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Content Marketing Strategies for Trucking Companies

While we often think of content marketing as a device for gaining consumers, followers, and customers, we forget that it can also be used as a recruitment method. In this article, we will explain how to use content marketing as a tool for recruiting qualified drivers for your trucking or freight company. Why? The trucking industry has one of the worst turnover rates, sitting at around 94% in the first quarter of 2018, an increase from the year before. According to American Trucking Associations, “Turnover is not a measure of the driver shortage, but rather of demand for drivers,” Costello said. “We know that as freight demand continues to rise, demand for drives to move those goods will also rise, which often results in more driver churn or turnover. Finding enough qualified drivers remains a tremendous challenge for the trucking industry and one that if not solved will threaten the entire supply chain.” Clearly, recruitment is a big focus for the industry, and content marketing is one of the best methods to entice potential employees to stick around and find out what your company is all about. If you need a debrief on what content marketing is and how it can help you expand your brand, check out our post What Is Content Marketing? first.

Figure out what makes your fleet stand out against the competition

The first step is to nail down what makes your fleet better than all the rest. Sure, you may advertise that you have open positions, but what’s to stop prospective drivers from taking a job with the competition? Do you offer unique bonuses or benefits that your competition does not? Some things you might want to focus heavily on advertising are wellness benefits, culture initiatives, and anything that positively impacts a healthy work-life balance. Once you have a few really great ideas, you can take any and all topics surrounding these benefits and spin them into content.

How to take your benefits and turn them into content

So you’ve sat down and drawn up a list of what makes your fleet amazing. You can advertise your benefits all over your website and social media all you want, but simply stating the facts doesn’t do much to entice drivers to apply. You need to give them something that wins them over, and most importantly, convinces them to stay and listen to the why. Say for example your company offers vision insurance, how can you turn this into content? Perhaps a blog post talking about how to identify the effects of worsening vision on the road, or an informative video about the importance of wearing sunglasses for truck drivers. You can take the most seemingly mundane topics and make them informative, thoughtful, and fun with a little creativity and brainstorming.

Leverage social media

Load Delivered says that 75% of truck drivers reported that they check social media on a daily basis. Social media, namely Facebook, is the content marketing hub. If you don’t have any social media pages, it is recommended that you start with Facebook. You can use your Facebook page as the landing spot for all of your content, and users can share your links, videos, posts, etc to their own pages which will generate new viewers. Plus, it’s super easy to use.

You can also use social media to encourage engagement with your followers, many of which are likely drivers. The more open, friendly, and helpful your company appears, the more likely prospective drivers are to reach out. This will also help build a loyal user base of people who will want to share your content and increase your reach.

One thing you want to keep in mind is that a miracle isn’t going to happen overnight. Content marketing provides slow yet consistent and long-term results. With a little time (and a lot of patience) you’ll start seeing amazing things happen. Whatever you do, don’t give up, otherwise you’ll lose all of the momentum you’ve built!