If your position puts you in charge of recruiting truck drivers, there is no question that you have a tough job. It doesn’t matter if you are recruiting owner-operators, company drivers or specific certifications. Recruiting truck drivers is competitive and has a massive effect on your fleet’s bottom line.
If you aren’t getting the drivers your company needs, there is a good chance it is because you aren’t properly marketing to the sales lifecycle. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to read this whitepaper.)
What is the Sales Lifecycle?
The first step in fixing any problem is figuring out where your process is breaking down. Are you getting lots of qualified applicants but failing to follow up on them? Are you spending lots and lots of money to advertise and only getting a few applications? You probably already know where this process has weaknesses, but what you might not know is how to fix them.
1. Start at the Beginning: Target Correctly
If you don’t start by targeting and reaching the correct audience, the rest of your recruiting process just isn’t going to work. You might be thinking that if you get enough applications you’ll eventually find the drivers you need.
Mathematically you are probably correct.
But each application your company gets for a driver that isn’t a good fit for the positions you have open represents wasted dollars. If you are looking for owner-operators with a HAZMAT certification that are in the greater Dallas area, don’t spend thousands of dollars putting ads in front of drivers that you don’t want to hire. Use a highly targeted cookie database to put your banner or search engine ads in front of just the drivers most likely to be qualified drivers who are currently looking for work.
[pullquote align=”right”]The more you know about how truck drivers consume media the better chance you have of stretching your ad dollars and reaching a more highly targeted audience.[/pullquote]
You can also take advantage of a database specific to the trucking industry that will help you learn more about where you have the best chance of finding the drivers you need. The more you know about how truck drivers consume media the better chance you have of stretching your ad dollars and reaching a more highly targeted audience.
2. Brand Awareness: Connect with Potential Drivers
If your fleet is anything like most, you will always need a steady supply of great drivers to keep your loads moving. This means that you need to do more than just advertise to drivers or spam their inboxes. You need to be in front of qualified drivers as often as possible so that when they are looking for work, your company comes to mind.
Don’t limit your reach to just one form of advertising.
Take advantage of banner ads, search engine PPC campaigns, print ads, and industry events. The idea is to get in front of the type of driver that you need and get them to come to you. This will always be cheaper and easier than aggressively seeking new drivers through spamming or telemarketing.
3. Generating Responses: Engage With Drivers Online
Start sharing content that is important to truck drivers. Make entertaining videos and memes that your audience will want to share. Take polls and learn more about what drivers are looking for when they begin seeking out a new company to drive for. Your website should have a blog that will draw drivers in and get them to engage with your brand on a regular basis. Don’t allow your brand to only be associated with pushy advertising.
Show truck drivers what your company has to offer.
Then re-engage drivers that reach out to you or “raise their hands.” Use cookied pages, collected email addresses, and social media followings to launch more engagement campaigns to bring drivers closer to the final application.
4. Convert. Convert. Convert.
None of what you do to connect with your audience or engage them will matter if you aren’t pulling the trigger and hiring the drivers your company needs. You might want to consider a CRM or another platform that can manage your applications so that your recruiters follow up on the most qualified and most recent applications in a timely manner.
[pullquote align=”left”]This information will allow you to continue to reach out to the drivers you need and will make your next trip through the recruiting lifecycle cheaper and more efficient.[/pullquote]
If you are sorting through piles of unqualified applications to find that one that works for your most urgent open position, you have a problem with targeting. If you are failing to get responses to the advertisements you are paying so much for, you aren’t engaging your audience properly.
5. Recruit Smarter: Retarget
How much do you know about how you have recruited drivers in the past? Are you building a rich, dynamic database of drivers who have signed up for your company newsletter, or who have subscribed to your corporate blog? Are you building a cookie database that will allow you to put ads for open positions in front of drivers who will qualified for that job?
If you haven’t been doing this, don’t lose hope!
You can take advantage of another company’s audience database and use their retargeting data to guide the placement of your ads. This information will allow you to continue to reach out to the drivers you need and will make your next trip through the recruiting lifecycle cheaper and more efficient.
Don’t let the overwhelming driver shortage that our country is facing bury you. Fix the broken parts of your recruiting lifecycle, and make a massive impact on your company’s bottom line before it is too late.
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