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5 Things Wrong With Your Truck Driver Advertising (And How to Fix Them)

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truck driver advertising

Nine times out of ten, the recruitment process starts with advertising your jobs to truck driver candidates. With a tight labor market and high turnover across the trucking industry, carriers are starting to put an increased emphasis on this first part of the process. 

This issue is that many carriers either don’t advertise their jobs aside or have a dated advertisement process that isn’t bringing in the quality drivers they’d like. Here are 5 things wrong with your truck driver advertising and how to fix them.  

1. Not Including Driver Testimonials

You’ve boasted about your carrier’s benefits and perks on every possible advertising channel, but still aren’t getting many leads. Meanwhile, a competitor spends less on advertising but has stronger recruiting. What’s going on here? Most likely, they’re using driver testimonials are you’re not.  

A driver testimonial is a short video or quote from a driver where they talk about what they enjoy about working for your carrier. What makes these so important? Think about it from a driver’s perspective. Who are they more likely to believe: a fellow driver or a company? 

Peer recommendation is one of the strongest factors that can influence human behavior. That’s why your truck driver advertising should consistently include driver testimonials. These could be as simple as gathering quotes from your current drivers about why they like working for your carrier, or it can be as ambitious as compiling a short video of your drivers speaking freely on what they enjoy about the job.  

Here’s an example of a testimonial that shows some of the reviews that drivers left after using Drive My Way 

Aside from increasing the effectiveness of your job ads, driver testimonials can be used to build trust with drivers and leave you with a positive reputation. 

2. Using Only Print Media for Advertising

It’s not breaking news that print media is on the decline. While ads in newspapers and magazines may have been the primary advertising channel decades ago, readership has gone down significantly.  

While print media isn’t entirely dead, digital is definitely king now. If your carrier is still using print media as your main channel for job advertising, your first priority should be adjusting your advertising budget and resources accordingly.

3. Heavy Information Dumping

You’ve seen these ads everywhere: Ones with 20-30 bullets listing out every facet and minute detail of a job. But the more information available for prospective hires, the better, right? Think again. In that very early stage of the job search, driver candidates are usually just looking for a few pieces of key information so they can decide if they want to learn more about the position.  

While it’s important to make sure you’re including the most important information in your advertising, don’t make the mistake of clogging the ad with everything you can think of. Keep the most important information like CDL / endorsement requirements, pay, and route at the top of the ad and include details on benefits and equipment below.  

Take a look at our Truck Driver Job Description Template for more details on how to optimize the copy of your job ads.  

4. Not Utilizing Social Media

To simply call social media popular anymore is a gross understatement. It’s become so entwined with people’s lives that we almost can’t imagine life without it. This is why it’s important for carriers who are looking to reach more drivers through their job ads to build up a presence on these social media sites.  

But what does posting memes and pictures of your company events have to do with reaching more driver candidates? Think of it this way. A carrier that has built up a following of 3,000 drivers through their social channels can post a job ad and have it reach 3,000 drivers without spending a dime. For a carrier with no social media presence to get that kind of reach would cost serious money.   

For more information on how to build up your carrier’s social media presence, you can visit our blog on the subject.  

5. Not Partnering with a Job Distributor

Where the ad is placed is just as important as how it’s written. With hundreds of job boards and social media channels out there, it can be a pain to know where your time and resources are best spent to reach the drivers you’re looking for.  

Partnering with a recruiting platform like Drive My Way is the perfect way to get your jobs in front of qualified driver candidates.  We create customized advertising campaigns that reach drivers in the right place and the right time. Just like we did with Button Transportation, a family-owned and operated trucking company in California, that hired 10 new drivers within the span of just two months.   

Comprehensive CDL Recruitment Solutions

Ready to start recruiting the right drivers? Our solutions experts are happy to answer any questions and show you how Drive My Way uniquely approaches CDL driver recruitment.

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5 Skills to Master as a Trucking Recruiter

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Trucking recruiter Skills to master

As a trucking recruiter, you’re all too familiar with the challenges of hiring owner operators and company drivers: ghosting, high turnover rates, and an ever-changing recruitment landscape are just some of your daily obstacles.  

Since you are the first face of your company to interact with drivers, it’s critical to be prepared with the skills that will turn your list of driver candidates into hires. Here are the top 5 skills that every trucking recruiter should master. 

1. Be Strategically Proactive

It’s a driver’s market. If you want to be a trucking recruiter who successfully reaches quality drivers, it’s on you to be proactive. That said, being proactive should be a strategic plan and not just aggressive outreach.  

Consider the times and channels that are most likely to be productive for the drivers you seek. Recruiting for local or regional routes? Try calling in the evening to avoid busy loading and unloading schedules.  

Seeking OTR drivers? Make sure there’s a mobile-friendly website for drivers who are looking for jobs while on a driving break. Once you’ve optimized your strategy, continually reach out through multiple channels to engage new leads and reconnect with old leads.

2. Know Your Audience

This might seem obvious, especially to an experienced truck driver recruiter, but it couldn’t be more important. The Commercial Carrier Journal found that the overwhelming majority of surveyed drivers cited inadequate pay as a reason fleets are struggling to find drivers. That’s likely not a surprise. Perhaps more striking is that lack of respect and lack of home time are responses two and three for the same question. 

If you want to increase the number of quality drivers you hire, you need to know their priorities and address their concerns. 

Identify the benefits that are most important to your candidates, and offer those perks whenever possible. Be straightforward about what drivers can expect on the job. Many will find your honesty refreshing and a compelling reason to join your company.

3. Take Advantage of Technology

Gone are the days where a clean, mobile-friendly user interface was a nice, extra touch used by only the most tech-savvy trucking recruiters. According to the 2019 Overdrive Connectivity Report produced by Randall-Reilly, 74% of owner operators use a smartphone to access the internet. Over half of those same drivers use a phone more than any other device to access the internet. 

As for company drivers, 77% use smartphones to access the internet. 65% of company drivers use their smartphones to access the internet more than any other device. With this in mind, don’t just make your recruiting mobile-friendly. Optimize your process with the assumption that most drivers will be recruited first, and possibly exclusively, on a smartphone.

4. Prioritize Your Workload

Coming into a new year or quarter, it is tempting to take on a heavy load, but don’t get caught in the frenzy. Your hours are limited. Take the time to prioritize your leads based on urgency and fit early on to increase your overall productivity. 

Evaluate which candidates are most likely to fit your positions. Are they qualified? Which drivers are really a good match for you? Is your company really a good match for them? Speak with each driver and understand their priorities. Then, be candid if they’re not a good fit.  

Remember, hiring a bad match increases turnover and leaves a bad impression on drivers. Since time is critical, engage your strongest leads first. You’ll be glad you took time to slow down at the beginning so that you can efficiently recruit the drivers best suited for your fleet.

5. Build Relationships, not Just a Sales Funnel

As a trucking recruiter, you may feel like building relationships isn’t the best use of your time, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Even when time is of the essence, you can’t afford not to get to know your potential drivers. 

Taking the time to build relationships and treat drivers like people, not leads, might reveal key information that will improve positional fit. Unsurprisingly, finding a better fit ultimately leads to improved driver retention.  

Most recruiters know that drivers need to have the baseline qualifications for particular jobs, but it goes beyond just having the right certifications and x years of experience. As we know, experienced drivers have the opportunity to choose jobs that meet their lifestyle and goals. Identify what those are and find ways to meet them.  

Drivers who are satisfied with their time at home, model of truck, and who feel they can meet their goals with your company will perform better and stay longer. If you want to increase your carrier’s retention rates, taking the time to build relationships with potential drivers is time you can’t afford not to spend.

Comprehensive CDL Recruitment Solutions

Ready to start recruiting the right drivers? Our solutions experts are happy to answer any questions and show you how Drive My Way uniquely approaches CDL driver recruitment.

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4 Ways to Use Marketing While Hiring Truck Drivers

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Hiring truck drivers is a competitive business. Driver recruiters are always trying to find new ways to get a leg up on the competition and bring in the best drivers to their fleets.  

But, as any recruiter knows, if you want to hire the best drivers, you first need to attract the best drivers. With many top carriers offering similar benefits and perks, that isn’t always enough to stand out to driver candidates.  

This is where strong marketing can be your best ally. With this on your side, you’ll be able to differentiate yourself from the competition and attract drivers to your fleet. Here are 4 ways you can use marketing to stand out while hiring truck drivers. 

1. Driver Testimonials

People are more likely to trust people who are like them over people who aren’t. This is why using testimonials from your current drivers in your marketing is a great way to help you stand out from the competition.  

Any carrier can speak about its own perks, benefits, and company culture. The real test is whether that company’s drivers will say the same thing. If your drivers will echo your own messaging publicly, it will have a much greater impact on truck driver candidates. 

Visit our blog on the subject for more information and examples on how to record and share driver testimonial videos.  

2. Experiment with New Channels

Though trucking remains an industry dominated by older males, there has been a major uptick in both women truck drivers and young truck drivers in recent years. Recruiters should be aware of this when advertising their jobs or just raising brand awareness, and not limit themselves to the same old channels. 

Experiment with channels geared towards different audiences, like Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube. While focusing on the core demographic of truck drivers is important, it doesn’t mean recruiters should limit themselves to just those. Today’s peripheral audiences can become tomorrow’s loyal truck drivers.

3. Use Technology to Your Advantage

hiring truck driversMany carriers still use recruiting processes which are outdated and cumbersome. You can stand out to truck driver candidates by adopting technology to make recruiting more efficient.  

Mobile friendly platforms and similar features will make applying quicker and easier for candidates. At the same time, recruiters can use programs like applicant tracking software to make the recruiting process easier and more efficient for themselves as well. 

Remember, technology won’t be able to solve all your problems. Recruitment still needs the human touch. Use it for what it can help with best, simplifying and speeding up the process, and focus your human efforts on other areas.  

4. Content Marketing

First impressions are extremely important in the recruiting process. When a driver candidate visits your company website or social media page for the first time, would you rather them be greeted by nothing but one company update from five years ago, or a number of blog posts, company photos, and videos sharing your company values and culture?  

Our guess is the latter, and that’s why content marketing can play such a big role when trying to stand out to truck drivers. 

Here are a few different examples of marketing content you can use to reach drivers: 

  • Blogs about industry topics 
  • Memes on social media 
  • Sharing pictures on social media that show your company culture 
  • Polls and open-ended questions on social media (What do you think? Let us know in the comments!) 
  • Day in the life profiles of one of your drivers 
  • Driver testimonials 

Pro Tip: Make sure you’re getting the most out of your content. Share it on all your social media channels so you can reach drivers before they are ever candidates. Once they’re ready to apply for a job, your carrier will be top of mind! 

If you’re looking for other ways to get in front of driver candidates, consider partnering with Drive My Way. Our patented and proprietary technology matches drivers with jobs based on their professional qualifications and personal lifestyle preferences.

Custom Commodities Transport Partners with Drive My Way for Success

Custom Commodities Transport is the nation’s largest transporter of Activated Carbon. See how they worked with Drive My Way to meet their driver needs.

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5 Digital Advertising Trends Not to Miss in Trucking

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digital advertising for truck drivers

Digital advertising is a core part of your company brand. Equally important is the way that your employees and customers talk about your company. The way you represent yourself online is like the store window to your company. Most people will decide whether to engage with your company based on what they see in that small preview and other people’s reviews. Optimize your digital advertising and hit your annual goals with these 5 digital advertising trends for the trucking industry!

1. Build your Trustworthy Reputation

One of your biggest assets is your company reputation. No amount of marketing or advertising can change driver or customer perception if they are not happy working for or with you. At the end of the day, people trust people. That’s why negative driver or customer reviews are so lethal. Don’t believe us? A recent Nielson report shared that 92% of consumer trust reviews from friends and family more than advertising. Even more importantly, a BrightLocal study found that 88% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 88%! Strive to build a reputation so strong that your employees and customers can’t help but share their good experience.   

92% of consumer trust reviews from friends and family more than advertising, and 88% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 

It’s important to support your reputation with nuanced content. Digital advertising campaigns are tactful and positive in their tone. Your content should ultimately be uplifting. That does not mean you should avoid crucial conversations. Doing so may be perceived as sacrificing authenticity. Instead, acknowledge hardship, and commit in words and actions to prioritizing the wellbeing of your employees and customers. If you are able to demonstrate that you care when times are tough, you will build a strong reputation that will serve you for years to come. 

2. Consistency is Critical

Once you’ve identified a target area for improvement or strategic growth, it is tempting to immediately dedicate resources to developing that channel. Before you launch into your next campaign, clearly identify how that campaign fits into your larger strategic goals. Then, articulate each step you need to take to get there. Consider how you can meet your goals while maintaining a consistent representation of your company and your brand through the process. 

If you are like many trucking companies, you may not be allocating a large budget to marketing or recruitment. We understand. Especially in years like 2020 that feel economically unstable, digital advertising is not likely to be at the top of your financial priority list.

When budgets are tight, be strategic and realistic, but don’t stop advertising. Get creative and take advantage of free marketing channels. Continuing to market your brand will keep your name fresh and top of mind for drivers and potential customers.

3. Go Where the Drivers Are

It may sound obvious, but the best digital advertising in the world won’t help you if you don’t get in front of the right eyes. It’s important that, as the employer, you deeply understand your target market and advertise where they are. Luckily, you don’t have to guess where to find truck drivers. The 2019 Overdrive Connectivity Report found that 39% of drivers rely on word of mouth to find a driving job. An additional 29% start with internet searches. The same year, the Trucker’s News Connectivity Report found that 56% of drivers used internet searches and 26% count on word of mouth. Social media is one of the natural intersections of internet searches and live feedback from drivers. Drive My Way’s Driver Happiness and Retention Survey found that 71% of drivers reported using Facebook. Youtube and Instagram were the next most popular platforms. 

You don’t have to guess where to find truck drivers. Internet searches and Word of Mouth are consistently top channels. Focus social media efforts on Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram.

In both studies, word of mouth and internet searches were clearly the top two resources for job searching. Word of mouth relies heavily on building a positive brand reputation and keeping your company top of mind with consistent marketing. On the other hand, social media, content marketing, and partnership-based brand outreach are great places to start for drivers who utilize internet searches. 

4. Make it Mobile

Quite simply, if you’re not prioritizing mobile digital advertising, you are missing a big opportunity. Recent data from our Drive My Way Driver Happiness and Retention Survey demonstrates that more and more drivers are relying on their phones for communication and their technological interactions. Knowing this, plan on your digital advertising being viewed on anything from a desktop computer to a tablet to a smartphone. The good news is, there are numerous ways to get tech-savvy without reinventing your advertising campaigns or your budget. 

The best way to start improving your mobile interface is to invest time in understanding digital channels. Evaluate the channels you are currently using, and create a vision for how users will optimally interact with those channels on desktop and mobile. Many digital advertising channels, including social media, search engine ads, and even your company website, may allow companies to preview ads in a variety of formats before publishing. Carefully review both mobile and desktop views for content and format to ensure that drivers get the best possible experience regardless of their viewing device.

5. Don’t Neglect the Essentials

As you look forward to digital marketing optimization, don’t miss this key trend! Get back to basics. The same fundamentals that you started with are the foundation of a strong digital advertising strategy. Have a clean, concise website. Make sure the content is up to date, clearly presented, and search engine optimized. Once you have communicated all of the essential information, complete a secondary test. Ask yourself, “Is there any other information or design elements that could be removed while still communicating clearly?” If yes, take it out! Clarity is key.

After your website is ready, strategically choose where else you want to have a digital presence, and conduct a similar review of those sites. 

  • Are you active on social media? 
  • Do you host or participate in a podcast? 
  • Is content marketing your main distribution channel? 

Carefully audit each distribution channel and decide whether it is still benefiting your company. Don’t keep a channel active unless you are willing to maintain it, AND it is still delivering value. Focus your time, attention, and budget on the channels that are performing best.

driver happiness and retention survey

FREE SURVEY REPORT

Driver Lifestyle & Job Happiness Survey

We surveyed over 400 CDL truck drivers nationwide to discover what makes them happy in their career and life. Access the survey report to see the results.

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7 Distribution Channels to Consider for Truck Driver Jobs

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distribution channels for truck drivers

Marketing your carrier’s jobs to drivers is an essential task for recruiters. We’ve written before about the importance of reaching truck drivers where they are. If you’re advertising in the wrong channels, drivers aren’t aware of the current job openings in your fleet.

It’s important to work with a partner who understands the industry and how to market effectively, all while keeping the cost per lead low.

The more traditional methods are always available, and there seem to be new approaches developed every day.  Here are 8 distribution channels to consider for advertising your truck driver jobs.

1. Search Engine Marketing

Online job searching is one of the top methods drivers are looking for jobs. Using paid search to help you target keywords applicable to your jobs will assist in extending your reach instead of relying solely on organic rankings. It’s important to note that the trucking industry is extremely competitive in this space, and companies can easily spend thousands of dollars without much return. Approach this channel carefully and be sure to have an expert helping you!

2. LinkedIn

This web service is worth mentioning in particular. Apart from providing a job board, LinkedIn serves as a general and all-purpose professional networking website. It allows job seekers and employers to create profiles, build connections, recommend each other, and a host of other features. LinkedIn is the largest and most popular social networking site for careers and can be a useful addition to your strategy. However, focusing here alone won’t get you far in trucking.

3. Truck Driver Job Boards

Some websites cater specifically to a truck driver audience and can allow you to reach that group. Services like CDL jobs, Every truck driver job, and Truck driver jobs 411 will be specialized toward the trucking industry and help target to your core demographic. However, before putting all of your eggs in this basket, be sure to know the common pitfalls of job boards.

4. Facebook

Even though Facebook isn’t the go-to social media service, you can’t afford to not utilize this service. Posting jobs on Facebook may not help you reach targeted audiences because of a recent legal suit, but still holds value as an advertising platform.

5. Craigslist

Although Craigslist has been around for years, it’s seen a resurgence as it’s specialized towards one function—online classifieds. Posting jobs on Craigslist is nothing new, although recently it’s being used more for truck driver job recruiting. However, Craiglist only allows you to target geographically and you pay per post. These two aspects are great in some cases and not so helpful in others. Again, work with an expert that knows when to leverage this channel and when to look elsewhere.

6. Display Network

The banner ads on display networks can be served to audiences across the web, and on popular websites like Fox News and CNN. The Google Display Network allows access to over 2 million websites, and you can also use Bing and Yahoo. You can also target your audience based on geographical location and more.

7. Word-of-Mouth

There is value to the traditional methods, even if they’re being enhanced. One of the top ways truck drivers hear about other jobs is through other truck drivers. Good word-of-mouth is dependent on maintaining a strong reputation among drivers. They’re only likely to recommend you if they’ve had a good experience or heard good things. Just goes to show that all the technology in the world won’t help if you don’t think of drivers are people and not just leads!

truck driver job description template

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Truck Driver Job Description Template

Your job description can either convert or lose applicants. Follow this template to make sure you’re on the right track.

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