To recruit drivers, lead nurturing should play a large role in your advertising strategy. It allows you to promote your trucking company to driver candidates by giving them useful and relevant content, without "interrupting" them. Lead nurturing is the key forming comfortable relationships with driver prospects, and moving them through the funnel.
3. Introduction
Have you ever walked into a store to just look around, and immediately
found yourself pressured by a salesperson when you're not ready to buy? If
you're like the common shopper, you want to do research and feel
comfortable before making a purchase.
Because we live in a world inundated with ads, and tend to ignore pushy
advertisements. Driver recruitment is no different. That’s why lead
nurturing should play a large role in your advertising strategy.
It allows you to promote your trucking company to driver candidates by
giving them useful and relevant content, without "interrupting" them.
Lead nurturing is the key forming comfortable relationships with driver
prospects, and moving them through the hiring funnel.
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5. “The trucking
industry is trying to
avert a more
severe driver
shortage.”
– American
Trucking
Associations
(Aug. 2014)
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6. That’s why!
The nationwide truck driver shortage means you must
step up your recruiting game and follow a few effective
stepping stones that will turn prospects into drivers:
1. Build an audience;
2. Drive inbound traffic to your website;
3. Turn that traffic into qualified leads; and then
4. Nurture those leads into hired drivers.
This guide will focus on four lead nurturing methods…
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8. Email
Email marketing is the most common lead nurturing
technique; however, not all leads are created equal.
Your pipelines of contacts are all in different lifecycle
stages, and should be treated as such.
One of the best ways to nurture driver leads is to send
targeted email blasts with strong call-to-actions and
quality content.
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9. Email
First, segment your database so you know which type
of emails you should send to what lists. If a lead is in the
very beginning stages, your emails should reflect that
with simple content.
Give them blogs, videos and other info so they can learn
more about your company, easing them into the hiring
cycle.
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10. Email
Your email blasts should continue to provide content
that will filter them towards the bottom of the funnel.
When your qualified prospects are comfortable and to
ready apply with the goal of joining your company, you
have successfully nurtured those leads.
Tip: Your emails should always offer a call-to-action.
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12. Retargeting
Retargeting is a powerful branding and conversion
optimization tool. It's successful in recruiting truck
drivers because you have the opportunity to put your
brand in front of those who are already familiar with
you.
It's an effective way to indirectly remind potential
drivers what you have to offer, and persuade them to
take the next step.
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13. 3 Ways to Use Retargeting
1. Pixel-based
First, place a small pixel (or code) on your website.
Then, every time a new visitor comes to your website,
that code drops an anonymous browser cookie.
Later, those visitors will be served ads from your
company.
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14. 3 Ways to Use Retargeting
(continued)
2. List-based
If you have an email database/contact list, it's possible
to target those contacts on digital platforms associated
with their email addresses. For example:
Upload your contact list to Facebook's advertising
platform. Create your ad (emphasizing users to revisit
your website).
Later, contacts who use those email addresses for
Facebook will be served your ad in their News Feed.
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15. 3Ways to Use Retargeting (continued)
3. Look-alike-audience
First ask yourself: Who is your audience? Where should
you target them?
These are questions you'll need to understand when
creating a look-a-like-audience for retargeting purposes.
Once you've determined specific demographics, there
are various retargeting campaign options available to
attract driver prospects back to your website.
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17. Social Nurturing
To send qualified candidates towards the bottom of the
driver funnel, you must engage with your prospects on
social media.
Of course, a solid social media recruitment strategy is
required to reach truck drivers, but you must take it to
the next level to really nurture those leads.
Here’s how…
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18. Social Nurturing
To nurture driver leads on social media, monitor specific
keywords and mentions across the social web.
For example, a hot keyword to monitor is "looking for
driver job." Anytime a Twitter user tweets out "I'm
looking for a driver job. Anyone have suggestions where
to apply?” Your company will be notified in your social
stream monitoring tool.
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19. Social Nurturing
This is the perfect opportunity to tweet back ”Hi _____,
we'd love for you to check out our available driver jobs
and give us call with your questions!”
That person who was looking for a trucking driving job
is now receiving a personalized message from your
company.
This is an excellent way to nurture qualified leads on
social media.
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20. Social Nurturing
Tip: If you’re interested in creating a social stream to
monitor specific keywords, platforms such
as HubSpot and Salesforce offer these tools.
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22. Offline Activities
A large part of driver recruitment advertising takes
place in the digital world. But let's not forget about
what happens in the offline world.
Face-to-face relationships pack a powerful punch when
it comes to lead nurturing and recruitment.
Here are a few examples of how you can nurture
qualified truck driver leads through offline activities…
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23. Offline Activities
Hiring Events and Job Fairs
First, use a variety platforms to promote your hiring event
(email blasts, social media, newspaper and radio
advertising, press releases, etc…)
When the event arrives, this is the perfect opportunity to
sell your company benefits and convince driver prospects
why they should drive for you.
In-person events allow you to build a more personalized
connection with your qualified leads.
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24. Offline Activities
Direct Mail and PURL Campaigns
(that’s right, print isn’t dead!)
PURL = personal URL
Create branded postcards to mail out to your database. These
postcards should include a link and/or QR code that will send
recipients directly to a landing page personalized to them.
Because this type of campaign is personalized and tangible, it
captures their attention, sending traffic to your landing pages
and successfully nurturing your leads.
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25. Analyze and Optimize
Always measure your efforts.
Run A/B tests to improve your lead nurturing efforts and
optimize your overall driver recruitment strategy.
Calculate the number of leads that turn into driver hires.
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26. Conclusion
Recap:
1. Email Marketing
2. Retargeting
3. Social Nurturing
4. Offline Activities
5. Analyze and Optimize
These four methods to nurture driver leads allow you to
maximize what you do at the top of the funnel,
ultimately resulting in more hires and filled trucks.
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