Marketing Tools: How do I market my services as a freight broker to new clients and shippers and carriers?
The big question is WHERE TO FIND SHIPPERS? Searching for Shippers is among the initial stages of the freight brokering business. However before you beging marketing to them you first need to make sure you have something to market and having a good website is a good place to start. Your brokers course includes free website templates. Even operating as a small freight brokerage you will need a professional website to give the impression to your clients and shippers that you are an established freight brokerage company. When you market your services to shippers they will want to see your website and more than likely, based on how your website looks, will be one of their deciding factors if they want to do business with you. Your website will be the key to describing all your services, testimonials, and contact information.
Your brokers course comes with a shipper and carrier database of over 250,000 profiles in excel format. From this list of data you will be able to send out emails, brochures to their business address and make phone calls to setup appointments. Plan a marketing strategy rather than just making indecisive searches or phone calls. Pick your target area, set goals and work from there. Email marketing is always good to start because you can reach a lot of clients with little effort, but making calls and setting up appointments is where most of your leads will start to convert. The first goal is to look for shippers who need shipping services. As a service industry, you have no storefront for a customer to visit or a product to hand them for examination. Your website acts as a “virtual” storefront for you.
