Fleet marketing is highly unique. That’s why we treat it as its own specialty.
Even though I recently wrote about employee retention marketing, I want to take a closer look at what fleets should be doing to improve truck driver retention—because many simply aren’t doing them.
Typical employee retention measures often aren’t enough for fleets. For the most part, drivers work alone all day, every day. It’s easy to feel isolated, especially if employee communication efforts are limited. In our experience, many fleets don’t relize how limited their efforts really are on that front.
Fortunately, the core retention marketing activities fleets ought to be using are fairly straightforward. These are what I call “cost of entry” tactics. They’re the things fleets of all sizes really should operationalize if they hope to compete when the talent market heats back up and turnover along with it. While the market’s not hot right now, that means it’s a good time to lay the groundwork and get this stuff rolling.
Here are five things fleets should be doing to improve driver retention (but often aren’t).
Frequent two-way communication with drivers
To understand why retention marketing is so important for fleets, you need to put yourself in a driver’s shoes—or their seat, if you will. They’re out on the road, away from the friendly chatter in the company break room. Often, the only contact they have for long stretches is with dispatch.
The most successful fleets I’ve known have fostered frequent, ongoing, two-way communication with their drivers. Here’s are a few ways you can make this part of your retention marketing plan:
- Communicate the way your drivers communicate. Find out each driver’s preferred method, and send them messages that way.
- Make it easy for drivers to respond to anything you send out. Using a communications app such as Zoom, or adding a comments section on your company intranet, can help facilitate this.
- Newsletters are an essential employee communication tool, but be sure to bolster them with SMS (text) messages, emails and, of course, social media posts. By pushing your newsletter out in all of these different ways, you’ll dramatically increase the number of drivers who engage with them.
That’s a nice segue into my next point…
Staying active on social media
I like to say that if you’re going to be on social media, you need to be all in. Gone are the days where fleets (heck, companies in general) could get away with posting every now and then, and respond to comments when they had time. That can lead to disengaged and frustrated drivers.
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: if you’re going to be on social media, be active every day. The top fleets we’ve worked with know this, and robust social media strategies are an integral part of their retention marketing plans.
Here’s what all fleets should be including in their social strategies.
- A designated social media officer. Be sure to assign the task of posting, monitoring and replying on your social channels to one person on your team.
- Fun and engaging posts. Not every post has to be all-business. Vote-by-emoji polls, friendly banter about favourite sports teams, and discussing which kind of pie is best all play well and show your lighthearted side.
- Short-form videos. These are the best way to show, not tell, what your team does best. They offer drivers a quick glance into what’s going on back at terminal or on the road. Best of all, they perform well with potential new hires, too.
High-performing fleets are generally highly engaged social media users. Make sure your fleet does the same. It shows you’re more than just a row of spreadsheet numbers. Which brings me to the next thing all fleets should be doing…
Humanizing their fleet
Typical fleet marketing often highlights trucks, runs, and service areas, and mentions the perks their drivers receive. That’s important, of course, but fleet marketing also needs to showcase the names and faces of the people on your team. If fleets overlook that, they miss a golden opportunity to show their human side. This also means they’ve missed the chance to show that their drivers are more than cogs in the machine!
Showing your human side is always a wise marketing move, especially if you want to retain your drivers for the long haul (pun fully intended). Here’s a few ways to make that happen.
- Use video to show your “imperfect” side. Marketing materials that are too slick and overproduced can cause no-nonsense people like drivers to raise a collective eyebrow. Don’t be afraid to show your people stumbling over their words or spilling their morning coffee. It shows you make the same harmless mistakes as everyone else.
- Share the authentic. Beyond making sure they’re properly lit and focused, don’t worry if your images show a realistic view of your fleet. Drivers know terminals have muddy puddles after a rainstorm. They know the dispatcher’s office might have a corkboard collage of comics. Don’t be afraid to show them!
Remember your human side when you’re creating your marketing. It will help you achieve the next thing fleets often fail to do…
Standing out from the crowd
What is your fleet doing to show off what makes you unique? Yes, your marketing strategy is supposed to help you do just that, so it needs to be part of your recruitment retention marketing as well. If drivers see no difference between you and everyone else, they’ll have less reason to apply (or if they’re already driving for you, to stick around).
In my experience, fleets don’t always do enough to showcase themselves as a unique driver opportunity. Luckily, there are effective ways to do so, such as:
- Make your employee value proposition (EVP) crystal clear. What is your employee value proposition and more importantly, do drivers know it, too? Your marketing strategy should include ways to make your EVP easily understood.
- Highlight the real perks of driving for your fleet. Maybe the runs are particularly picturesque. Or your loads are all exclusively flatbed. Or your drivers get their weekends off. These all make your fleet more appealing, so shout them loud and clear.
- Highlight your people. If you want to show drivers that they’re more than just a number, then make sure you let them shine. Consider running driver profiles, tours of their cabs, or simply asking them to share their favourite truck stop meal shows you appreciate your drivers for everything they do.
Which brings me to the last thing all fleets should be doing, but often don’t:
Sharing driver wins fleet-wide
Make sure you take the time to proudly share all of your drivers’ wins – both in and out of their rigs. Sure, your drivers will be proud of any safety awards or hauling records they win. They’re just as proud, though, of milestones in their personal lives.
So if a driver is open to you sharing their win with everyone else, go ahead and shout it out on all your employee-facing channels. Someone’s had their first child? Gotten engaged? Bought the fishing boat they’ve been dreaming of? Make sure all your drivers – and anyone else watching – knows about it.
Most fleets already have a good handle on their marketing. The fleets that have turned their good marketing to GREAT marketing, though, have a driver-first focus. KAT Media works on fleet marketing all day, every day, so we know your challenges better than most marketing agencies do. We can help you accomplish all of the above, and even work as an extension of your team to do it.
Give us a call today and we’ll chat.