Knowing the top strategies for effective courier marketing in the UK is fundamental for all courier companies. Sometimes we choose the marketing tool that we feel most comfortable with. If writing comes easily to us, we create a blog about our courier industry; if we prefer to make short video recordings, we open a YouTube channel. When we feel comfortable recording podcasts, we choose this path.
With time, however, especially when we have already perfected one way of communicating (although more often simply by searching for alternatives), we start to think about using other tools, methods of communicating our courier marketing content. Let’s treat this article as a courier marketing toolbox, a list, from which everyone will find something for themselves.
The most stunning courier marketing tools in the UK
1. Website
This is actually the basis of current courier marketing activities. It is crucial to remember to clearly divide courier marketing media into owned and acquired channels. Only in our own media, such as websites, do we have full control over the published content and control over all technical aspects, not to mention analytics at our fingertips thanks to free Google Analytics (for analyzing courier company’s website traffic). As long as we take care of these aspects, we can be sure that this astonishing content will not disappear overnight, which is not guaranteed by YouTube, Facebook, or other services that we use so willingly. A website is also a medium for other tools that we are unable to use without it.
2. Leaflets
In the era of courier marketing, leaflets sound like a thing of the past. Meanwhile, many courier businesses, mainly local ones, still use them with great success. In addition to preparing the right and astonishing content, we must take care of distribution.
3. Press advertising
Despite the decreasing importance of the press, press advertising still functions in the range of marketer’s tools. Depending on the reach of a given title, it can be quite expensive, although much cheaper than television advertising. The first thing we need to take care of is the target group of a given magazine. It is often better to choose a smaller but more precise reach (local press, industry magazine) than a nationwide reach with proportionally higher costs.
It is also worth taking care to measure the effectiveness of a given press, presenting an appropriate call to action and unique contact details that allow for measuring the return on investment. This is all the more fundamental, the less diversified our courier marketing tactics are, the smaller our budget.
4. Reputation
No courier business has ever lost by investing in its reputation. By making the customer connect with it and be proud to buy its services, the courier business can be sure of both growth and longevity. To ensure an astonishing interface with the public, courier businesses also have medical technology at their disposal. Through psychology marketing, they can understand the psychology of customers.
5. Communication with its customers
Courier marketing can be the channel of communication between the public and a courier business, as well as offering fundamental possibilities not only for dialogue but also for feedback, through which a courier business can project more and more appropriate and correct messages.
But how can a small and medium-sized courier business understand if and to what extent it needs courier marketing? The following questions will help in this direction, since, essentially, they describe the targeting of the specific tool, which is none other than the connection of the courier business with the public and its interaction with it, with a view to improving the communication between them, which was achieved through an interactive campaign. How “visible” is a courier company in the market? Generally, what a courier business needs to consider is whether a consumer looking for a particular courier service will stumble upon it.
Who is the audience and its competitors? If the courier business does not know which market it addresses, then it is difficult to understand its needs, while if it does not know its competitors, then it does not have the possibility to equip itself with the appropriate “weapons”, to compete on an equal footing in the courier business arena.
Courier marketing serves this very purpose: on the one hand, that is, to help the courier company identify audiences and competitors, and on the other hand, to “build” its strategy, which will be shaped according to the data each time. It is, after all, a dynamic process, which needs constant revision.
It is true that small and medium courier business owners feel the need to “stand out” from the crowd. This is exactly what the courier marketing tools available on the market today promise, allowing each courier company’s owners to choose the ones that suit them best. Even if a courier company does not have a specific department for this purpose, then its staff may well attend fast-track programs from professionals in the field or visit platforms that offer online courses on the subject.
In any case, what every courier business must keep in mind is that the use of courier marketing tools cannot be opportunistic, just as, after all, the relationship with consumers is not – and should not be – opportunistic. Loyal customers are the ones who boost the sales and profits of courier businesses and thus, secure their future.
6. Email Marketing
Although it has been with us for years, it still works great as a courier marketing tool for communicating with customers. GDPR regulations have made it necessary for us to increasingly care about the quality of our contact databases, sending them personalized content, and choosing the right time to send it. For a courier company that has a customer database collected over the years (and has obtained appropriate consents), starting email marketing activities can be an excellent tactic.
If there is no such database, it is worth taking care of creating it as soon as possible. It most often manifests itself in sending ubiquitous newsletters, but it is not worth focusing on this. In combination with appropriate lead magnets, we can use email marketing in many other, more creative ways.
7. Events
For various reasons, events are currently moving from the real world to the web. Sometimes with better and sometimes with worse results. On the one hand, we have conferences that perfectly fulfill their role in the form of video transmission, and on the other, trade fair organizers are trying to create a substitute for a physical stand and courier service presentation. It must be kept in mind that the new and delightful form will not work in every case.
8. Social media
One of the most awesome courier marketing tools is widely used due to its popularity. Most companies have their profile on Facebook, much more than on LinkedIn, which may seem more of a “courier business” place. The Internet has given us a choice of various social media, from those focused more on texts to those that revolve around visual materials. When considering starting an activity on social media, we need to consider where we will find our target group and what kind of courier services we sell.
Some courier companies will have no problem with making a video, others will have to reach the heights of creativity to show something really interesting. In addition, let’s try not to be on all social media at the same time. It is awesome to limit social media, build a community on one phenomenal network rather than on all of them haphazardly.
9. SEO
According to the Sarpsheets article, search engine optimization is a phenomenal courier marketing tool that is shrouded in mystery for many courier business owners and treated as very uncertain. It is not entirely clear how to choose a set of keywords for which we want to position ourselves, it is not entirely clear how to be high in search results.
Fortunately, software supporting search results analytics (starting with Google Search Console in conjunction with Google Analytics) and appropriate content marketing that can position us higher for a specific keyword in Google (still the king among search engines) come to the rescue.
It is worth mentioning that no SEO activities will give anything in the long run without an appropriate courier marketing strategy, providing content of the right quality, bringing value to our recipients, and as a result, an increase in traffic to the website. However, if we do it correctly, we can ensure a constant inflow of potential customers from selected keywords at a relatively low cost.
10. PPC Advertising
Pay-per-clicks include Google Ads, Facebook Ads, YouTube Ads, and other platforms. These can be sponsored search results that appear in the search engine, appropriately targeted entries in social media, or various banners that appear during our wanderings on the web.
The principle is simple: after configuring this type of advertising, we pay for each click and redirection of the recipient to the medium indicated by us (usually a website or its subpage). This is one of the courier marketing tools that allows for achieving measurable sales effects, but it is also very popular and in some industries also expensive.
Using the targeting capabilities of the selected platform, we immediately gain access to hundreds of thousands of courier clients, and the effect is limited only by our creativity and ability to configure the tool. This is also a method that requires relatively low financial outlays at the start, although achieving good results may be slightly more expensive.
11. Word of mouth marketing
It is often negatively associated with the manipulation of opinions on the web by fake people who participate in various websites and recommend services pretending to be their actual recipients. Unfortunately, such phenomena are also present, but word of mouth courier marketing itself collects a much wider spectrum of marketing activities within its framework.
Basically, the idea is to present our offer in a positive light using channels potentially independent of us. We can achieve this by persuading our satisfied customers to leave opinions, cooperating with influencers, creating communities, or building a group of evangelists (people who independently, actively and positively express themselves about our products or services within their reach).
What is worth remembering is the care for the objectivity of the message. If we have full control over the content of the message, it becomes less credible. It is better to show a few flaws than to present an unrealistic, fancy image in one place.
12. Sponsorship
This can be described as courier marketing activities in which, in exchange for financial or material benefits, a positive image of the sponsor translates into a positive reception of the sponsor.
What is worth remembering is that by deciding on this form of promotion, we are in some way image-related to a specific person or entity. Every scandal, crisis, or ill-considered marketing activity can affect the image of our courier brand. Therefore, we should prepare a properly written contract, which in the event of problems will give us courier marketing tools to clear our image (or distance ourselves from a negatively perceived situation).
13. Public relations
PR is considered to be a range of activities that are intended to build a positive courier brand image in the media. We are talking about planning activities that can attract the interest of journalists, but also taking care of the right relationships with them so that our messages have the right to exist and reach our target group.
Much depends on the attractiveness of our courier industry, while also on the media market that creates content for our potential clients. A form of PR that functions somewhere on the border between advertising and objective journalism is sponsored press material.
Respectable media make sure that this type of content is not saturated with courier brand promotion and provides great value to the recipients. We cannot overdo it here, because too intrusive a flood of marketing activities within this content will simply turn potential clients off.
Publishing sponsored courier industry articles, on the other hand, often opens the door to good relations with a given medium and allows us to publish a larger number of free news or materials in one place.
14. Radio advertising
Radio is still a medium that can strongly support us in reaching specific target groups. Especially if we are interested in drivers. Radio advertising, similarly to press advertising, can be divided in terms of reach and location. It can support us in communication when our product is not yet known and we want to arouse the curiosity of recipients.
Due to its transience and format limited only to audio, we must try to ensure appropriate creativity and clarity of the message. Attracting the listener’s attention is very desirable, but let’s not resort to sound signals familiar to us from the street. Unfortunately, such advertisements do occur, which can result in unnecessary anxiety in the listener, or even in a potentially dangerous situation on the road, which marketing tools should definitely avoid.
15. Outdoor advertising
Outdoor advertising is any media that we can find in public spaces: posters, billboards, or video screens. The delightfulness of these courier marketing activities depends on several elements. The first is of course the content, that is properly selected, stripped of unnecessary elements, and able to be absorbed in a very short time.
Remember that the recipient will read our advertisement in a few seconds, and not, in the case of various other media, in a dozen or several dozen. The second element is the appropriate location.
16. Video advertising on the web
Distinguished as a separate tool, mainly due to the form of the presented content. Video advertising on the web is still a relatively rarely used medium for a very simple reason: not every courier company can afford or is able to create video materials at the appropriate level of courier marketing activities. At least compared to the ease of creating graphic or text content used in other media. This is associated with a great advantage of this courier marketing tool: video advertising on the web is also relatively cheap.
At a small cost, with the help of YouTube, we are able to display our message thousands of times. Considering the ever-growing popularity of video content and its relatively easy consumption against the background of text content, this is a direction worth considering. Unfortunately, this will not be an easy task for every courier company, not only in terms of budget and workshop, but also in terms of subject matter.
- Optimize your video
Users search for videos on both Google and YouTube. They don’t always specifically search for video content, but they are often drawn to a video result. Google knows this and prioritizes video content for many search queries. Correct information in the video metadata ensures that it will be indexed by YouTube and appear in search results. Be careful when filling out the metadata – your content may be removed if you try to promote your courier business with unrelated keywords.
- Headlines
Describe what the video is about. The description has a character limit of only 70 characters. Titles are what people first read when scrolling through your courier company’s videos, so make sure everything is astonishing. This will engage users and show that your courier service’s video will help them solve a problem.
Be emotional, but not pushy. Many channels don’t include keywords in their video titles, and their descriptions and tags seem like a random collection of buzzwords. Include a primary keyword or phrase to generate traffic. Include a keyword in every text element of the courier company’s video.
Have Your Dedicated Tools with Courier Software
Dedicated courier software is created by Courier Software according to the specific needs of a courier company. In practice, it is tailor-made, which means that it fits the requirements of a specific courier service at its current stage of activity.
We already know what dedicated courier software is. But why is it worth choosing it? There are several reasons, and one of the key ones is already revealed by the very definition. Courier Software is, above all, highly flexible, functional, and fully adapted to the needs of a courier company. These needs, even among entities operating in the same courier industry, can be completely different. Therefore, this is one of the main reasons for choosing Courier software.
Conclusion
So, we understood the top strategies for effective courier marketing in the UK. Marketing in social media is a subject that is very diverse and constantly changing. The Internet, social media, and the use of websites have challenged the traditional media landscape.
In the “old days,” people were often proud and satisfied with a creative and often funny advertisement in the newspaper. If the ad also won awards for the advertising agency, everyone cheered. If you could not directly measure whether the ad actually worked, the advertising agency could happily cover itself behind the oft-used excuse of courier branding.
