Online marketing in the logistics and transport sector, just like in the construction sector, often lags behind. Just over half of Dutch transport companies have a marketing department and many logistics companies have on average one full-time marketing employee. Research shows that 62% of the logistics companies consider the website the most important marketing tool. Furthermore, the importance of social media has grown – from 29% to 48% in 1 year.
What is striking is that logistics companies find the website the most important marketing tool. However, ways to increase traffic to their website such as SEO, SEA and e-mail marketing are not seen so important. Having a website is one thing but using it effectively is another matter. B2B online marketing in logistics and transportation is just as important as online marketing in other sectors.
Online marketing in logistics and transport: state of affairs
Digitisation is no longer an option but a must. This also applies to the logistics and transport sector. Marketing, specifically online marketing plays a crucial role in this. By now, the company knows the market and the customer and where the opportunities lie. To emphasize the importance of online marketing, it is good to look at how people in the logistics & transport sector view online marketing.
The newspaper Transport published a survey in 2017 in which 400 respondents from the logistics market believe that 62% the website, 48% social media and 36% conferences are the most important marketing tool. It is good that companies experience their website as the most important one.However, it is important that the website is well organized and used in the right way.
A bad website is poorly indexed by Google and the result is that all the energy that is put into the website is of little use. It is striking that only 20% of those surveyed indicated that increasing traffic to the website was important to them. In addition, only 5% found SEA an important tool. This is a low number compared to more than half of the respondents considering the website the most important marketing tool. Herein, matters such as budget and the size/expertise of the marketing department can play a role.
Social Media
Social media is something that many respondents (80%) use. Even 57% are active on social media daily. Most logistics companies use LinkedIn for their business communications. Second to that, Facebook is used to create business interaction online. Nowadays, 96% of the Dutch population uses social media. That includes your customers. Therefore, the use of social media is important. We at Jelba see social media as a means to distribute good content of your website to your followers and connections of your followers. Through good content you already get a lot of traffic organically and by spreading the same content through social media channels you ensure that traffic only increases.
Step by Step
What does a good online strategy look like for you? It goes beyond creating a website. Find below Jelba’s step-by-step guide for online marketing in the logistics and transport sector.
Step 1: Target group and competition
What often happens is that the target group and its wishes and requirements are mapped out based on the experience of the (sales) personnel of the company. Of course, that is valuable knowledge but it is not always 100% accurate. It is essential to investigate the wishes of your target group. This can be in the form of interviews, A/B-tests or with analytical data. Analytical data are hard facts about your target group.Which device are they using, for example? What do they click on? Where do they quit?
Sometimes the predicted behaviour does not match the data. In this case adjustments can be made. This way you always respond to the wishes of the customers and continue to optimise based on the data. Nowadays, it is sometimes said that target groups are outdated and that we should pay attention to personas. These are imaginary buyers. Based on the data, a picture is sketched of such a buyer: What are his concerns at the workplace? What information does he need and how does he behave in the buying process? Thanks to data it is increasingly possible to get closer under the customer’s skin. A combination of both is ideal.
Next to that, analyzing the competition is important. Your target group is also their target group. Of course you want to stand out. Look at what the competition does and especially does not do and learn from it. At all, mapping out who your competitors are is important so you can always keep track of them. In order to carry out good online marketing in logistics and transport it is essential to take these two points into account.
Step 2: A good website
A good website is the beginning of good online marketing. Do you have a webshop? Think of the essence of a clear menu structure, extensive product descriptions alongside the products and photos and videos of the product. An unprofessional, unclear website ensures that the visitor quits quickly. Most reasons why a visitor quits are: an unreliable looking website, expectations that are not met quickly enough, the website is not mobile friendly and there is no incentive to click. A very important one too is the speed of the website. A website that loads slowly is one of the most frustrating things for visitors, who have no patience for this. There are different technologies to analyse your website and the behavior of visitors.
Step 3: Content creation
Nowadays inbound marketing is much more desirable than outbound marketing. You want to present yourself and your products as professional. If enough content is written and indexable, the customers will automatically come to your website instead of you having to go to the customers. Regularly writing in-depth content is important for this. Writing a cornerstone article is good to distinguish yourself from competitors. Long texts are seen by Google as a lot of knowledge and therefore it is better for SEO.
Example of online marketing in logistics and transport
An example is easier to understand than theory. That is why we like to write about one of our clients for whom we do the online marketing. Jaap van der Vlies of “Industriële aanhangers” came to us wanting to give his trailers a prominent online proposition. We then developed an online module in which visitors can compose their own entire trailer within 9 steps. This form of online quotation tooling gives a professional buyer direct insight into all possibilities. Together with a content strategy, this has resulted in an organic growth of 88%. “Industriële aanhangers” are now market leader.
How do I start?
We understand that this is not an easily understandable matter for everyone. It is important to have expertise in order to drive good online marketing. This can be achieved by hiring professionals or a B2B marketing agency. What we at Jelba find very important is to achieve results. Wondering how we do online marketing in the logistics and transport sector? Do not hesitate to contact us, we are happy to help.
Online marketing in other B2B sectors
Read more about the state of online marketing in in the industrial sector, find interesting information about online marketing in construction and installation or find out what the opportunities are in terms of online marketing in the agricultural sector. Jelba’s experts will be happy to talk to you about this.
Do you have any comments or are you curious what we can do for you? Do not hesitate to contact us without obligation.
Finally
The goal of all our customers is to achieve more turnover via the Internet. We ensure that they succeed in this mission. If you are a B2B company, we would like to provide insight into your online opportunities without obligation. And give you advice on where you stand in relation to your competitors. Click here to request this scan.