Driving Results
How We Got Impressive Results In A Struggling Industry.
The Challenge
Boost driver recruiting in an industry facing a historic shortage of eligible drivers.
Project Profile
Trailer Transit is the nation’s largest owner operator power only trucking company. Their team is made up entirely of owner operators, truck drivers who own their own cab. As a power only company, they haul everything from industrial equipment, farming equipment, entertainment trailers and much more throughout North America.
Trailer Transit wanted to attract experienced owner operators. This target market is a small niche audience of veteran drivers who own their own rigs and have over two million miles under their belts. This group is somewhat exclusive, as it’s not easy to become an owner operator. Owner operators are typically road savvy small business owners who have made a significant investment in their rig and have spent years racking up the qualifying miles.
The Challenge
The trucking industry is currently facing a historical driver shortage. Boomer drivers are retiring in droves, plus the industry lost even more drivers in 2018 with the Electronic Logging Device mandate. Drivers were frustrated by this legislation, which requires them to log their miles electronically and limits them to driving no more than 11 hours in a 14-hour window, followed by a 10-hour break.
Additionally, Trailer Transit’s target audience is quite small. Owner operators make up only 9% of the entire truck driver population. Targeting this niche audience was made more challenging by the fact that Google does not have an option for targeting owner operators in their custom audiences. The Facebook algorithm change of 2018 also greatly limited the demographic targeting options.
Trailer Transit’s budget for this project was also very modest.
The Solution
We wanted to reach owner operators who were curious about switching trucking companies. We also wanted to boost awareness of Trailer Transit as an industry leader in hiring qualified owner operators.
Our goal was to increase conversions, which included:
- phone calls to the recruitment office
- completed online forms requesting a recruiting phone call
- completed online job applications
We created a multi-faceted digital campaign that spanned the period from Oct. 1, 2018 to Aug. 31, 2019 (and is ongoing). Our digital advertising campaign included ads on Google and social media.
