Working in a highly competitive and complicated freight forwarding industry may seem daunting and chaotic. However, its intricacies allow for a lot of improvements. The first thing you need to do is keep up with the market and differentiate yourself.
Know the freight forwarding market and differentiate yourself
The freight forwarding market is rapidly changing; tactics used previously may be outdated, eventually losing its competitive advantage. For instance, many are using CRM systems and email automation to speed up their process of acquiring customers. If you are still relying on writing emails back and forth, potential prospects may lose their patience and interest in your service.
However, understanding the market is not enough for you to increase sales, you have to invest in your differentials such as better customer service, faster response times, and safer cargo handling. These strategies have more potential than simply offering a lower freight rate as competitors are most likely already utilizing this method. If you’re doing it too, then what’s the difference between you and your competitors?
Learn more:4 Important Trends Freight Forwarders Need to Know to Prepare for 2021
CRM: Customer Relationship Management
Providing better customer experience results in higher retention rates and an increase in word of mouth promotion. It would not be strategic to invest time and money in these lower-value customers, therefore, you have to identify and segment your customers by their values. A simple metric is the time it takes to make a deal. A freight CRM system helps you track how long it takes a salesman to get a deal and also streamline the process of email follow-ups, job handover, and quotation customization. CRM systems can integrate marketing tools to “remind” retain past customers as well as attract potential customers.
Conducting a Digital Marketing Strategy to Acquire More Customers
There are 3 ways you can start with:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Providing high-quality content on your Facebook, blog, private group to your target audience will attract customers to reach out on their own
- Paid advertising: Actively delivering your content to more people out of your group and get more traffic. The more people your ads reach, the higher chance you get qualified customers.
- Email marketing: developing a closer relationship with your prospects without sending emails actively. Email automation allows you to provide prospects with the information and answers they need. You can even design your own email marketing flow.
Learn more: Digital Marketing Strategy for Freight Forwarding Company
Automation platform: CRM, ERP, KPI dashboard
All of the above-mentioned tools as well as KPI checkups can be integrated on a comprehensive dashboard. No matter what size your freight forwarding company currently is, an automation platform is able to scale accordingly.
You can analyze the data and find out what to improve to boost your sales.
Through the platform, managers will be able to see the whole picture, sales performance, and build a data-driven strategy.
Below are 5 metrics you can use to evaluate your performance.
- Time rates for closing new clients: How much time does it take for your sales team to close a new deal and acquire a customer?
- Client acquisition rates: how many became clients/ new prospects your sales team reached out to
- New shipments: With the period X, how many new shipments did your company make?
- Shipments by client: Within the period X, how many shipments did your company make with each client?
- Sales revenue: define your own, for instance: price per shipment x number of shipments
Networking
With the tool’s help, you can start reaching out to high-quality prospects. Online Facebook groups such as “Worldwide Freight Forwarders” and “Freight Forwarding Service” are great references to start at.
Participating actively in a logistics network might be one of the most important ways to enter and grow in markets and meet other freight forwarding companies. There are also opportunities to seek new markets, make new partnerships, participate in logistics network events, and expand your network contacts! Learn everything about these groups – including benefits, tools, and how to choose a group that is suitable for your needs.
If Still Unsure About How To Boost Sales and Revenue
