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What to Do (and What Not to Do) When Promoting Your Courier Business

If you’re new to the business of freight forwarding, or if you feel you’re going a little stale when it comes to promoting your business, we have some great tips to help get you motivated. It’s a tough and competitive industry out there, so it’s in your best interests to do what you can to get your company (or yourself, if you’re an owner driver) on the radar of potential customers.
Ways to Promote Your Business

A Website

The very first thing you should do if you want to promote your business meaningfully is to set up a website and, if possible, a blog. Although you may think that due to your location you have the potential to get the monopoly on available work, you could be mistaken. Other freight forwarders and owner driver operators may have plans to set up in your local area, so you need to stay ahead of the competition.

If you’re not used to dealing with computers, you may think that setting up a website would be too much of a challenge. But there are plenty of platforms available to help you create a website very easily and with minimal effort. The great news is that it won’t necessarily cost much either.

Get Yourself Online

Following on from getting a website up and running, establishing an online presence is imperative. Get socially active and set up Facebook and Twitter accounts as soon as possible. This not only allows you to reach customers you may not otherwise have, but it also offers the chance to join online communities that are relevant to your business and local area.

The more presence you have online, the more people will know about the services you offer. Online forums are a good platform on which to promote your services, with many allowing you to leave your contact details.

A SWOT Analysis

By doing a SWOT analysis, you can identify the areas of your business that need improving. It is these areas that you will focus on when steering your marketing and promotional strategy. But what exactly is a SWOT analysis?

Strengths – You need to consider what strengths you see in your company and how these have the potential to be a positive benefit to the community in which you are working.

Weaknesses – Equally important are the weaknesses. You must find ways of dealing with these.

Opportunities – You need to stay aware of potential opportunities to enhance your company. If you’re an owner driver, hand your business cards out whenever you can so you can be in front of people when it comes to potential work.

Threats – Check out the competition and make the necessary changes that will not only keep your existing customer base but also encourage the customers of other companies to consider switching to your services.

What Not to Do

Don’t Spam People

This will only infuriate potential customers. People hate to be bombarded with promotional material, so be careful not to be tempted to do this.

Don’t Ignore Price Comparison Sites

There is so much information available online and customers often turn to price comparison sites when making a decision on which firm to use. Register with as many of these sites as you can, so people are aware of the great offers you provide.

Don’t Get Lazy

You can’t rest on your laurels and stop networking. Online promotion is all very well, but the old school method of talking to people is a hugely successful strategy as well. Conduct yourself professionally and make yourself amenable to potential customers and you could win more business than you ever thought possible.

This might all appear to be simple advice when it comes to promoting your services, but it’s surprising how many businesses get complacent. Getting your company’s name and reputation out there is paramount if your business is to be healthy and flourish for years to come.

Whether you’re an owner driver or a company manager, you need to stay on top of your company promotion at all times and these tips will help.

Author Plate

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for same day owner driver courier jobs in the express freight exchange industry. Numerous transport exchange businesses are networked together on their website, trading jobs and capacity through what is now the fastest growing Freight Exchange in the UK.

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New Speed Cameras Catching Red Light Runners

Merseyside owner drivers need to be aware that a new speed camera is being trialled by police. This camera not only catches speeding vehicles but has been designed to catch red light jumpers too. Known as ‘speed on green’ cameras, they are part of a new innovation that aims to improve safety on the road and deter anyone behind the wheel from speeding up through traffic lights as they are changing.
What the Cameras Do

The principle aim of this technology is to catch drivers jumping lights. They are also, however, fine-tuned to catch anyone speeding through them, regardless of whether the lights are changing or not.

What are the Benefits?

Hundreds of people are involved in serious vehicle accidents annually. In Merseyside alone, 577 people were seriously injured or lost their lives last year. It is hoped that these cameras will help make a significant reduction in collisions, especially at junctions.

Forewarned is Forearmed

The Road Safety Partnership and Merseyside Police are the innovators behind the trial and have identified several appropriate junctions in the Merseyside area suitable for the trial. These junctions are deemed particularly risky and it is thought that the cameras could be enough of a deterrent for drivers who would normally be tempted to take unnecessary risks. In the long run they will behave more responsibly and road safety will improve.

People not driving slowly enough to stop as the lights change or as pedestrian begin to cross the road cause most accidents at traffic lights. It is good advice to all owner drivers to pay attention to their speed, regardless of whether these ‘speed on green’ cameras are in place – but by knowing that they may be fined as a result of risky decisions at junctions, vehicle owners will hopefully drive more carefully and responsibly.

The Penalties

Owner drivers have a reputation to uphold and understandably most of them want to avoid being caught for minor offences. Consequences include Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) and fines of £100, as well as three points added to the license of anyone caught speeding by a ‘speed on green’ camera. More serious offences receive a greater punishment and possible court proceedings, as well as steeper fines. On top of this, jumping a red light incurs another fine of £100 and an additional three points on a license so if you are caught both speeding and running the light, the fine is £200 and six points immediately.

If this trial is successful it will be rolled out nationwide. Owner drivers are responsible for their behaviour on the road and, despite having targets to meet and deadlines to adhere to, safety comes first – these cameras will help remind every vehicle user that of that and make the roads a better place to be.

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Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Courier Exchange, the world’s largest neutral trading hub for same day owner driver courier jobs in the express freight exchange industry. Numerous transport exchange businesses are networked together on their website, trading jobs and capacity through what is now the fastest growing Freight Exchange in the UK.

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Biogas Benefits: A Green Future for the Transport Sector

All businesses face pressures to innovate and none more than haulage companies. For decades now, issues around climate change have pushed the development of new and alternative fuels, and these debates are only intensifying as evidence piles up.
This can be stressful, especially as transport firms find themselves caught between regulatory limits and commercial pressures to innovate. But it can also open new opportunities. Biogas might just lead to major benefits for the transport sector, so read on to find out more about this exciting alternative fuel.

What is Biogas?

There’s a lot of science behind it, of course, but in short biogas is exactly what it sounds like: gas produced by biological processes. Waste materials such as industrial, domestic and food waste are put into a container. Inside, they undergo a process of anaerobic digestion, producing a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide. Or, more simply, organic materials go in, organic processes occur, and organic fuel comes out.

But how can all this affect haulage companies?

Benefits

Biogas has a number of significant advantages over traditional fuels, which makes it a serious contender to power the vehicles of the near future and beyond.

Firstly, it’s classed as renewable, both because waste products are so plentiful and because the carbon dioxide released when it’s burnt helps grow the organic material that eventually goes into the gas’s manufacture.

Secondly, it’s clean-burning. Where something like diesel belches out a mixture of harmful substances, including sulphur dioxide and miniscule particulates, biogas produces only carbon dioxide, water and energy.

On top of this, and connected to these two points, it seems to be carbon neutral, as all the CO2 produced in burning it is absorbed into the organic materials then used to produce more gas.

The benefits to haulage companies are increasingly clear, and indeed this new fuel is already starting to transform the transport sector.

How it’s Changing the Industry

As we’ve noted, this fuel is easy and uncontroversial to source and use, making it good news for environmental concerns. There is encouraging evidence on this front already, with haulage companies that switch seeing the following results:

• Nitrogen oxide emissions halved • Particulate emissions nearly eradicated • Carbon dioxide output reduced by as much as 95%

More than this, though, it also has tangible benefits to firms. Firstly, it makes operations much quieter – a crucial boon when working in residential areas. Secondly, it can save you money, reducing expenditures on fuel by around a third.

The Future of Fuel?

Some have raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of biogas, but gas and infrastructure supplier Roadgas believes this is not the case. Their managing director David Rix described a ‘highly organised supply market with a structured supply chain’, also noting that recycling in this way could offer ‘a solution for our waste problems.’

Roadgas also argues that growing demand will see infrastructure improve to meet it, but haulage companies might still have reason to be sceptical. Assurances that supply issues will be solved before they arise may well prove correct, but they aren’t enough to base logistics on.

In short, current trends are encouraging, and processes of production, storage and refining continue to improve. Transport industry observers would do well to keep an eye on the development of this exciting field. Author Plate

Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry. Haulage Exchange provides services for matching drivers or haulage companies with available jobs. Over 5,400 member companies are networked together through the Exchange to fill empty capacity, get new clients and form long-lasting business relationships.

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