Our marketing team has composed a list of the ways in which Pall-Ex members can improve their marketing efforts to keep up in a digital world. Being visible to potential customers can be done easily online and with just a few steps you can ensure your company’s online presence is enhanced.
Understand the importance of marketing
Your potential customer base want to form a relationship with your brand. They want to know your company strengths, service capabilities and key business information. Everything you create online and off-line is a reflection of your brand and your company. Embracing digital marketing and taking time to get the basics right will help you in the long run.
1. Make sure your website is up-to-date
Websites are the ‘online shop window’ to your business. Your site should display all the information needed to allow potential customers to make an informed decision about your business. Should they use you rather than a local competitor? What makes you stand out?
Make sure basic information on your site such as your opening hours, address and contact details up to date. Ensuring any information or points of contact for customers are up to date will look good to potential customers, as well as make things easier for your team.
Edit the layout of your site
You don’t need to be a developer nowadays to change the way your website looks, and make it more user-friendly. Essentially, you want your site to be a platform that enables potential contacts to see who you are, what you do, and how to contact you.
Remember: Pall-Ex provides a website analysis and can support in the update and creation of sites!
There’s no need to spend lots of money on a developer either, with plenty of free website builder platforms that you don’t need to know any coding for – simply drag and drop until your site looks a bit more modern.
Have an ‘About Us’ page
Building trust signals with your customers is key, and putting a fact to the name can be a great way to ensure customers feel like they are getting a personal service.
This page can be used to showcase your team members, such as this great example on the Matthews Haulage website.
2. Optimise your website
Keywords are essentially what search engines look at in order to know what your site is about and therefore where to show it in search results. Doing some simple keyword research using Google could greatly help your site’s visibility:
Find keywords for free using the Google Engine Search Results Pages (SERPs)
Type in a phrase that users might search for to get to your site – such as, palletised freight network. This brings up the SERPs, where you’ll see the highest ranking websites for this term.
Scroll down the page until you get to where there is a list of ‘Searches related to palletised freight network’. Use this to find related searches that your customers might be interested in, and write them into the text on your website for the relevant pages.
3. Create and populate social media channels
Social media is a great tool for brand awareness and showcasing your company’s abilities. The top UK social media channels are free to create and populate. Make sure that your team puts out a regular post or two out per week – it doesn’t have to be a constant onslaught of posts, but just something that reflects your company’s brand and identity.
Ensuring you have an active presence on certain social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, means that potential customers and business partners will have somewhere to go to find out a bit more about your company, giving off those all-important trust signals.
As a plus, Facebook is a great place to collect reviews for your business.
LinkedIn is great for Business to Business (B2B) Marketing
LinkedIn is a great resource for recruitment, building your B2B social network, as well as keeping up with your existing network and business contacts.
If you would like any support on a social media content plan, graphics that fit the channels image restrictions or support with hashtags and setting us accounts please speak to the Pall-Ex marketing team.
4. Create a blog
Even one post per month, or as many as a few a week, will help bring in search traffic to your website and boost the amount of people seeing your site. Keeping your posts relevant to subjects your potential customers might find useful or informative will ensure you’re aiming to capture the right target audience.
Some ideas for blog posts for logistics companies:
Day in the life pieces – what it’s like to work for your company
Interviews with staff from around the business
Case studies and customer testimonials
Shout about the awards you’ve won!
Write opinion pieces on relevant industry news
Publish your own whitepapers or surveys
5. Update your Local SEO – Google My Business (GMB)
Seeing as Google is responsible for over 92% of all internet search traffic worldwide, it’s worth getting as much information onto the platform as possible, to give your company the best chance of showing up to potential customers.
Simply type in, Google My Business (GMB) login, and if your company is linked to a Gmail account, you’ll be able to go ahead and edit the listing that way.
If no one at your company has yet claimed your GMB account, simply search for your company name on Google, or type it into the maps function if you can’t find it, and follow the necessary steps to activate the GMB account and link it to an email address.
6. Go to a training event
If you are unsure of what steps to take to implement a marketing strategy, go to an event. Pall-Ex hold a sales and marketing conference every year which highlights market techniques and best practise. Chamber events, local agency events and your local conference centre will hold marketing events throughout the year.
Taking your team to a training event could be a useful, cost-effective way to quickly upskill your whole team in marketing skills.