October 24, 2023 • 29 mins
This episode shares advice for 3PLs and carriers on how to streamline marketing heading into 2024. Blythe Brumleve covers strategies like cutting outdated PPC campaigns, ensuring your website looks modern, leveraging AI tools for content creation, and investing more in social media. She provides practical tips to help freight companies get the most out of marketing budgets.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blythe Brumleve (00:05):
Welcome into another episode of Everything in
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight.
I'm your host, Blythe Brumleve,and we are proudly presented by
SPI Logistics, and in thisepisode, I really want to cover
a lot of topics that I have beengoing over in my client and
lead calls.
It's budgeting season, so we'rehaving a lot of meetings to
(00:26):
talk about how to spend yourmoney marketing and sales wise
for the rest of 2023 andprimarily for 2024 and beyond,
and I'm getting a lot ofquestions about strategy and
what to invest in time wise,money wise, budget wise, and a
lot of things make sense forright now and in the future and
(00:47):
a lot of things don't make sense.
So I really want to cover whatfreight companies specifically
3PLs and carriers are reallyshould be focusing on for the
rest of 2023 and 2024, and howthese strategies and tips will
help that one person or thatsmall marketing team really grow
, really flourish.
(01:08):
Now, if you are working at avendor in the freight space
maybe you're working for youknow an insurance broker or you
know a software tech provider,something like that a lot of
these tips will still apply toyou, but I'm coming at it from
the perspective of you know alot of companies, especially in
a down market, it is very, verychallenging to justify spending
(01:32):
money on marketing when you'renot exactly sure what the ROI of
that marketing is, and for alot of these strategies they are
, frankly, just simply outdated.
So I'm going to try to cover alot in a short amount of time,
so let's just go ahead and jumpright into it.
The first thing I'm hearing alot is companies that are
spending a ton of moneythousands, sometimes, well,
(01:53):
hundreds of dollars, for sure,but sometimes thousands of
dollars on PPC, which stands forpay per click campaigns.
Now, this strategy is justflawed in so many ways because
what happens is that Google isseen now a pay per click
campaign is typically when youpay somebody like Google or Bing
or another company in order topay for high intent keyword
(02:17):
phrases so you can rank forthose keywords and show up at
the top of searching results inorder, you know, for a visitor
to go to Google and they do alittle quick search and
hopefully you show up eitherorganically or from a paid
perspective If you are payingfor it.
It is called PPC and a lot ofcompanies are overvaluing this
(02:37):
because Google as a channel, asSEO as a strategy, is incredibly
fragmented and it's in chaosright now.
With Chat GPT entering thelandscape about a year ago, it
is really thrown the entiresearch engine optimization,
search engine marketing worldinto a full on fury because they
(03:00):
don't exactly know, or we don'texactly know, where the market
is going.
A lot of users close to 100,well, more than 100 million now.
Chat GPT launched about a yearago and it was the fastest
growing app to 100 million usersand it reached that within
three months.
Now, for a lot of folks, whatthey primarily have focused on
(03:21):
is organic SEO, which means thatyou know you're optimizing your
website for keywords, that ifsomebody is searching for a
carrier in your region, a brokerwithin your region, or maybe
not a broker within your region,but maybe a broker that
specializes in a specific typeof equipment or a specific type
of commodity, now, some of thosefrom an organic one time
(03:41):
perspective is still absolutelya good idea.
But if you were spendinghundreds of dollars, thousands
of dollars, on pay per clickcampaigns, you need to
reevaluate that budget thatyou're spending and, in my
opinion, probably cut it and youprobably wouldn't even miss it.
There are numerous studies.
I think eBay in particular, wasvery famous for a few years ago
(04:03):
.
They completely shut off all oftheir pay per click campaigns
and saw no significant drop intraffic, no significant drop in
customer activity.
And so I would caution everyone of you that if you were
looking for ways to trim yourmarketing budget and you are
spending a lot of money on payper click campaigns, I would
caution you to look Very, veryclosely on the production of
(04:26):
that, and when you look very,very closely, I would caution
you to look at it from anobjective eye, not from a Google
representative or a marketingagency that may specialize in
paperclip campaigns, becausethey have a financial incentive
to Make sure that they'reshowing the value of that
platform and the way that theyshow value and the way that
(04:47):
Google shows value for theirpaperclip campaigns is.
Google is treated as apass-through channel, meaning
very rarely Does someone Googleyour.
Does someone know the directass no, the, I guess the direct
address of your website.
What do they do?
They go to Google, they searchyour brand name and then they
(05:08):
click on your brand name andarrive at your website.
If they convert on your website, that lead is attributed to
Google, when Google was just thepass-through channel.
They just use that as a meansto get to your website quickly,
and so for a lot of paperclipcampaigns they they appropriate
(05:30):
that lead to that campaign whenit had nothing to do with the
conversion that that took placeto begin with.
So in my opinion, that's whatI'm hearing a lot on the calls
that I am on, you know, in thepad really today.
I took three calls today andall of them were talking about
their paperclip campaigns andhow much they're spending and if
(05:52):
they should Continue to investin that or not.
Now you need to be able to lookup this, look at this from an
objective eye.
But also, why don't you take apage out of eBay's book, take a
page out of their book byshutting off all of your ads.
Shut it off for a couple monthsand see if you notice any any
change in traffic and leads thatare coming to your site and how
(06:13):
those leads are converting andif their quality leads To begin
with.
So there's a lot of money beingwasted in paperclip campaigns
and a lot of money being wastedand Paying for the top result on
Google when it's basically afree-for-all right now With chat
, gpt funded content that we'reable to now, from an organic
(06:34):
perspective, be able to pump outthousands and thousands of
words and hundreds of articlesand a matter of hours and be
able to instantly Rank for thosekeywords.
So that is a number onestrategy that I would take a
look at.
If you're looking at Trying tocut your marketing spend and
without seeing a huge drop-off,then consider turning off all of
(06:59):
your PPC campaigns and justseeing how it goes and just
seeing if you keep alleverything else the same.
How would that cutting off thatspecific campaign and how that
would affect your traffic andthe leads to your website and
the quality of those leads toyour website?
So it's important to know thata lot of things are going to be
(07:19):
changing in the world of SEO,whether you pay for it or
whether you take an organicapproach.
I even me myself I still investin organic SEO, but I do so
because I pump out a lot ofcontent.
If you are not pumping out alot of content, then you're not
going to be able to see anoticeable change in your search
engine rankings and your searchengine traffic, and it might
not make sense for you to evenhave that turned on.
(07:41):
A lot of brokers, a lot ofcarriers are paying for PPC
campaigns when they don't needto pay for those things.
Think about it how often areshippers going to Google and
searching for your solution?
They're not.
They're getting hundreds ofcalls a day.
They're getting thousands ofemails every single week from
(08:01):
brokers and from carrierslooking to do business with them
.
They don't have to go to Googleto do these searches, so the
people are coming to them.
So the search engine traffic,the numbers that you're getting,
is probably very flawed andit's very skewed, especially
depending on who's providingthat service to you.
So that one to me is an easyone to cut out and just to do a
(08:23):
trial.
If you're spending a lot ofmoney, just do a trial.
See what happens if you shut itoff.
You can save a little money inthe process but also gain a ton
of insights on if the marketingagency maybe you're working for
is worth their salt andproviding a lot of traffic to
you or a lot of high qualityleads to you.
You can kind of see and you cangauge that if you just turn
(08:44):
those ads off for a couple ofmonths and then come back to it
and see what those results were.
Are you in freight sales with abook of business, looking for a
new home, or perhaps you're afreight agent in need of a
better partnership.
These are the kinds ofconversations we're exploring in
our podcast interview seriescalled the freight agent
trenches, sponsored by SPIlogistics.
Now I can tell you all day thatSPI is one of the most
(09:08):
successful logistics firms inNorth America, who helps their
agents with back officeoperations such as admin,
finance, it and sales.
But I would much rather youhear it directly from SPI's
freight agents themselves.
And what better way to do thatthan by listening to the
experienced freight agents telltheir stories behind the how and
the why they joined SPI?
Hit the freight agent link inour show notes to listen to
(09:33):
these conversations or, ifyou're ready to make the jump,
visit SPI three PL dot com.
The second thing I'm seeing is alot of y'all don't.
A you don't have a website, orB it hasn't been updated in
years.
We are living in the age offraud, double brokering,
impersonation Lots of thesethings are going on all over the
(09:56):
web, and if you don't have awebsite, then you're not able to
establish what I like to calltrust moments on your site.
So think about it if you weretrying to attract a shipper and
you have been, maybe coldcalling them, you've been
emailing them, maybe you've beendoing all of the right things
and creating more brainawareness on social media.
And when that shipper has hadenough with their current
(10:18):
provider and they're ready tostart doing business with you,
then they Google your name, theycome to your site and they fill
out a high intent form or theycheck to make sure that you are
who you say you are.
So what they're looking for onyour site is they're looking for
team photos.
They're looking for bios.
They're looking for what kindof equipment, what kind of
experience?
Are you part of anyassociations?
Are you?
(10:43):
Have you won any awards?
They're looking for all ofthese different trust moments on
your site in order to make thedecision on if they're going to
take that next step to dobusiness with you.
Now for a lot of websites, inthe overwhelming majority of
data that I see, someone comesto a freight website and they're
either coming directly to theirhomepage or they're coming in
through a blog post article.
(11:04):
The second page that they'revisiting after that is the about
us page.
Overwhelmingly, they want tocome in, see who you are and
then learn more about you.
So, making sure that yourwebsite is been designed in the
past three years, that itdoesn't look like something that
(11:25):
was built out of the nineties,you can do this at a very
affordable rate.
You know we offer these kindsof services I'll get more into
that later on but If you havethe capabilities, if you have
the technical know how in orderto revamp your website and it's
been a few years there areplenty of tools out there that
will help you speed up thisprocess and help you get it done
(11:46):
much more quickly.
Long gone are the days that youneed to pay five, ten grand for
a site.
If you do not pay that much fora website, specifically if it's
just a regular website now, youmight pay around that price.
If you're looking for reallylike custom animations and
custom design, you really don'tneed custom design.
(12:08):
Because why?
Because there's plenty of sitesout there that have Made their
business and building websitetemplates that cost fifty
anywhere from fifty bucks to ahundred bucks and so, thinking
about it from that lens, youcould go and you could purchase
your own website template thatyou like and then you could
install that on your own siteand build up your site from
(12:30):
there.
Now there are other companies,of course, that will do this for
you, but you shouldn't bepaying any more than Three grand
, I think is pushing it for asite.
Five grand is you better?
Have you know, a lot of content?
That's that's typically whatjumps up.
The price is if you have a lotof content, a lot of videos,
(12:52):
blogs, short form content,things like that that's what
makes your price jump.
Because if you're using, ifyou're creating more content,
you're creating more data andthat more data requires more
server space.
It requires more maintenance.
So, just to keep that in mind,if you're paying more, if you're
paying 10 grand or more for asite, that is crazy.
If you spend any more than 10grand on a site, unless you're
(13:17):
getting fancy, you know APIintegrations, things like that
that's when it can start to makethe price jump.
But I would argue that APIintegrations have nothing to do
with the presenting website andhas more to do with the back-end
capabilities, maybe some TMSintegrations or WMS integrations
, anything like that.
(13:38):
That typically because, again,api integrations typically means
more data.
More data means moremaintenance, more you know
server space, more just, morebandwidth, not just from a
technical perspective but alsofrom a people perspective.
So that's where those, that'swhere you can kind of understand
the fluctuations in price.
(13:58):
But if you haven't had a websiteredesigned in typically three
years, I typically do mine atleast every year and a half,
where I will be revamping theoverall look of my personal
sites.
If it's been more than threeyears, I would seriously look at
just purchasing a websitetemplate or hiring a company
like mine in order to help yousort of facilitate that process.
(14:20):
Because, again, if shippers arelooking to do business with you
, you know different partners.
They want to make sure thatthey're working with a company
that is up to date, that theyknow who they are, that they can
have those, they can see thosetrust moments created throughout
your site, and so that'sanother thing of what I'm seeing
is that a lot of sites, a lotof y'all site if you even have
(14:41):
one, it looks like it was built10 years ago and that just
doesn't scream that.
You know we've evolved into amodern day organization where
we're going to take care of yourfreight from you know,
investing in tools and solutionsthat are going to help track
your freight and keep it awayfrom double brokers and keep it
away from fraud and that you'rekeeping up with the times.
(15:03):
I mean, frankly, your websitesays a lot about you and your
company, and so if you're notkeeping up to date with that
kind of information, then it's.
You're probably going to see alot of missed opportunities and
you probably won't even see them, because they won't ever take
that next step to book a meetingwith you or to, you know, fill
out a request for quote oranything like that.
(15:24):
They're just not going to.
They're going to move on to thenext person because they're
getting all of those contactsevery single day, either through
cold calling or emailing or,however you know, stopping in
through the front door that youknow shippers are getting
hounded and they have the luxuryto sit back and pick the one
that they like the most.
So that's another thing thatI'm seeing.
(15:44):
Now, next one that I'm seeing isa lot of companies and this is
really frustrating to say a lotof companies are still asking
about organic SEO.
Now, I kind of mentioned thisin the first part of the show is
that for a lot of companies,you are investing in a tactic
that is a decade old, it's pastits prime and currently we just
(16:08):
do not see a very clear pathtowards relevancy if you are
only focusing on creating SEOblog content, and what I mean by
that is that you can have awebsite and you can optimize one
time your site for organickeywords and the reality of what
(16:29):
you want to do on those pagesis for your brand name and then
for the main services, equipmentthat you offer.
You do that one time onspecific pages on your site and
then that's it.
You don't, you shouldn't, betouching regular SEO keywords,
research, writing, blog content,things like that.
You shouldn't be regularlydoing that.
(16:51):
There is a better way, and thatis by going to social media.
Social media is where youraudience is already hanging out.
They can see your profile, theycan see if you are a real
person you are who you say youare.
They can read your thoughtprocess, they can see what kind
of messaging that you're puttingout into the world, and then
(17:12):
when they're actively in abuying cycle because, keep in
mind, 95% of your audience,probably more than that, is not
in an active buying cycle, andso when you focus on SEO, you
are focusing on them.
One to 3% of your TAM, yourtotal addressable market who is
actively in a buying cycle, andif they're going to Google, you
(17:35):
have to compete with every otherperson.
Every other ad that is on thatmain page Also videos YouTube is
the second largest searchengine on the planet and Google
owns them.
And so when you are competingfor the attention of that one to
3% that are actively in abuying cycle, then you are
setting yourself up for failure.
Instead, you should be usingsocial media in order to
(17:59):
communicate what your customersare care about, what your
customers are wanting to see.
You can communicate thatmessaging on social media to
that 95 plus percent of youraudience that is not actively in
a buying cycle, because whenthey do get into a buying cycle,
when they are tired of theircurrent provider, if you've done
your job right, then they'llremember you and they'll come to
(18:22):
you before they ever go toGoogle, and so keep that in mind
.
And so the next step in thisprocess is well, how do I figure
out what my customers careabout?
And this is the most, and ifyou've listened to any of my
content, then you know that Ihave shouted this company out.
They don't pay me to say this,but Otter AI.
(18:42):
It is the best kept secret insales and marketing and it is
the single biggest helper inorder to creating a content plan
that your customers and yourprospects care about.
So what you want to do is youwant to take a group
distribution emails maybe it'ssales at your freight company
dot com or whatever.
(19:03):
You want to take that email andyou want to sign up using that
email for Otter dot AI.
I swear by them.
They do not pay me to say this,but I use them every single day
and the way that I use them isthat it's a note taking app for
your meetings.
It auto joins your meetingstape records the entire thing,
(19:24):
takes notes during the processso you can focus on who you're
talking to and not writing downa million notes after the
meeting is over.
Everybody who was in on thatcall gets a copy of that
transcript, gets a copy of thetakeaways and on the takeaways,
it typically has questions, mainthemes that were talked about,
(19:45):
and it has a drill down to whereyou can find that exact moment
in that conversation of wherethat moment was referred to and
so what it is what you doafterwards as you take that and
you share it with your marketingteam.
You take all of those insightsand you share it with them,
because then they know what topost a social media, what to
(20:06):
create email campaigns, maybevideos or blogs.
Everybody has one of these cellphone if you're listening and
instead of watching, everybodyhas one of these, has one of the
best cameras on the market,right here in the palm of your
hands.
Take that order, a transcriptof those common questions that
you're asked over a week's time,over a month's time, and you
(20:29):
could turn that into an FAQ.
You could turn that into alanding page on your site and
then you can take all of thatcontent.
You can turn it into socialmedia content.
You can turn it into emailcampaigns.
It is the single biggest missedopportunity right now going on
in freight is that you don'tyou're not using some kind of an
AI note taking app If you justsign up for one of those.
(20:52):
I know there's more than autoAI.
Maybe there's better ones outthere, but frankly, auto AI does
more than everything that I'veneeded, so I swear by them.
I use it religiously in mycontent marketing plans and I'm
able to use those conversationsin order to drill down and
really refine what I talk abouton shows like this, on, on you
know, on guest appearances, whatI communicate to my audience
(21:15):
and what I communicate to myclients and customers.
It is essential.
I know how much it costs abouta hundred thirty dollars a year.
It is, hands down, the bestinvestment that you will make.
Another great thing about it isthat you have the ability to
export those transcripts fromthose conversations and then say
you hire a marketing assistantand that marketing assistant can
(21:35):
then take those transcriptsUploaded to chat to be T cost
twenty bucks a month.
They can rewrite that entiretranscript and make a content
plan out of that transcript.
I've done it myself.
I've taken Not dozens, but Itook the other day I took seven
to eight transcripts that wereall based in one specific
(21:55):
category and I said, let's makea content plan based on the
conversation and the takeawaysfrom these transcripts.
And you know it sent me anentire content marketing plan
based on transcripts andconversations I'm already having
.
So these are tools that I wishI would have had when I was
working inside of an asset basedthree PL, because it would have
(22:16):
made my job so much easier.
I would have known exactly whatkind of content to create,
because those are the exactconversations that your sales
team is already having yourleadership team is already
having, so Give your marketermarketing team a break.
If you have a marketing team ormaybe it's, you know it's
somebody that is handlingmarketing in addition to their
(22:38):
current role, but using that issuch a game changer.
And if you couple that withorder, I set 130 bucks a year.
Canva is about $100 a year andthat's a Graphics tool that you
can use to create differentsocial media graphics.
That's about a hundred bucks ayear and then, with those two
(22:59):
tools plus chat, to be 20dollars a month.
Right there, you have an entiremarketing suite Of tools that
you could be using in order tofuel your entire marketing ship.
So that is one another bigtakeaway.
Now maybe you're in a situationwhere you don't have anybody
that is in charge of marketing,that you don't have the
resources to hire somebody to inorder to help.
(23:21):
That's where making some ofthese budget cuts like what I
talked about with the PPCcampaigns shutting that off and
devoting that budget tosomething else, shutting that
off and devoting that budgetmaybe a thousand bucks a month
to a part time social mediacoordinator where they'll be
able to use order, ai and canvaand chat to be teach, create a
(23:42):
resource hub, a you know Googledry folder drop box folder that
is filled with social media postideas that come directly from
the conversations that your teamis already having.
So that's another option thatyou could be thinking about for
the new year.
Or really just to hone in onyour current marketing team.
Maybe you already have a couplepeople that are in charge of
marketing and you're looking forways to cut costs because,
(24:06):
that's frankly, it's a tightmarket and marketing is
typically the first thing thatis cut.
So you can make a justificationof making your current team
more productive by being able touse some of these newer tools
that have just hit the market inthe last year, so that can
really bump up your productivityand really put your marketing
(24:27):
on steroids, and Using thoseconversations that your sales
team is already having.
So that's what I, that's how Iwould approach it, that's how I
would choose to conquer mymarketing for the rest of this
year and in the new year.
Make sure that you're mappingout your processes before you
cold call, before you send anemail, before you write a social
(24:47):
media post.
What are those steps thatyou're doing in that process,
write it out and then C whereeach of those three tools that I
just mentioned in order, ai andcanva and chat, gpt see where
they can replace any of thoseother marketing tools or
software that you may havebought, and you thought it was
going to solve a lot of problems, but then it just created an
issue where you have all thesoftware and you're not using it
(25:10):
because it's confusing and ittakes time to learn, and you can
cut some of that out in orderto make your current team more
productive.
So that's where I would.
I would reevaluate my entiremarketing and sales processes.
I would immediately purchaseorder, ai or another similar
note taking app tool and then Iwould copy in my marketing team
(25:32):
or marketing person On all ofthose different conversations so
that they have a, they havesome kind of a database that
they can pull from withoutbugging you nonstop on how to
make different marketing plans.
Now, maybe you don't have plansto hire any kind of marketing
person and maybe you just wantto handle it all yourself.
You could follow that exactsame playbook and gain those
(25:55):
insights and then dedicate Anhour and hour and a half the
first part of the day in orderto conquer a lot of those
different goals.
So, after you've establishedyour processes, you're going to
trim the fat from your marketingbudget and then you can use
some of these tools, especiallychat GPT.
In the last couple of weeksthey have made A tremendous
amount of improvements to theplatform, so highly highly
(26:17):
advise you getting you know,just coughing up the twenty
bucks a month.
It is well worth it.
Now, if you're interested inanymore from you know my
services, my team everything islogistics is taking podcast
sponsorships in case you want toreach a highly engaged audience
, because that's actually adirect quote from a guest that
(26:37):
recently appeared on the podcast.
We can help you increase yourbrand awareness through podcast
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They said, appearing on yourpodcast sent us the most leads
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And then another guest closedthe largest customer she's ever
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Now, that's one caveat.
That's one revenue stream forme.
The other revenue stream ishelping great companies get
(27:00):
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You can check out some of ourwebsite plans.
A lot of the same things Italked about in this episode are
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So you can check out both ofthose things.
I've got them linked in theshow notes, so hopefully that
helps you sort of craft out yourmarketing plan for the rest of
(27:20):
2023 and beyond and stay tunedfor everything is logistics for
more content like this.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof everything is logistics, a
podcast for the thinkers infreight, telling the stories
behind how your favorite stuffand people get from point A to B
.
Subscribe to the show, sign upfor our newsletter and follow
(27:42):
our socials over at everythingis logistics dot com.
And in addition to the podcast,I also wanted to let y'all know
about another company I operateand that's digital dispatch,
where we help you build a betterwebsite.
Now, a lot of the times, we handthis task of building a new
website or refreshing a currentone off to a co-worker's child,
a neighbor down the street orstranger around the world, where
(28:05):
you probably spend more timeexplaining the freight industry
than it takes to actually buildthe dang website.
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(28:28):
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Our new website builds start aslow as $1500, along with
ongoing website management,maintenance and updates starting
at $90 a month, plus some bonusfreight, marketing and sales
content similar to what you hearon the podcast.
You can watch a quick explainervideo over on digital dispatch
(28:49):
dot IO.
Just check out the pricing pageonce you arrive and you can see
how we can build your digitalecosystem on a strong foundation
.
Until then, I hope you enjoyedthis episode.
I'll see you all real soon andgo Jags.
Welcome into another episode of Everything in
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight.
I'm your host, Blythe Brumleve,and we are proudly presented by
SPI Logistics, and in thisepisode, I really want to cover
a lot of topics that I have beengoing over in my client and
lead calls.
It's budgeting season, so we'rehaving a lot of meetings to
(00:26):
talk about how to spend yourmoney marketing and sales wise
for the rest of 2023 andprimarily for 2024 and beyond,
and I'm getting a lot ofquestions about strategy and
what to invest in time wise,money wise, budget wise, and a
lot of things make sense forright now and in the future and
(00:47):
a lot of things don't make sense.
So I really want to cover whatfreight companies specifically
3PLs and carriers are reallyshould be focusing on for the
rest of 2023 and 2024, and howthese strategies and tips will
help that one person or thatsmall marketing team really grow
, really flourish.
(01:08):
Now, if you are working at avendor in the freight space
maybe you're working for youknow an insurance broker or you
know a software tech provider,something like that a lot of
these tips will still apply toyou, but I'm coming at it from
the perspective of you know alot of companies, especially in
a down market, it is very, verychallenging to justify spending
(01:32):
money on marketing when you'renot exactly sure what the ROI of
that marketing is, and for alot of these strategies they are
, frankly, just simply outdated.
So I'm going to try to cover alot in a short amount of time,
so let's just go ahead and jumpright into it.
The first thing I'm hearing alot is companies that are
spending a ton of moneythousands, sometimes, well,
(01:53):
hundreds of dollars, for sure,but sometimes thousands of
dollars on PPC, which stands forpay per click campaigns.
Now, this strategy is justflawed in so many ways because
what happens is that Google isseen now a pay per click
campaign is typically when youpay somebody like Google or Bing
or another company in order topay for high intent keyword
(02:17):
phrases so you can rank forthose keywords and show up at
the top of searching results inorder, you know, for a visitor
to go to Google and they do alittle quick search and
hopefully you show up eitherorganically or from a paid
perspective If you are payingfor it.
It is called PPC and a lot ofcompanies are overvaluing this
(02:37):
because Google as a channel, asSEO as a strategy, is incredibly
fragmented and it's in chaosright now.
With Chat GPT entering thelandscape about a year ago, it
is really thrown the entiresearch engine optimization,
search engine marketing worldinto a full on fury because they
(03:00):
don't exactly know, or we don'texactly know, where the market
is going.
A lot of users close to 100,well, more than 100 million now.
Chat GPT launched about a yearago and it was the fastest
growing app to 100 million usersand it reached that within
three months.
Now, for a lot of folks, whatthey primarily have focused on
(03:21):
is organic SEO, which means thatyou know you're optimizing your
website for keywords, that ifsomebody is searching for a
carrier in your region, a brokerwithin your region, or maybe
not a broker within your region,but maybe a broker that
specializes in a specific typeof equipment or a specific type
of commodity, now, some of thosefrom an organic one time
(03:41):
perspective is still absolutelya good idea.
But if you were spendinghundreds of dollars, thousands
of dollars, on pay per clickcampaigns, you need to
reevaluate that budget thatyou're spending and, in my
opinion, probably cut it and youprobably wouldn't even miss it.
There are numerous studies.
I think eBay in particular, wasvery famous for a few years ago
(04:03):
.
They completely shut off all oftheir pay per click campaigns
and saw no significant drop intraffic, no significant drop in
customer activity.
And so I would caution everyone of you that if you were
looking for ways to trim yourmarketing budget and you are
spending a lot of money on payper click campaigns, I would
caution you to look Very, veryclosely on the production of
(04:26):
that, and when you look very,very closely, I would caution
you to look at it from anobjective eye, not from a Google
representative or a marketingagency that may specialize in
paperclip campaigns, becausethey have a financial incentive
to Make sure that they'reshowing the value of that
platform and the way that theyshow value and the way that
(04:47):
Google shows value for theirpaperclip campaigns is.
Google is treated as apass-through channel, meaning
very rarely Does someone Googleyour.
Does someone know the directass no, the, I guess the direct
address of your website.
What do they do?
They go to Google, they searchyour brand name and then they
(05:08):
click on your brand name andarrive at your website.
If they convert on your website, that lead is attributed to
Google, when Google was just thepass-through channel.
They just use that as a meansto get to your website quickly,
and so for a lot of paperclipcampaigns they they appropriate
(05:30):
that lead to that campaign whenit had nothing to do with the
conversion that that took placeto begin with.
So in my opinion, that's whatI'm hearing a lot on the calls
that I am on, you know, in thepad really today.
I took three calls today andall of them were talking about
their paperclip campaigns andhow much they're spending and if
(05:52):
they should Continue to investin that or not.
Now you need to be able to lookup this, look at this from an
objective eye.
But also, why don't you take apage out of eBay's book, take a
page out of their book byshutting off all of your ads.
Shut it off for a couple monthsand see if you notice any any
change in traffic and leads thatare coming to your site and how
(06:13):
those leads are converting andif their quality leads To begin
with.
So there's a lot of money beingwasted in paperclip campaigns
and a lot of money being wastedand Paying for the top result on
Google when it's basically afree-for-all right now With chat
, gpt funded content that we'reable to now, from an organic
(06:34):
perspective, be able to pump outthousands and thousands of
words and hundreds of articlesand a matter of hours and be
able to instantly Rank for thosekeywords.
So that is a number onestrategy that I would take a
look at.
If you're looking at Trying tocut your marketing spend and
without seeing a huge drop-off,then consider turning off all of
(06:59):
your PPC campaigns and justseeing how it goes and just
seeing if you keep alleverything else the same.
How would that cutting off thatspecific campaign and how that
would affect your traffic andthe leads to your website and
the quality of those leads toyour website?
So it's important to know thata lot of things are going to be
(07:19):
changing in the world of SEO,whether you pay for it or
whether you take an organicapproach.
I even me myself I still investin organic SEO, but I do so
because I pump out a lot ofcontent.
If you are not pumping out alot of content, then you're not
going to be able to see anoticeable change in your search
engine rankings and your searchengine traffic, and it might
not make sense for you to evenhave that turned on.
(07:41):
A lot of brokers, a lot ofcarriers are paying for PPC
campaigns when they don't needto pay for those things.
Think about it how often areshippers going to Google and
searching for your solution?
They're not.
They're getting hundreds ofcalls a day.
They're getting thousands ofemails every single week from
(08:01):
brokers and from carrierslooking to do business with them
.
They don't have to go to Googleto do these searches, so the
people are coming to them.
So the search engine traffic,the numbers that you're getting,
is probably very flawed andit's very skewed, especially
depending on who's providingthat service to you.
So that one to me is an easyone to cut out and just to do a
(08:23):
trial.
If you're spending a lot ofmoney, just do a trial.
See what happens if you shut itoff.
You can save a little money inthe process but also gain a ton
of insights on if the marketingagency maybe you're working for
is worth their salt andproviding a lot of traffic to
you or a lot of high qualityleads to you.
You can kind of see and you cangauge that if you just turn
(08:44):
those ads off for a couple ofmonths and then come back to it
and see what those results were.
Are you in freight sales with abook of business, looking for a
new home, or perhaps you're afreight agent in need of a
better partnership.
These are the kinds ofconversations we're exploring in
our podcast interview seriescalled the freight agent
trenches, sponsored by SPIlogistics.
Now I can tell you all day thatSPI is one of the most
(09:08):
successful logistics firms inNorth America, who helps their
agents with back officeoperations such as admin,
finance, it and sales.
But I would much rather youhear it directly from SPI's
freight agents themselves.
And what better way to do thatthan by listening to the
experienced freight agents telltheir stories behind the how and
the why they joined SPI?
Hit the freight agent link inour show notes to listen to
(09:33):
these conversations or, ifyou're ready to make the jump,
visit SPI three PL dot com.
The second thing I'm seeing is alot of y'all don't.
A you don't have a website, orB it hasn't been updated in
years.
We are living in the age offraud, double brokering,
impersonation Lots of thesethings are going on all over the
(09:56):
web, and if you don't have awebsite, then you're not able to
establish what I like to calltrust moments on your site.
So think about it if you weretrying to attract a shipper and
you have been, maybe coldcalling them, you've been
emailing them, maybe you've beendoing all of the right things
and creating more brainawareness on social media.
And when that shipper has hadenough with their current
(10:18):
provider and they're ready tostart doing business with you,
then they Google your name, theycome to your site and they fill
out a high intent form or theycheck to make sure that you are
who you say you are.
So what they're looking for onyour site is they're looking for
team photos.
They're looking for bios.
They're looking for what kindof equipment, what kind of
experience?
Are you part of anyassociations?
Are you?
(10:43):
Have you won any awards?
They're looking for all ofthese different trust moments on
your site in order to make thedecision on if they're going to
take that next step to dobusiness with you.
Now for a lot of websites, inthe overwhelming majority of
data that I see, someone comesto a freight website and they're
either coming directly to theirhomepage or they're coming in
through a blog post article.
(11:04):
The second page that they'revisiting after that is the about
us page.
Overwhelmingly, they want tocome in, see who you are and
then learn more about you.
So, making sure that yourwebsite is been designed in the
past three years, that itdoesn't look like something that
(11:25):
was built out of the nineties,you can do this at a very
affordable rate.
You know we offer these kindsof services I'll get more into
that later on but If you havethe capabilities, if you have
the technical know how in orderto revamp your website and it's
been a few years there areplenty of tools out there that
will help you speed up thisprocess and help you get it done
(11:46):
much more quickly.
Long gone are the days that youneed to pay five, ten grand for
a site.
If you do not pay that much fora website, specifically if it's
just a regular website now, youmight pay around that price.
If you're looking for reallylike custom animations and
custom design, you really don'tneed custom design.
(12:08):
Because why?
Because there's plenty of sitesout there that have Made their
business and building websitetemplates that cost fifty
anywhere from fifty bucks to ahundred bucks and so, thinking
about it from that lens, youcould go and you could purchase
your own website template thatyou like and then you could
install that on your own siteand build up your site from
(12:30):
there.
Now there are other companies,of course, that will do this for
you, but you shouldn't bepaying any more than Three grand
, I think is pushing it for asite.
Five grand is you better?
Have you know, a lot of content?
That's that's typically whatjumps up.
The price is if you have a lotof content, a lot of videos,
(12:52):
blogs, short form content,things like that that's what
makes your price jump.
Because if you're using, ifyou're creating more content,
you're creating more data andthat more data requires more
server space.
It requires more maintenance.
So, just to keep that in mind,if you're paying more, if you're
paying 10 grand or more for asite, that is crazy.
If you spend any more than 10grand on a site, unless you're
(13:17):
getting fancy, you know APIintegrations, things like that
that's when it can start to makethe price jump.
But I would argue that APIintegrations have nothing to do
with the presenting website andhas more to do with the back-end
capabilities, maybe some TMSintegrations or WMS integrations
, anything like that.
(13:38):
That typically because, again,api integrations typically means
more data.
More data means moremaintenance, more you know
server space, more just, morebandwidth, not just from a
technical perspective but alsofrom a people perspective.
So that's where those, that'swhere you can kind of understand
the fluctuations in price.
(13:58):
But if you haven't had a websiteredesigned in typically three
years, I typically do mine atleast every year and a half,
where I will be revamping theoverall look of my personal
sites.
If it's been more than threeyears, I would seriously look at
just purchasing a websitetemplate or hiring a company
like mine in order to help yousort of facilitate that process.
(14:20):
Because, again, if shippers arelooking to do business with you
, you know different partners.
They want to make sure thatthey're working with a company
that is up to date, that theyknow who they are, that they can
have those, they can see thosetrust moments created throughout
your site, and so that'sanother thing of what I'm seeing
is that a lot of sites, a lotof y'all site if you even have
(14:41):
one, it looks like it was built10 years ago and that just
doesn't scream that.
You know we've evolved into amodern day organization where
we're going to take care of yourfreight from you know,
investing in tools and solutionsthat are going to help track
your freight and keep it awayfrom double brokers and keep it
away from fraud and that you'rekeeping up with the times.
(15:03):
I mean, frankly, your websitesays a lot about you and your
company, and so if you're notkeeping up to date with that
kind of information, then it's.
You're probably going to see alot of missed opportunities and
you probably won't even see them, because they won't ever take
that next step to book a meetingwith you or to, you know, fill
out a request for quote oranything like that.
(15:24):
They're just not going to.
They're going to move on to thenext person because they're
getting all of those contactsevery single day, either through
cold calling or emailing or,however you know, stopping in
through the front door that youknow shippers are getting
hounded and they have the luxuryto sit back and pick the one
that they like the most.
So that's another thing thatI'm seeing.
(15:44):
Now, next one that I'm seeing isa lot of companies and this is
really frustrating to say a lotof companies are still asking
about organic SEO.
Now, I kind of mentioned thisin the first part of the show is
that for a lot of companies,you are investing in a tactic
that is a decade old, it's pastits prime and currently we just
(16:08):
do not see a very clear pathtowards relevancy if you are
only focusing on creating SEOblog content, and what I mean by
that is that you can have awebsite and you can optimize one
time your site for organickeywords and the reality of what
(16:29):
you want to do on those pagesis for your brand name and then
for the main services, equipmentthat you offer.
You do that one time onspecific pages on your site and
then that's it.
You don't, you shouldn't, betouching regular SEO keywords,
research, writing, blog content,things like that.
You shouldn't be regularlydoing that.
(16:51):
There is a better way, and thatis by going to social media.
Social media is where youraudience is already hanging out.
They can see your profile, theycan see if you are a real
person you are who you say youare.
They can read your thoughtprocess, they can see what kind
of messaging that you're puttingout into the world, and then
(17:12):
when they're actively in abuying cycle because, keep in
mind, 95% of your audience,probably more than that, is not
in an active buying cycle, andso when you focus on SEO, you
are focusing on them.
One to 3% of your TAM, yourtotal addressable market who is
actively in a buying cycle, andif they're going to Google, you
(17:35):
have to compete with every otherperson.
Every other ad that is on thatmain page Also videos YouTube is
the second largest searchengine on the planet and Google
owns them.
And so when you are competingfor the attention of that one to
3% that are actively in abuying cycle, then you are
setting yourself up for failure.
Instead, you should be usingsocial media in order to
(17:59):
communicate what your customersare care about, what your
customers are wanting to see.
You can communicate thatmessaging on social media to
that 95 plus percent of youraudience that is not actively in
a buying cycle, because whenthey do get into a buying cycle,
when they are tired of theircurrent provider, if you've done
your job right, then they'llremember you and they'll come to
(18:22):
you before they ever go toGoogle, and so keep that in mind
.
And so the next step in thisprocess is well, how do I figure
out what my customers careabout?
And this is the most, and ifyou've listened to any of my
content, then you know that Ihave shouted this company out.
They don't pay me to say this,but Otter AI.
(18:42):
It is the best kept secret insales and marketing and it is
the single biggest helper inorder to creating a content plan
that your customers and yourprospects care about.
So what you want to do is youwant to take a group
distribution emails maybe it'ssales at your freight company
dot com or whatever.
(19:03):
You want to take that email andyou want to sign up using that
email for Otter dot AI.
I swear by them.
They do not pay me to say this,but I use them every single day
and the way that I use them isthat it's a note taking app for
your meetings.
It auto joins your meetingstape records the entire thing,
(19:24):
takes notes during the processso you can focus on who you're
talking to and not writing downa million notes after the
meeting is over.
Everybody who was in on thatcall gets a copy of that
transcript, gets a copy of thetakeaways and on the takeaways,
it typically has questions, mainthemes that were talked about,
(19:45):
and it has a drill down to whereyou can find that exact moment
in that conversation of wherethat moment was referred to and
so what it is what you doafterwards as you take that and
you share it with your marketingteam.
You take all of those insightsand you share it with them,
because then they know what topost a social media, what to
(20:06):
create email campaigns, maybevideos or blogs.
Everybody has one of these cellphone if you're listening and
instead of watching, everybodyhas one of these, has one of the
best cameras on the market,right here in the palm of your
hands.
Take that order, a transcriptof those common questions that
you're asked over a week's time,over a month's time, and you
(20:29):
could turn that into an FAQ.
You could turn that into alanding page on your site and
then you can take all of thatcontent.
You can turn it into socialmedia content.
You can turn it into emailcampaigns.
It is the single biggest missedopportunity right now going on
in freight is that you don'tyou're not using some kind of an
AI note taking app If you justsign up for one of those.
(20:52):
I know there's more than autoAI.
Maybe there's better ones outthere, but frankly, auto AI does
more than everything that I'veneeded, so I swear by them.
I use it religiously in mycontent marketing plans and I'm
able to use those conversationsin order to drill down and
really refine what I talk abouton shows like this, on, on you
know, on guest appearances, whatI communicate to my audience
(21:15):
and what I communicate to myclients and customers.
It is essential.
I know how much it costs abouta hundred thirty dollars a year.
It is, hands down, the bestinvestment that you will make.
Another great thing about it isthat you have the ability to
export those transcripts fromthose conversations and then say
you hire a marketing assistantand that marketing assistant can
(21:35):
then take those transcriptsUploaded to chat to be T cost
twenty bucks a month.
They can rewrite that entiretranscript and make a content
plan out of that transcript.
I've done it myself.
I've taken Not dozens, but Itook the other day I took seven
to eight transcripts that wereall based in one specific
(21:55):
category and I said, let's makea content plan based on the
conversation and the takeawaysfrom these transcripts.
And you know it sent me anentire content marketing plan
based on transcripts andconversations I'm already having
.
So these are tools that I wishI would have had when I was
working inside of an asset basedthree PL, because it would have
(22:16):
made my job so much easier.
I would have known exactly whatkind of content to create,
because those are the exactconversations that your sales
team is already having yourleadership team is already
having, so Give your marketermarketing team a break.
If you have a marketing team ormaybe it's, you know it's
somebody that is handlingmarketing in addition to their
(22:38):
current role, but using that issuch a game changer.
And if you couple that withorder, I set 130 bucks a year.
Canva is about $100 a year andthat's a Graphics tool that you
can use to create differentsocial media graphics.
That's about a hundred bucks ayear and then, with those two
(22:59):
tools plus chat, to be 20dollars a month.
Right there, you have an entiremarketing suite Of tools that
you could be using in order tofuel your entire marketing ship.
So that is one another bigtakeaway.
Now maybe you're in a situationwhere you don't have anybody
that is in charge of marketing,that you don't have the
resources to hire somebody to inorder to help.
(23:21):
That's where making some ofthese budget cuts like what I
talked about with the PPCcampaigns shutting that off and
devoting that budget tosomething else, shutting that
off and devoting that budgetmaybe a thousand bucks a month
to a part time social mediacoordinator where they'll be
able to use order, ai and canvaand chat to be teach, create a
(23:42):
resource hub, a you know Googledry folder drop box folder that
is filled with social media postideas that come directly from
the conversations that your teamis already having.
So that's another option thatyou could be thinking about for
the new year.
Or really just to hone in onyour current marketing team.
Maybe you already have a couplepeople that are in charge of
marketing and you're looking forways to cut costs because,
(24:06):
that's frankly, it's a tightmarket and marketing is
typically the first thing thatis cut.
So you can make a justificationof making your current team
more productive by being able touse some of these newer tools
that have just hit the market inthe last year, so that can
really bump up your productivityand really put your marketing
(24:27):
on steroids, and Using thoseconversations that your sales
team is already having.
So that's what I, that's how Iwould approach it, that's how I
would choose to conquer mymarketing for the rest of this
year and in the new year.
Make sure that you're mappingout your processes before you
cold call, before you send anemail, before you write a social
(24:47):
media post.
What are those steps thatyou're doing in that process,
write it out and then C whereeach of those three tools that I
just mentioned in order, ai andcanva and chat, gpt see where
they can replace any of thoseother marketing tools or
software that you may havebought, and you thought it was
going to solve a lot of problems, but then it just created an
issue where you have all thesoftware and you're not using it
(25:10):
because it's confusing and ittakes time to learn, and you can
cut some of that out in orderto make your current team more
productive.
So that's where I would.
I would reevaluate my entiremarketing and sales processes.
I would immediately purchaseorder, ai or another similar
note taking app tool and then Iwould copy in my marketing team
(25:32):
or marketing person On all ofthose different conversations so
that they have a, they havesome kind of a database that
they can pull from withoutbugging you nonstop on how to
make different marketing plans.
Now, maybe you don't have plansto hire any kind of marketing
person and maybe you just wantto handle it all yourself.
You could follow that exactsame playbook and gain those
(25:55):
insights and then dedicate Anhour and hour and a half the
first part of the day in orderto conquer a lot of those
different goals.
So, after you've establishedyour processes, you're going to
trim the fat from your marketingbudget and then you can use
some of these tools, especiallychat GPT.
In the last couple of weeksthey have made A tremendous
amount of improvements to theplatform, so highly highly
(26:17):
advise you getting you know,just coughing up the twenty
bucks a month.
It is well worth it.
Now, if you're interested inanymore from you know my
services, my team everything islogistics is taking podcast
sponsorships in case you want toreach a highly engaged audience
, because that's actually adirect quote from a guest that
(26:37):
recently appeared on the podcast.
We can help you increase yourbrand awareness through podcast
sponsorships.
They said, appearing on yourpodcast sent us the most leads
out of any campaign we did allyear.
And then another guest closedthe largest customer she's ever
had simply by coming on thispodcast.
Now, that's one caveat.
That's one revenue stream forme.
The other revenue stream ishelping great companies get
(27:00):
online and grow through digitaldispatch.
You can check out some of ourwebsite plans.
A lot of the same things Italked about in this episode are
exactly the blue book orplaybook that we follow over on
digital dispatch dot IO.
So you can check out both ofthose things.
I've got them linked in theshow notes, so hopefully that
helps you sort of craft out yourmarketing plan for the rest of
(27:20):
2023 and beyond and stay tunedfor everything is logistics for
more content like this.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof everything is logistics, a
podcast for the thinkers infreight, telling the stories
behind how your favorite stuffand people get from point A to B
.
Subscribe to the show, sign upfor our newsletter and follow
(27:42):
our socials over at everythingis logistics dot com.
And in addition to the podcast,I also wanted to let y'all know
about another company I operateand that's digital dispatch,
where we help you build a betterwebsite.
Now, a lot of the times, we handthis task of building a new
website or refreshing a currentone off to a co-worker's child,
a neighbor down the street orstranger around the world, where
(28:05):
you probably spend more timeexplaining the freight industry
than it takes to actually buildthe dang website.
Well, that doesn't happen atdigital dispatch.
We've been building onlinesince 2009, but we're also early
adopters of AI, automation andother website tactics that help
your company to be a centralplace to pull in all of your
social media posts, recruit newemployees and give potential
(28:28):
customers a glimpse into how youoperate your business.
Our new website builds start aslow as $1500, along with
ongoing website management,maintenance and updates starting
at $90 a month, plus some bonusfreight, marketing and sales
content similar to what you hearon the podcast.
You can watch a quick explainervideo over on digital dispatch
(28:49):
dot IO.
Just check out the pricing pageonce you arrive and you can see
how we can build your digitalecosystem on a strong foundation
.
Until then, I hope you enjoyedthis episode.
I'll see you all real soon andgo Jags.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.