National truck sales company retools marketing to uncover new audiencesTransportation and Trucking
The used semi-truck market is highly competitive and includes a wide range of potential customers - some more profitable than others.
When a national trucking company had to declare bankruptcy due to financial malfeasance, Quality, the subsidiary that sold their used trucks, had to find a new owner. A large North American fleet management firm stepped in to purchase Quality and installed a turnaround CEO to improve operational efficiency and profitability.
Quality was stuck in neutral when I was tapped to lead their marketing. They had been without a marketing chief for months and were spinning their wheels with inconsistent efforts, lackluster promotions, and a lack of focus.
A whole shift in marketing was required – toward data-driven strategies, targeted and segmented messaging, content marketing and digital campaigns. New audiences needed to be found to more quickly move the 5,000+ aging trucks in inventory. I drove the strategy and led the small, but powerful marketing team as we turned creative ideas into marketing impact.
As always, organizational and environmental factors also required our attention. After two years of market volatility, the new parent company wanted to now divest and sell off the trucking business. They set an aggressive deadline to find a suitor and the race was on.
challenge
The truck sales and leasing company faced a long list of hurdles, including:
- An aging inventory of commoditized assets. Many of the trucks also still had large bank liens against them, preventing them from being discounted to market rate.
- The previous target audience of single owner-operators were difficult to work with, had high default rates and were very price sensitive.
- Previous customers were also very vocal about any bad experiences, leading to brand reputation issues and low customer ratings on Google and Facebook.
- There was little to no measurement for advertising, email marketing, and promotions.
- The sales and marketing teams weren’t working in tandem to maximize campaigns as well as they should.
- The looming sale put added pressure to quickly improve marketing and deliver results.
solution
Quality brought me onto serve as their interim marketing leader and help turn around the organization. During my time with the firm, I was able to:
- Conduct extensive market research and data analysis to identify new target markets with higher customer-lifetime value (CLV) potential.
- Work closely with the CEO, VP of Sales and other executive leadership team members to reposition the firm as a fleet partner for trucks sales or leasing, geo-tracking tech, tires, insurance and more, leading to additional revenue streams.
- Craft strategies to re-invigorate the brand with clear goals and KPIs. Produced a well-researched and detailed marketing plan that could serve as our ongoing roadmap as well as a possible vision of the future for potential buyers of the company.
- Revamp lead generation program and efficiently deployed $1 mil. annual budget for omnichannel campaigns with digital marketing, social media, advertising, PR, promotions, paid search, events and industry webinars.
- Collaborate with sales leaders on an account-based marketing approach to make better connections with prospects and land larger deals.
- Manage the web agency to redevelop and launch a new website that included a robust inventory of 5,000+ trucks (tied to Salesforce for easy proposal generation).
results
In just over 8 months, we successfully repositioned the firm for maximum potential. The flywheel was beginning to turn and more wins were coming, and landing faster, each day. The team and I:
- Successfully shifted the demand so that it came from fleets (not owner-operators) with many choosing the newly promoted leasing option and additional services that provided better margins for Quality.
- Drove brand awareness quickly and helped sell more than 3,000 trucks in 9 months.
- Leveraged marketing budget to build an integrated marketing program that saw consistent increases in opens, social follows, promo take rates, and qualified leads.
- Conducted ongoing ROI analysis to find $100k in savings from un-targeted Paid Search campaigns that could be reallocated.
- Saw steady increases in customer satisfaction levels and the number of positive online reviews.
- Collaborated with HR leaders on internal communications, ensuring a smooth operation from the team throughout the potential sale and closure.
Do you want to see similar, measurable results for your brand? It’s time to get more from your marketing and I can help. Let’s start with a conversation.
“Rob seamlessly embedded with our sales and production teams to define the brand and quickly build interest in the Kinetics Hybrid, managing the multiple marketing channels in a cost effective and impactful way.”
