$1B Transportation Company Transforms Its Sales and Marketing Approach
How the Right Partner Can Help You Overcome Complex Challenges in Branding, Sales and Marketing Communications
A large US-based transportation company with 10-plus websites, 10-plus companies and multiple internal divisions needed a corporate restructuring of its marketing and sales approach. In order to be seen as a more integrated organization—one unified entity with a full suite of service offerings for its customers and prospects—the company looked externally for guidance and direction.
In order to help them achieve their unification goal, SyncShow developed a communications and marketing framework to:
Streamline website technologies and third-party vendors for enhanced security, efficiency and cost savings
Implement an ROI-based company-wide marketing and lead generation program for driving new business leads
Implement one brand strategy for consistency across all brands
Implement a company-wide technology stack for marketing, sales, customer service and human resources communications
The transportation company chose SyncShow due to its commitment and experience in the transportation industry as evidenced by its involvement in TMSA (Transportation Marketing & Sales Association). SyncShow also provided exceptional results for the transportation company’s driver recruiting division, which led the way to a larger scope of work.
The Challenges
In order to achieve success, the transportation company needed to:
Refine its go-to-market strategy as one integrated company vs. multiple divisions
Launch a new website that could act as a “central hub” for attracting the right prospects and convert them into leads
Drive visitor traffic and engagement using a content and messaging strategy that differentiated the company from its competitors
Improve its marketing communications to position itself as an industry thought leader with the goal of increasing sales from both current and new customers
Leverage marketing and visitor data to drive decisions and accelerate ongoing sales and marketing efforts
Sell more to existing accounts and cross-sell between diversified business segments
Common Roadblocks That Prevent Success in These Types of Projects
The mutual interest of multiple department executives coming together to align their goals and try something new:
It’s difficult to implement change, especially when it’s a process that a company has been doing for many, many years.
Negating the overwhelming desire to experience a return on investment far too early on
Most companies expect an ROI in less than a year, but a major change like this can take longer. If a company has the wrong expectations, they can pull the plug too early and destroy all of the progress.
Interdepartmental silos causing data and analysis issues:
In order for this solution to be truly effective, there must be buy-in on tools and systems that create closed-loop reporting. This includes website call tracking and CRM integration.
For this particular project, there were multiple challenges SyncShow had to overcome, including:
IT Wanting Control of Website Hosting
SyncShow had to bring in HubSpot to assist with a SWOT analysis to show that internal hosting was not the way to go. After seeing the pros and cons, the transportation company was convinced that building and hosting the website on HubSpot was the best option.
IT Having Major Concerns About Information Security
There were several information security concerns that had to be remedied prior to implementation. The transportation company had very strong security needs when it came to data storage. SyncShow had to define new processes to overcome these challenges and meet their needs.
How They Were Going to Market
They thought that if they put out more content it would be a stronger measurement of their success. SyncShow had to back them up and put a strategic plan in place to guide content output.
How They Were Going to Market
The transportation company was going to market as multiple independent divisions—all competing with one another and all with different sales approaches. There was no central location for marketing and sales data and there was a lack of cross-selling between divisions. SyncShow helped them realize how this was hurting their bottom line and where the opportunities for improvement were.
This really came to light through the lead follow-up process along with the qualification of ideal leads. For lead follow-up, it became clear through the data that some divisions were following up with more of an active plan than others. In order to remedy this, both teams stepped back to help create a uniform process that would be followed by all. For qualification of ideal leads, each division dug in with SyncShow and the marketing team to determine where the focus for quality leads should be. Through adjustments to the campaigns, both teams saw lead volume and AOV (average order value) increase.
Learn more about how we solved these challenges.
A Phased Approach
SyncShow first broke down all of the silos and got everyone together, starting with a process to help educate the executives at each division about what marketing and sales best practices at transportation companies looked like.
At first, the transportation company said, “We are not interested in hiring an agency to help us with retained online marketing programs.” We began to help them outline an ROI-based marketing strategy, including goals, metrics and the effort needed for success. Through this process, they started to realize how online marketing would increase online leads, shorten the sales cycle, and increase brand awareness.
SyncShow then worked with each division to fully understand what their goals were and how the company operated, documenting who their target clients were and the unique value the company could offer. From there, SyncShow provided strategic recommendations for their website, value proposition, messaging, lead generation and thought leadership programs.
SyncShow assisted them with the implementation of these programs and provided executive consultation along the way.
The end result is that the transportation company has met or exceeded 90% of the brand awareness and lead generation objectives and metrics outlined in the strategy.
“We helped them to communicate at a totally different level,” said SyncShow President Chris Peer. “We took a very complex infrastructure in the way they were going to market, analyzed it and gave recommendations for how they could simplify it and save costs.”
Some of the tactics SyncShow used were a new website, an online marketing program and getting the transportation company set up on a new marketing and sales technology stack.
“We really helped them put a framework around how they were going to market with new messaging that would increase revenue and drive more leads,” Peer added.
Not only did this revolutionize their go-to-market strategy for online communications and lead generation, but it also created a cultural shift at the transportation company. They’re coming together as one cohesive team for marketing and sales and approaching each lead as a company opportunity instead of a divisional opportunity.
Moving the Needle
Because buyers today are spending time researching online rather than talking to a salesperson before making a decision, it was paramount that SyncShow build a scalable lead generation website and communications framework. The site needed to be easily digestible and make users feel confident that they were choosing the transportation partner that would best meet their needs—even if those needs were cross-divisional.
The new website needed to help users quickly identify all of the transportation company’s service offerings and self-select the services that were right for them, without feeling pigeon-holed into a specific division. The website also needed to speak the buyers’ language and make it easy for them to make decisions.
SyncShow eliminated the confusion and improved the site’s user experience by optimizing its architecture. Service offerings were grouped together and an internal linking strategy helped site users logically navigate the site and find the right mix of services for their needs.
SyncShow also delivered a mobile- and desktop-optimized HubSpot website that:
Was designed to capture more qualified leads and offer better user experiences
Accurately portrayed the company’s capabilities
Communicated how the company was uniquely equipped to help customers overcome their challenges
Ranked well in search engines
The new site was scaled back to be one-tenth in size and was made more sophisticated with the latest technologies. Visitor tracking, lead forensics, heat mapping and other technologies were integrated to capture crucial data and help the company better manage leads.
In the first six months of website launch:
Elevating Brand Appeal & User Experience
Since receiving one corporate marketing strategy for all of its diversified business segments, the transportation company now has:
Messaging that communicates a strong value proposition and integrated customer solutions
A professionalized online marketing infrastructure with a focused strategy, HubSpot marketing automation, sales tools, ROI-based marketing goals, detailed metrics and a roadmap for growth
With this, the company has enhanced its marketing and sales data acquisition capabilities and has used this data to guide marketing initiatives and sales activities.
Additionally, by eliminating the perceived silos between the diversified business segments and presenting the transportation company as one all-encompassing transportation solution provider, users easily see and understand the full breadth of services the company offers. It’s now seen as the industry giant it is, which instills confidence in prospects.
“We helped a $1B company think differently about the way they were going to market,” Peer said. “And not only did we help them think about it differently, but we also repositioned their entire organization online and got their sales and marketing teams working closer together and implementing technologies to give them more data, reporting and information.”
About SyncShow
SyncShow is an online marketing agency committed to helping growth-oriented professional services organizations fill their sales pipelines and grow. Using processes that are proven to drive results, we help companies increase brand awareness, authority and quality leads. Contact us today so we can help you develop a plan to solve your organization’s greatest challenges. Schedule a discovery call today.
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