The importance of creative advertising.
For many younger people, truck driving as a career doesn’t hold a lot of appeal. Time away from family and friends, long hours on the road, loneliness and a below-average income makes it a tough job to recruit for. This makes creative advertising more important than ever.
Through the rise of digital marketing and technology, advertising is no longer as simple as throwing up a billboard or purchasing an ad in the local newspaper. Rather you have to turn to other forms of marketing such as word of mouth, social media, search engine marketing and online job boards.
When advertising a truck driving position, you have to show potential employees the positives of the job and the perks of working for your company. I explore each of these in more depth below and show a few incredibly effective ways to recruit truck drivers.
1. Search engine marketing is POWERFUL.
A report released by Indeed.com, the popular job recruitment website, showed various search terms that showed the biggest growth over the years. Guess what came out on top?
The search ‘CDL Truck Driver’ resulted in an 84% increase in searches since early 2014.
This means two key things: There are more and more people becoming open to the idea of becoming truck drivers AND that search engine marketing is extraordinarily powerful.`
Search Engine Marketing (SEM), is an incredibly powerful tool that gives you the ability to place your website on specific search engine terms. To help you understand this, I’ll give you an example:
Let’s say someone searches ‘Truck Driver Jobs in Melbourne No Experience’ on Google.
If someone were to search this term, we can assume a couple of things:
- They’re looking for a truck driving job position.
- They’re in Melbourne.
- They have no experience but are open to the idea.
Now imagine your website result appeared at the top of the page. (I’ve highlighted this above with a red box!) There is a high chance people searching this term will see your website, click through and potentially apply for positions you’re advertising.
This makes search engine marketing an incredibly powerful way of getting quality leads. You can learn more about search engine marketing over here.
2. Find truck drivers by giving them something for FREE first
Now that you understand the power of search engine marketing. Your next step is to capture the attention of website visitors. A fantastic way of pre-qualifying leads is to give away a free report that builds trust.
Think of this a bit like prequalifying candidates before an interview.
Perhaps the term report makes you think of boring university professors or tedious company financial releases. In reality, a report can be an extremely effective way to draw in quality leads and are far easier to create than you might think.
If you give away a short report on the ‘Top 15 Ways To Be A Safe Truck Driver’, you can assume everyone who downloads it are not only truck drivers, but are SAFE truck drivers. These are perfect job candidates and the exact type of employees you want. The more specific the content you release, the more specific and high quality the leads will be.
BONUS TIP
A well-designed website that outlines the benefits of working for your company is essential. Your job to convince people that they would love working for you.
3. Social media can be a powerful way of finding and recruiting truck drivers.
According to a study by Randall-Reilly Market Intelligence, 96% of company truck drivers actively use Facebook.
Most people understand the power of social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But it’s far less common to understand how to effectively use the platforms to engage users and send candidates to your website to apply for available job positions.
The benefit of social media is the ability to build relationships with potential employees in real time. By utilising relatable, engaging content to capture the attention of potential candidates, you can show them a perspective of your company that would be impossible to show through traditional advertising. These social platforms are also a place current employees can engage and spread authentic, positive testimonials about your company.
4. Use job boards.
Online job boards can be an effective way to advertise and recruit new truck driver employees. Below is a list of a few valuable job sites for advertising:
- Seek.com.au is a large Australian job recruitment website that allows companies to post recruitment ads starting from just $275.
- Drivers.com.au is a specialised driver recruitment agency that allows both employers and employees to make posts.
- Indeed.com is the world’s largest job site with over 200 million visitors per month. This can be a valuable website to recruit truck drivers through due to the sheer volume of visitors.
- Jora.com & Adzuna.com are both large Australian job sites that host 1000s of jobs a day.
- Gumtree.com.au and similar classifieds sites are a great way to advertise driver jobs through. You can encourage candidates to apply via phone call or email.
Some final thoughts…
Despite the major shortage of truck drivers across Australia, it’s possible to find high quality, qualified truck drivers. By utilising advertising techniques such as social media, search engines, email marketing and job boards, you can show potential employees a side of your company that would not be seen on a billboard. The major key is to show personality through your job posts, showing a potential employee that working for you is far better choice than working for your competitors.
