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Keeping your trucks on the road with the drivers you need is a difficult task. The driver pool of quality drivers is limited and every time a competing fleet hires a driver that limited pool becomes even smaller. How can you keep from falling behind?
One way that many fleets have been finding success is changing up what they’re doing and trying a more unique and targeted approach. Simple banner ads and outdated websites alone won’t bring in the drivers you need in today’s world. To give you a better idea of what I mean, here are three examples of unique ways you can recruit drivers.
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1. Target Drivers on Social Media
Having a presence on social media is a great place to start. Drivers are regularly active and engaged on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
If you are already attempting to build your recruiting through social media, but aren’t generating the results you need, it could just be that your social media audience isn’t targeted enough. Using paid ads on social media can help you go from just posting and crossing your fingers to reaching exactly the drivers you are after. Paying for ads on social media allows you to define your audience based on your lists, lists built from a 3rd party data source such as Randall-Reilly’s driver database, users similar to your customers, or even geographical location (we’ll talk about that more in a minute).
Once you’ve established who you are after, you can continue to grow an audience by providing quality content to the truckers you are after are interested in. Not every driver is interested in or able to commit to your fleet right away. It may take time to convert the drivers you are after. By continuing to reach out to drivers on social media with great content they’re interested in and retargeting these drivers with your marketing efforts you will be the first fleet to mind should they decide to make a change.
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2. Employ Geographical Targeting
One roadblock many fleets run into is that they become bogged down with an abundance of leads that they can’t use. There are a few ways you can begin to ease this, such as qualifying or eliminating questions on applications, but one of the easiest yet most effective ways to cut down on wasting spend reaching drivers you can’t use is to use geographic limiters in your recruiting campaigns.
After all, if you’re looking for a driver to fill a specific need in a specific area it makes sense that you would want to go after qualified drivers who are already based out of those areas. Facebook has offered Geographical based targeting for nearly ten years, and with every passing year they roll out new features to help companies and fleets just like yours to become more effective at reaching the exact audience you are after. Another option to help build a custom audience based on geographic location is 3rd party data like that available through the Randall-Reilly driver database.
Limiting your campaign reach and targeting only those within the area you define saves money and eliminates the difficulty of trying to filter through a deluge of drivers who may not meet the requirements you need or be available to drive where you need them.
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3. Streamline Recruiting Time to Contact
If you’re like most of the fleets we speak to, one of the biggest problems you face is simply getting into contact with the leads that you’ve already generated. In fact, we’ve found that for every 100 leads you call, 40 of them are not reached, even after multiple attempts. That’s 40% of the quality leads you’ve generated being wasted. Couple that staggering number with the fact that prospects are most likely to respond if they are contacted within 5 minutes after a form submission. Five minutes. Are you able to move that quickly?
You have to do everything you can to reduce the time it takes someone from your recruiting team to reach out to a prospect after you’ve generated the lead. You may not be able to get it down to 5 minutes, but you have to work as hard as you can to cut that time down as much as you can.
Implementing systems that use automated emails or sms texting to reach out to a prospect immediately after they’ve submitted a form is a great way to cut down on contact time and make sure you are giving yourself the best chance possible to land a prospective driver. One other very effective method has been the use of automatic calls made after a form submission. With the driver on the line they are walked through some preliminary questions and once they’re ready they are transferred directly to someone in the recruiting department.
One of the newer services Randall-Reilly offers is Lead Connect. It is designed with the goal of getting you into contact with quality live leads and speeding up the time frame from submission to contact. The system uses the techniques discussed above all in conjunction with one another to quickly and effectively reach out to new leads and get them connected to a member of your recruiting staff.
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Do you need to shorten response time and increase lead closes?
LeadConnect can help.
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Do you need to shorten response time and increase lead closes?
LeadConnect can help.
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Do you need to shorten response time and increase lead closes?
LeadConnect can help.
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Do you need to shorten response time and increase lead closes?
LeadConnect can help.
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Be Different and Get the Drivers You Need
With so much competition from other fleets and a very limited driver pool you have to do all you can to set yourself up for recruiting success. If you’re struggling to land the drivers you need the three methods discussed throughout this article can help get your recruiting headed in the right direction.
Go to where the drivers are on social media. Take the extra step and fine-tune your targeting to include geographic location. And do all you can to speed up your time to contact. These three simple things could be the key to your fleet’s recruiting future.
