‘Logistics industry, I get frustrated for you sometimes’

We’ve been covering and helping to market the trucking/supply chain/logistics industry for nearly 20 years. We’ve written about everything from truck parking to scales to route optimization to the digitization of the freight process. We’ve interviewed carrier CEOs, tech innovators, 3PL founders and even academics who specialize in the industry.

And something is bothering us.

For an industry that literally everyone relies upon for its essentials, you sure don’t get a sense of the industry’s impact in the way most companies talk about themselves. People are so caught up in the obsession with SEO words and industry clichés that they’re taking companies who actually deliver the goods on a day-to-day basis, and making them sound like a page from a Harvard textbook on management theory.

What we should be doing is telling stories.

We should be telling the stories of the shippers who were delivered from anxiety and exasperation into relief and exhilaration.

We should be telling the stories of the drivers who embraced the new technology and found their jobs less stressful and more fulfilling.

We should be telling the stories of the potential disaster that was averted because the 3PL account manager sprung into action and executed a plan to save the day.

We should be telling the stories of the companies who have thrived over the long term by committing themselves to a culture of performance excellence and employee well-being.

We should be telling the stories of the cybersecurity attacks that could happen – but don’t – because we have brainy heroes in the industry who are a step ahead of the bad guys.

We should be telling the stories of the tragedies we’re preventing because someone figured out a way to find parking spots for drivers who needed to rest.

By the way, those trucks out there on the road are pretty cool, too. They’re the stars of the show and we should all be celebrating the difference they make.

Look, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that’s important. The software that helps with route planning, forecasting and load procurement is cool, and it’s helping, and that deserves attention. The potential impact of AI is brimming with promise, even if it does make a lot of people nervous. We should be able to talk openly about that.

But in all of this, it’s critical not to get so caught up in the technical details – or even the statistics, as much as some people don’t want to breathe without tossing in a stat – and remember that the real story here is what happens – both literally and figuratively – when the rubber hits the road.

It’s the impact on people.

It’s the healthier margin our companies make when they find better ways to do things, and the benefit that offers for so many.

It’s the resolve and resourcefulness of the pros who have weathered the ups and downs of the last few years and emerged stronger.

Their stories are the ones that market this industry.

Our perspective is that the trucking/supply chain/logistics industry has gotten too comfortable talking amongst itself about how it’s leveraging and optimizing and whatever the heck else this corporate newspeak is telling them to say. And we’re forgetting that the trucking industry has produced the greatest romance of the road that this country has ever known – while making it possible for people everywhere to stay supplied. And alive.

We’re here to produce your newsletters, your press releases, your blog posts, your web copy, your whitepapers . . . just like others in the industry. But we don’t want them to sound like the others are making them sound. We want them to be as cool as the image of a 53-foot semi tractor/trailer traversing the cuts in the Rocky Mountains, or speeding across the plains, or heading out from the distribution center on its way to make someone’s day with what’s inside.

If you agree with us that the trucking industry needs to start marketing itself like this, then we need to get to work. Together.

We realize what some people envision when they hear about newsletters. Something like this:

Now we do have it on good authority that the menu items from the lunch ladies on Page 2 sound pretty delicious, so let’s give the third grade its due. Even so, if this is what you think a newsletter is, we can understand why you’re not jumping all over yourself to start one.

But in modern business communication, this is not what a newsletter is. Indeed, a newsletter can be a lot of different things, but the best ones use a strong combination of written-word, images and video to tell a company’s closest connections what they’re doing and why it makes a difference.

Indeed, you received this as part of a newsletter like that. We sent it to you because we have something to say about how marketing is done in logistics, and how we think it should be done.

We noted in our lead item (the one above this one) that we want to see the trucking/supply chain/logistics industry get away from the corporate clichés and become more raw and real about simply sharing what it’s doing well – and the difference it’s making. Along those same lines, we think it’s critical that the industry speak directly to its highest-value audiences.

This is a group we at North Star refer to as your village. Your village consists of:

✅ Current and former employees
✅ Current and former clients
✅ Vendors and professional contacts
✅ Media who cover your industry and/or your community
✅ Friends, family and acquaintances who already trust you

This is counterintuitive to the way many people think of marketing, which in their minds is all about exposing your company to the broader world that has never heard of you – and needs to. We’re not against that. We just don’t think it’s the highest marketing priority.

We believe the highest priority is in keeping people engaged who are in the best position to talk you up, drive referrals and spread the word to those who – rather than just saying, “oh, they sound neat” – might actually become your customers.

Newsletters can include features like breaking company news, customer success stories/testimonials, team member profiles, product/service profiles, thought-leadership commentaries by executives and embedded video interviews (we’re big fans of those).

And we believe a newsletter is the best way to do this for the following reasons:

1. You can craft the message and choose the news items any way you want to. You don’t have to pitch them to a journalist and you don’t have to buy advertising space. This medium belongs entirely to you.
2. You can publish on any schedule you want. We think it’s wise to maintain a consistent schedule, but we also think it’s critically important to have control over it.
3. You will ensure accuracy. You’re not trying to convey your story to a disinterested third party who may or may not get the facts right. As long as you check it over, you will guarantee the facts are right.
4. The people receiving it already have a vested interest in what you’re doing, so they’re much more likely to open and read it than a random group of outsiders.
5. You have the ability to reach them, and the cost is far less than buying media or staging an event.

We also urge our clients to use the newsletters as followup with sales prospects, at the discretion of the sales associate who’s working the prospect.

The logistics industry does a lot of amazing things, but it can be challenging to keep finding new ways to talk about what you do in order to produce the press release that gets picked up, or the social post that gets high engagement, or the ad that stands out from the crowd. But there’s so much information flying at everyone all the time through these platforms, you’ll get lost in the shuffle if you don’t.

When you produce your own newsletter and send it to the people who are already invested in you, there’s no need to be quite so clever or provocative. Just tell them what you’ve got going on. They’re your village. They’ll read it. And if they know someone who needs to be working with you, they’ll tell them.