Finding contracts for the carriage of goods as a road haulier

To boost your business, here are a few tips for finding transport contracts.

Website and social networks

Having a website has become virtually indispensable for many companies. Google is the new directory through which individuals and professionals alike search for partners to work with. It's the basic tool for finding new transport contracts. It's also a way of standing out from competitors who don't have a website.

The website is a real showcase for your company, enabling you to present your services in detail, develop your brand image, and above all enable future customers to contact you for a quote. It's also a sales tool that works autonomously for you 24/7. You can also interconnect it with your management software such as ERP, TMS or invoicing software to further automate the processing of contacts and quotations received from the website.

The democratization of the web in our society has led to the development of numerous companies specializing in website creation: it's therefore simple and easy to create and update your site, so you've got no more excuses!

And when it comes to social networking, aim for professional platforms like LinkedIn. Social networks are an effective means of communicating with customers and prospects, provided you take the time to work on your marketing strategy. They will help you arouse the interest of your targets, glean a few contacts, and gain notoriety.

Freight exchanges

A freight exchange is a virtual network that brings together carriers and people/entities needing to transport goods.

With freight exchanges, you can choose to be alerted, via automatic notifications, of any new ads that might be of interest to you. In this way, you are immediately informed of all freight opportunities, which can be directly inserted into your transport plans by activating the link between your TMS and the freight exchange platforms.

Trade shows

Don't hesitate to take part in trade shows dedicated to transport and logistics, to make contacts with both future customers and partners (equipment manufacturers, software publishers, etc.). In France you have the SITL, SOLUTRANS, TECHNOTRANS, Transports & Logistics meeting... there are plenty of not-to-be-missed events for industry professionals, so don't hesitate to attend!

Relaunch your prospects and customers / CRM

With CRM software, you'll be able to track each prospect/customer and define targeted campaigns and actions to encourage them to place an order. So don't hesitate to invest in CRM software and give your teams the means to work on the best solutions for relaunching new contracts via your customer / prospect list.

Online advertising

You can, for example, advertise in magazines specializing in transport and logistics.

If you have a website, with well-crafted landing pages (pages to which Internet users who click on online ads will be redirected), you could consider running online advertising campaigns on Google (Google Ads), Facebook (Facebook Ads), LinkedIn (LinkedIn Ads)...