Parcels, parcels, and more parcels, this is what you need to keep on coming if you want to grow your courier service. However, just wishing for parcels and customers won’t automatically bring you the same. You will need to follow a strategic plan in order to start growing your courier service. With the inputs given through this write-up on courier service marketing ideas, it will be fairly easy to start getting more clients for your courier service.
1) Optimize the Site, Convert More Site Visitors to Customers
Before looking at a new method to grow your courier service, you can look at optimizing your most powerful online asset i.e. “website” to get better results out of it. Take a look at the below things first so as to make your website fetch you more clients.
A) Give good enough reasons for people to make a call to contact your business. These reasons can be free pickup of parcels, discounted service, free price quotes, etc.
B) Now there is analytical data to show how visitors are lost with delays in site loading time. So get your site loading speed checked and improved to load quickly.
C) Get trust pulling factors like testimonials, media coverage, achievements on your website so that people can trust your courier business which in turn would boost your customers.
D) Get the site design overhauled to make it professional looking with easy-to-navigate category pages and sub-sections.
E) Check your site display on different devices in order to make sure that it does adjust as per different screen sizes. If not, then make it (website) adjustable.
F) Video on a website is proven to elongate the visitor duration on site along with growing the conversion rates. So get it (video) on your website.
2) Good SEO, Good Presence, More Customers
The offline operation of a business requires a good location (in most cases) to get clients. Similarly for the online presence of your courier service, if your virtual shop (website) fails to get visible on the first page of Google when people type search queries related to your business, then your business will miss out on many potential clients each and every day. Technically, what you must do to your website to gain clients organically and passively is called search engine optimization or SEO. Many parameters come into play to ensure good SEO and therefore, if you want to get it done all by yourself, you must learn SEO tips, techniques, and case studies from any online marketing forum or website. The simple alternative way out is to resort to any quality SEO agency business.
3) Optimize GBP, Increase Local Pack Visibility
Most of the time, Google displays a special section on its search page when local businesses and services are searched. This special section is called “Google Local Pack” and for getting displayed here, you first need to create a Google business listing, officially called Google Business Profile. As websites require optimization for good ranking in search results, your “Google Business Profile” also requires the right optimization to get displayed more frequently for local keywords. If you focus on getting more reviews and citations to this business profile page, you will find that this page will be displayed more often which will bring you more customers.
4) Lead the Marketing Game with Press Releases
Press releases (PR) are not mere announcement-making tools, they open up marketing benefits for a business if used wisely. If the press release content is improved so as to focus on some low-competition keywords, it can result in the press release itself ranking in the search engines so that the PR can keep on pulling organic traffic month after month. Indirectly, they also greatly help the site (official site of business) for which the press release is distributed as they help in getting backlinks from some of the trusted and high-authority sites. They can also ensure the placement of your news on sites like Marketwatch, Yahoo News, etc if high-value distribution plans are used.
5) Excel in the Content Marketing Game
Consistent content creation produces significant growth in traffic and sales over time and this is the core reason for the success of content marketing. Adopting content marketing demands consistency in publishing content so that over time, your website would start appearing in search engines for 100’s of new search queries which will help the site to gain more traffic. Regarding the choice of content, one can opt among various types of content like informative blog posts, video content, infographics, common questions/answers, podcasts, etc. To find ideas for producing content regularly for your courier website, you can take the help of any keyword explorer tool (like Ahrefs) to come up with new topic ideas.
6) Let Local People on Social Media Know You
Promoting a courier service on social media is a game of patience and steadiness, the only exception being running paid ads on social media which delivers results quickly. Making your business page/profile on social media is the first and basic step. The next step that requires consistency is interaction with people on social media through groups, through the usage of hashtags, running competitions, teaming up with influencers, etc. Getting to a count of a few thousand followers is the main stepping stone after which things ease out and promotion on social media becomes easy and faster because big groups and pages easily convince and attract more people to join in.
7) Ads are Fast in Giving Results
Different marketing strategies take different time periods to show results and one of the fastest methods to yield results is paid advertising on quality and traffic-rich sources like Google and Facebook. Businesses can see new potential customers landing on their website in as early as 24 hours after running the ad campaign. However, just creating ads and hoping for profits to roll in is not going to happen if no tracking and optimization of ads are done. Many factors come into the picture that determines how well an ad performs and one has to optimize all these factors for successfully running ads.
8) Videos Can Provide a New Traffic Channel
For many businesses that do take their online marketing seriously, you will find that they do adopt video marketing too. This is because video results are also included in search results on Google. Since the chances of videos appearing on Google searches are dependent on keyword competition, a good video marketing strategy mostly makes use of creating videos around lesser searched keywords. By having multiple videos for small-level (low-traffic) keywords, the combined effect is large enough to drive more people to your courier business. Also sharing videos on websites, social networks, and other sites drives more engagement and traffic which is an additional plus factor with video marketing.
9) Identify and Connect with Big Customers Through LinkedIn
For any business, it is good to have clients who can regularly give large orders or sign long-term contracts. However, how to get introduced to the key position holders in such companies/businesses remains the main bottleneck. LinkedIn is a platform that can aid you in searching, selecting, and building communication with these high-end profiles. So create a LinkedIn profile and start pitching the best potential candidates for a long-term contract or large orders for your courier business.
10) Do Informal Marketing
A customer comes to you, pays money to you, books his delivery, and goes back. This is a formal scenario with a courier business and it lacks any emotional touch. However, if you give a gift to your customer for booking couriers through your service, this adds an emotional side to your business which is necessary for your business growth. This gift can be an inexpensive one like a pen or any other item marked with your courier business name. With many services offering custom printing online, it is too easy to buy printed (with your business name) inexpensive items in bulk.
11) List on Yelp and Identical Directories
The directory “Yelp” has become a big powerhouse of traffic for many businesses and services due to the top rankings enjoyed by it on Google. Scanning Google search results for courier-related keywords will give you a few more such directory names that are efficiently ranking in its search results. On listing your courier service details on these directories, extra customers (to your business) and new backlinks (to your site) will be acquired.
12) Start Rewarding People Who Refer Your Business
For every customer who books orders through your courier service, you can give a “Refer and Earn” type of card that will give some points or monetary reward to the customer who brings you, new customers. This method will work more powerfully than simply asking the customer to refer others to your courier service.
13) Distribute Coupons Through Social Media Influencers
Social media influencers are nowadays used by many small and big businesses for promoting their respective products and services. You too can get in touch with a few LOCAL influencers and can provide influencer-specific coupons for use at your courier service. This will make the followers of the respective influencers feel special about your coupons and this will also increase the success rate of coupon redemption at your business/service outlet.
14) Do Vehicle Wrap/Cover Marketing
This is an easy way to make more people notice the name of your courier service. All it requires is wrapping, covering, or painting your vehicle/vehicles with the advertisement of your courier services. Doing on-road promotion of your courier service through this method is cost-effective and simple.
15) Generate More Customers by Adopting New Technology
To make your courier service distinct from many others, use advanced technology to offer unique features. These features can be the live current location of your delivery/parcel, a photo of your parcel at the current location, the precise time of reaching various intermediate locations, etc. The more advanced you become in integrating the benefits of technology in your courier service, the more you will start getting orders.
16) Create and Promote New Discount Codes to Keep Orders Coming In
Price has remained one of the important considerations of customers for almost all businesses and services. If you create discount codes every now and then for your courier service, this will help you to bag many price-conscious customers. If you don’t want to reduce the price, you can offer loyalty points to make the customers come again for increasing their loyalty points and to gain rewards out of these points. So use discounts and offers to grow your courier service.
17) Do Tactical Networking to Open up More Destinations
If you increase the reach of your courier delivery to serve more locations, this will help you take more orders that you were not taking previously. To expand this reach, network with other courier services having their presence in those locations that are currently not served by you.
18) Start Introducing Your Business to Large Clients
Many businesses and services are part of some or the other larger association or group, for example, chamber of commerce, etc. By getting in touch with the key position holders in such associations, you can introduce your courier service to all the members of that respective association. The more associations you connect with, the more your courier service will get recognized.
19) Give Automatic Quotes, Get More Orders
Many people while searching for a courier service online are also interested to know the charges that they will incur to send their parcel. If you can offer the option to give a rough idea of the estimated price directly on your website, you will be able to convert many of the potential prospects into your customers. So get a quote-providing app developed and embedded on your website.
20) Special Days, Special Service Marketing
Some weeks are special for your business as they can provide a great rush of orders, especially weeks leading to special days like Father’s day, Mother’s day, etc. By giving offers for such days along with spending more on advertising for these days, you can grab a big share of orders and can grow your business revenues faster.
21) Start Collection and Packaging for Good Results
The more convenience you provide to customers, the more business growth you will get. An attractive way to get more customers is to offer a direct collection of couriers along with the option of packing the parcel. You can also charge extra for these services and many customers who prefer time-saving will be happy to hand you extra dollars for providing this service.
22) Go After the Crowd for Promotion
Be it local events, local sports, trade fairs, local festivals, etc, such occasions attract a big local crowd and thus provide a good way to bulk promote your courier service. Advertising in such mass events can be done through distributing leaflets, placing banners, sponsoring the event, etc.
23) Don’t Miss Out on Common Offline Marketing Methods
A balanced marketing strategy encompasses both online and offline marketing to get the business/brand name in front of as many people as it can. Despite huge growth in internet access, offline marketing is joyfully being deployed by lakhs of businesses and services around the world. Many people use ad blockers online to stay away from ads but there are no ad blockers when it comes to offline marketing. The brand image of your courier business will enhance if people find the mention of your business both online and offline. So, you can try methods like banners, billboards, newspaper ads, brochures, etc for getting more customers to your courier business offline.
24) Don’t Let Reviews Pull Down Your Business
A good-enough segment of potential customers will definitely look for reviews of your courier service online before sending their parcel/order through your service. If the online image of your business is marked with no reviews or negative reviews, your potential customers will look for an alternative courier service. This makes it important that you start paying more focus to manage a positive image online with good reviews about your courier service. For this, a straightforward way is to ask your customers to review your courier service online.
We have finally reached the end of this article on courier service marketing ideas. Let us know, through the comments section, which ideas are you going to apply. If you have doubts or questions, freely ask them below. Lastly, share this article on your social media to show us how much this article has helped you.
