LinkedIn is considered one of the most effective marketing platforms for professional purposes. It has a much clearer business focus than say, Facebook and Instagram, and its members have a clear purpose using it: to manage their network and to grow professionally.

For businesses in the freight industry, not only there are tons of professional logistics LinkedIn groups you can join, but LinkedIn is also a great platform to promote your company and services.

Here we cover some step by step basics on how you can start promoting your freight forwarding business on LinkedIn.

First, create a LinkedIn Page

You cannot effectively generate leads on LinkedIn without structuring a professional page for your freight forwarding company. According to the posts from LinkedIn Marketing Team, there are four essential elements on your LinkedIn page that should be taken care of first:

1. Company images: 

They include your banner picture and a company logo.

2. A memorable slogan: 

In the overview section, don’t forget to describe your company’s: (1) target customers (2) services (3) value and vision as a clear yet compelling pitch.

This way, people can easily find your page and know YOU are the right freight forwarder at a glance when they are searching for relevant topics. (see our page example below)

3. Organization information: 

It refers to your company website URL, related industry, employee number, and location. Filling them out in detail increases your credibility to your potential customers—no trusts, no click-throughs.

4. Customize the call-to-action button:

The call-to-action button is important to attract your audience to make connections with you. Choose one button that aligns with your goal. It can be either Visit Website, Contact Us, or other actions.

According to the official statistics, completed page info drives 30% more presence on LinkedIn. Check your page again before launch and see whether you miss any information if you have had a company page.

Now create your first post

Now you can either write an original post, share pieces from other sources or simply say hi. If you don’t know what to share, you can start by thinking about the following 5 general LinkedIn post tips:

1. Conversion-focused:

Make sure you always align with the goals of creating a LinkedIn page when posting or editing the settings, either for prospects to click through to your actual company website or brand awareness creation.

2. Follow your audience’s lead:

Knowing the purpose of maintaining your page, you might wonder what will go into your target audience’s LinkedIn feed.

They can see their connections’ liked, commented, or shared posts from their connections.

With that being said, those posts can be the ones from YOUR PAGE, and eventually, get a chain reaction as you wish.

So, try to ask for specific people to interact with your posts, such as your colleagues and the sales managers. They’re likely to reach your potential clients (ie., the specific people‘s connections), and ultimately to create leads from the LinkedIn page.

3. Incorporate rich media:

Having a wide post variety engages more impressions (pictures, multi-images, videos, long articles, PDFs, and PPT slides). Yet, for your first posts, we recommend you to have outbound links and images.

After you find a comfortable pace posting, you can put more effort into creating whitepaper or slides to share with your followers.

4. Length, hashtags (#), and handles (@) matter:

Keep your call-to-action link and main points within 210 characters so that they won’t be cut off.

As for hashtags, adding at most 3 of them at the end of your posts a useful rule of thumb (then no worries about hashtags being cut off).

One more tip on your posts: use handles (@) to mention other people or organizations to grow impressions of a post and make connections. E.g., @freightwave or @gofreight 🙂

5. Be as specific as you can:

Information-seekers want to see discussions over precise topics instead of general basics. The same rule can apply to hashtags that you choose.

Based on the LinkedIn product manager’s article, post viewers are more likely to feel intrigued when the posts dive deeply into a topic. E.g., #freightforwarding instead of #logistics

Promoting and maintaining your page

Now you are live on LinkedIn, how do you attract the right audience to promote your freight company? LinkedIn Ads is one of the most effective tools to gain quality leads, especially in the B2B sector.

Promotion, effective tools, leads, and B2B might be the things you are not familiar with. Then, give LinkedIn Ads a shoot and tailor-made your first ad campaigns to amplify your efforts poured into the very page.

So now you understand how LinkedIn works (or even have refined your page!). Here comes the real challenge: maintaining and managing your LinkedIn page.

One simple takeaway for you — Consistency:

Be realistic at first.

As you might have noticed, logistics, or freight forwarding to be exact, are not a general interest of the majority of people. So you need to build up your posting routine (maybe twice a week or any frequency that is easy to start with) in order to attract those who are in the freight forwarding industry.

A great kickoff for your LinkedIn marketing: Share either engaging news about containers, shipping, and cargo, or useful information regarding your services (just like new updates or clients review).

Don’t forget to cross-promote your LinkedIn page on other channels to generate more leads, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit.

Conclusion

B2B marketing isn’t easy, and it’s even harder in the logistics industry.

Finding the right channels and promoting at the right time will not only save you tons of marketing budget, but also save time to deliver better customer services or even closing more deals faster.

Wonder how we’ve done on our LinkedIn Page? Check it out now 😀