5 Helpful Tips to Recruit Truck Drivers
If you’re looking for truck drivers, then you understand the need for an effective driver recruiting campaign.
An effective recruitment campaign includes your top selling points and is aimed at convincing drivers to apply with your company. One of the best ways to get potential drivers interested in your company is by getting them to visit your website or landing page and persuading them to apply.
But how do you get drivers to your sites in the first place?
Invest in Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) includes both paid and unpaid marketing.
Paid Search Engine Marketing
Typically, when you use a browser to search, paid search engine marketing takes the form of ads that appear at the top of the search results window under the search bar. The word “Ad” at the top left, lets you know that what you are looking at is a paid advertisement and not organic, or unpaid, search results. Sometimes this type of paid ad is called pay-per-click (PPC). This is because you pay when someone clicks the ad. Using PPC ads, or search ads, gives you an advantage in that it puts your ad at the top of the list, where drivers can see it first, before they see your competition’s ads.
Unpaid Search Engine Marketing
This type of marketing is commonly called “organic” marketing because you don’t pay for it in cash, you grow it using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. You do pay for it in time and energy spent cultivating good search results, but organic marketing tends to be more stable over time when properly cultivated. Maximizing organic search marketing includes using the right keywords in your webpage, landing page, and blog posts and aligning content to match what drivers are typing into the search window when they look for a job. There is a case to be made for organic ads. If you grow your web presence organically, it will stay near the top of the search more consistently, even if it’s not the first ad you see.
Blog, Blog, Blog
Blogging is a form of inbound marketing that can help qualified truck drivers find your company. The more often you blog and incorporate specific keywords into your blog posts, the better chance you have of showing up higher in search engine results. However, for your blog to be successful, the content must be high-quality, relevant, and engaging. Providing your audience with an array of interesting topics will keep them coming back for more. Plus, if you have awesome content, it becomes easier to encourage users to subscribe to your blog. Blogging is a low-cost marketing tool and does require long-term, consistent effort in writing and publishing but it can keep you one step ahead of the competition.
Use Job Board Sites & Job Aggregator Sites
One of the most important and effective ways to reach prospective drivers is through job boards and job aggregator sites. More than any other medium, people seeking truck driving positions look to the Internet and, specifically, to driver job boards to find available positions. You can dramatically increase your number of qualified applications by incorporating this driver recruitment tool.
There are a wide variety of driver job boards, such as BestDriverJobs.com, JobsInTrucks.com, and HiringDriversNow.com. Be sure you’re on these sites, too! Click here to check out more job boards and job aggregator sites specific to the trucking industry.
Conduct Email Campaigns
Whether you’ve obtained your current email database through driver applications, blog subscriptions, job fairs, or any other call-to-action, you can take advantage of this information to reach out and marketing to your audience. Through an email marketing provider such as Constant Contact, VerticalResponse, or MailChimp, you can easily craft and send targeted email blasts to your opted-in list of current truck drivers and prospective drivers. Email marketing can be effective when using a database with permission from the recipient to email them. Be careful to use the freshest data you can find and make sure it has been opted-into by the recipient, otherwise the email services could flag you for sending spam. By distributing compelling, highly targeted emails that provide engaging content, images, and powerful calls-to-action, your email marketing campaigns can send prospects through your driver conversion process, helping you reach your recruitment goals.
Cultivate Your Social Media
Most everyone has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok account. So, your challenge is to drive traffic to your social media pages and to effectively engage your followers (AKA potential drivers), improve your social activity, and, of course, send traffic to your landing page to increase driver hires (conversions).
Social media is a great way to engage drivers in real-time or when they are not driving and have time to check in online. Your main goal is to hire qualified drivers; however, some potential recruits might not be ready to come to work for you just yet. Social media allows you to cultivate a relationship with those who will be ready to work for you in the future. Social media is also a place where your current drivers can say positive things about your company, and what better way to receive referrals than through positive word-of-mouth? You can even invest in clever and fun promotions or create targeted ad campaigns to reach your audience.
Put it all together!
When you maintain an advertising strategy that includes Search Engine Marketing, blogging, job boards, email campaigns, and frequent creative social media posts, you will attract more visitors to your recruitment site and landing pages. The result? More conversions, more driver referrals and best of all more hires!
Do you need help improving your recruitment strategy to find the drivers you need? If so, The Hightower Agency is happy to schedule a free consultation. As a full-service recruiting agency, we offer a wide variety of recruitment solutions. Our services include pay-per-click, geo-targeting, blogging, mobile-friendly websites, radio advertising, social media marketing, social media retargeting, email marketing, Internet ad placement, newspaper placement, website redesign, brochures, referral cards, and more.
