Owner Operator Marketing 101: 6 Ways To Generate Quality Leads

Every truck company is in constant contact with a potential client with every pick-up and delivery they make, but they’re seldom able to make the most out of this contact. Every single pick-up, stop, or delivery that a delivery truck makes is an actual client of a transporting, forwarding, or courier business. They might need to have something picked up or delivered again in the future. This means they’re all potential clients of your trucking company. 

You can use technology for lead generation and employ the classic prospecting methods. To be able to turn every single possible contact into a potential customer for your trucking business, you need to implement a lead generation strategy that consciously turns every stranger or contact into a prospect. You can do this by turning every interaction and transaction with any business contacts outside your company into a subtle prospecting opportunity. Here are a few ways to generate those quality leads.

1. Every Customer’s Shipper Or Consignee Is A Prospect – Again

The first thing you have to do to generate more leads for your trucking business is to look at your trucking operations as a web of business contacts, transactions, and interactions. Keep in mind that every shipper or consignee that contacts or hires you for their trucking requirements is either going to send or receive something from somebody else. There’s always somebody else involved in the trucking operations until the item is delivered to the end-user.

Given this insight, you should make it a mindset or culture within your business to make the most out of every interaction and transaction. You should orient your drivers and delivery crew that getting quality leads is pivotal to your business. They should try to make the most out of their delivery or pick-up routes. The way to do this is by training them to use the time they interact or transact with shippers or consignees to qualify them as prospective clients. 

For example, if a logistics company hired your truck to pick up a load of cargo from a local warehouse, your truck crew should try to get to know the people in charge of hiring trucking services there. They might have some other trucking requirements, which aren’t being serviced by your primary client – the logistics company. Conversely, they might also need trucking services for the raw materials to be delivered to their own production sites. They might not have an immediate need, but you can ask them to keep your services in mind.

2. Send Email Blasts With Action Buttons

One of the most effective ways to generate new leads for your trucking business is thru the good old classic way – by sending emails to your prospects. A lot of businesses still use email as their primary means of communication within their business organizations, and with their own clients and customers. 

A survey of Business-to-Business (B2B) executives and managers showed that they still relied on email for information about business leads. Your email campaign should target the decision-makers of B2B companies, who do a lot of trucking the whole year-round. Email is also a very efficient medium. Marketing studies have shown that they generate 38 qualified leads for every dollar you spend on email marketing. 

3. Market To Shipping Industry

Aside from B2B companies and wholesale shippers, the largest market customers of trucking companies are the shipping industry. The ships and their shipowners are in constant need of the services of reliable trucking companies who can transport their cargo from the ports to their destination purchasers, warehouses, or distributors. 

The shipping industry itself is the nexus of a wide and deep network of other businesses who need trucking services quite frequently all year round. From the docks, trucking companies deliver the goods to their consignees. These are the customs brokers, traders, warehouse owners, stevedores, and forwarders. Another way of getting leads from them is by sending emails to their groups and networks. But the reverse of this is that these same ship customers would also have to truck their own goods to the ship when it’s their turn to deliver cargo. 

4. Generate Leads From Social Media

A lot of people spend the vast majority of their time on their social media accounts. Not all of them would have any need for trucking services, perhaps not even on any single day of the year. But there’ll be some of them who own small businesses who hire trucks for their deliveries. Some of them may also be employees and decision-makers in their companies. There’ll be some of them who have a say in which trucking company to hire for their company’s trucking needs. 

If your company doesn’t have social media pages yet, then you might want to consider setting up social media pages on all the major and most popular platforms. You can use your social media pages to attract potential customers to your trucking business.

5. Encourage Referrals And Sharing

One of the keys to generating more leads on potential customers for your trucking business is to realize that most of the companies which need trucking services are intertwined and interconnected. Most of the stevedores, cargo forwarders, couriers, and other players in the shipping industry also do business with each other. 

You can generate more leads by harnessing this interconnection among these numerous players in the shipping and cargo industry. Nurture a culture of sharing among them by encouraging referrals and sharing. For example, you can give incentives to customers who can refer the companies they serve or come in contact with, by offering discounts for every referral or qualified lead, or premium trucking service plans for their networks at special rates.

6. Market To Ecommerce Companies

Ecommerce companies are emerging as the most active and largest customers of trucking companies. More and more people are buying most of what they need from online stores. Ecommerce companies themselves are going through a lot of competition. Everybody is offering free delivery or very low rates at same or next day delivery. 

The larger online stores are branching out and putting up warehouses in strategic locations so they can be nearer to their customers. These branch warehouses or distribution hubs would need trucking services from the sorting hubs to their final destinations. 

Every Satisfied Customer Generates Leads

The main thing that will generate leads for your trucking business is still high-quality service and promptness of pick-ups and deliveries. In the long run, there’s no substitute for happy customers who send or receive their items in almost untouched shape within the time promised to them. But you also have to activate this network, so they can proactively generate leads for you. You can do this by qualifying them as contacts, sending them emails, social media updates, and action buttons so they can give you leads and referrals.