Driver Recruitment Advertising: PURL Campaigns

In order to recruit truck drivers–and recruit them well–an integrated campaign that uses multiple channels is the best way to cast a wider net and generate more qualified apps. While you may have a target audience, each prospective driver has their own persona. Some may look for jobs on social media, while others read the newspaper.

Driver recruitment advertising comes in all shapes and sizes. Direct mail and email are both popular and successful today – and for good reason. PURL campaigns effectively blend these two areas, and today we’re going over this closely coordinated offline-online form of advertising.

What’s a PURL?

PURL = Personalized URL. This is a unique and personalized landing page created specifically for each recipient of your trucking company’s direct mail or email marketing campaign.

How does it work?

Say ‘John Williams’ is surfing the web for a new job. He finds a website of truck driving positions and fills out an application. Later, his app and contact info is sent to companies associated with that website hiring drivers.

Now, with this information your company can send an email (or piece of direct mail) that is specially customized for John. John will get the email, which includes his name and his specific PURL (for example: hightoweragency.com/John.Williams). John can simply type this PURL into his Internet browser and be taken directly to a landing page that is personalized to him.

Earlier John applied on a generic site. Now he’s seeing a personalized, branded website. He feels special.

Once he visits the PURL, you will be able to keep a record of his activity. You’ll know if he’s taken action on your site or submitted any new information you didn’t already have. All of this allows you to better communicate with driver candidates, as well as determine next steps in your recruitment strategy.

PURLs are great tool for staying in touch with new driver leads. Oh, and don’t forget that email isn’t the only option — you can send out direct mail postcards including John’s personalized URL. There’s something about holding a tangible item in your hands that makes it more real and memorable.

How can I create a solid campaign?

Since PURLs send traffic to your driver recruitment landing pages, we quickly wanted to cover a few things. Check out these simple ways to improve landing pages. You may also want to try out the Five Second Test. After creating your page, have somebody take a look at it for five seconds then exit the page. Ask them what the message was about. If they can’t tell you, it needs to be more clear, bold, and concise.

How do I know if it’s working?

Enhancing on what we said above, the key to any strategic recruitment effort is to gather good intelligence. PURLs will automatically provide feedback on how your campaign is doing. You can use this data to adjust how you go about your next campaign. Just like all aspects of recruitment advertising, it’s always encouraged to test your efforts.

In fact, let’s give you a scenario: If you send out 1,000 PURL emails and 50 people visit their PURL, you know that these 50 are somewhat intrigued by your trucking company. You may want to move these 50 contacts into a separate list so you can market to them a little harder. What a compelling technique!

Why are PURLs a good thing?

As we all know, people like receiving personalized attention. By recruiting drivers using PURLs, you can benefit from:

Better response rates
The ability to track responses in real time
Collecting valuable information from your prospects
Opportunities to engage potential drivers at a deeper level

Questions? Comments?

The Hightower Agency is one of the best driver recruitment agencies (we’ve been doing this for 25 years!) We’d love to chat with you about PURLs and many of our other driver recruitment advertising services. If you want to recruit drivers more effectively and take your strategy to the next level, contact the friendly folks at Hightower today.