incentives and enhanced sales support. 

I am not suggesting that social media is not good for B2B, instead I am suggesting that your reason to use social media shouldn’t be “because everyone else is doing it!”

If you find your situation is not as outlined above, or you believe you have a very unique experience with social media in the B2B world, let us know.

Over the last two years we’ve seen most of our clients downsize and reduce spending. No surprise, the recession has touched everyone and creating a new balance between performance and profitability has been a tough one for us all, large and small…especially when it’s on the fly.  

Our business, like many others has experienced a major and likely permanent shift away from who we were, to who we are now. In our case, we have reduced our dependence on print and promotions and dramatically increased our capabilities in the areas of branding, web development and search engine marketing. As a result, we’ve added creative personnel and reduced administrative staff to match our new business patterns.

As painful as it is to let people go, the reality is business today cannot run fat and be sustainable. We need to be in tune with our company’s dynamics now … more than ever.

For those going through similar restructuring I would offer this encouragement. As tough as it is, I would suggest you may experience some unanticipated benefits in reducing your numbers in certain departments and possibly adding in others. In our case, we have achieved a better balance of work and resources. We have significantly improved our operation through streamlined communications and have very noticeably created a tighter, more unified team.

We need to summon the courage to take the steps we need to, yet fear the most. Slay the dragon that defends “no change” in your company by issuing this proclamation, “Starting today, the words I’ve always done it that way are officially banned from our company vocabulary!” It’s an interesting exercise that moved us forward many years ago.

In short, the more we listen, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more we grow. The quicker we accept the difficult steps we need to take, the more decisive we’ll be in making the next difficult decision. And each move we make in the right direction brings us closer to the leaders we need to be to ensure our company’s future success.