November 20, 2024

The New Hammer Lane: AI-Powered Marketing Strategies for Transportation Leaders

The rise of AI-powered technology has created a permanent hammer lane for transportation companies.

Truckers avoid left lanes on highways unless they need to pass. Upon entering the “hammer lane,” they go full throttle, pass, then return to the right.

However, businesses cannot operate this way. They must stay in the left lane at full throttle to outpace the competition.

The rise of AI-powered technology has created a permanent hammer lane for transportation companies. Freight brokers and fleets can use new tools to accelerate and scale marketing, operations, and other core business functions. They can also strengthen human connections.

A recent LinkedIn Live webinar covered how transportation companies should use AI to turbocharge their efforts. Below is a summary of the topics discussed by the panel, moderated by Virago’s Chief Content Strategist, Aaron Huff:

Streamlining Operations with AI

Lizz Harrell, fractional SVP of customer success at Parade, explained that understanding customers is the foundation of effective marketing in transportation. AI can free people from time-consuming activities like managing routine email communications about loads. Staff members no longer need to monitor their inboxes throughout the day. Instead, they can devote more time to understanding customer needs and meeting expectations.

Load Matching and Quote Management

AI-powered systems such as Parade can significantly improve “quotes-per-load,” a crucial performance indicator for freight brokers, by automating communications between brokers and carriers to source capacity quickly. “If you increase quotes per load, the main impact is a combination of margin and capacity expansion,” Harrell said.

Enhancing Creativity and Critical Thinking

By automating routine tasks, transportation professionals can dedicate more time to creative problem-solving and strategic thinking. According to Nicole Leffer, CMO AI Advisor at NicoleLeffer.com, marketers can focus their time and talents on bringing unique perspectives to AI-generated content: “As long as you’re bringing yourself and your ideas into the AI-generated content and not just asking the AI to regurgitate everything that’s already out there, it makes it much easier to stand out in the market.”

AI tools can help companies differentiate themselves when used strategically. Quickly creating first drafts of marketing content is helpful. Still, Leffer advises against generic content: “It does make it harder to stand out with mediocre, regurgitated content that is the same as everybody else is creating.”

Building Stronger Human Connections with AI

While AI cannot replace human relationships, it can enhance them in several ways. Leffer describes her experience using AI to create personalized emails to people for marketing a course she developed.

“I had all of this survey data. I set up an AI system that reviewed and read every survey response and information about my course. The system wrote a personal email to each person based on my course information. Within about five or six hours, I had sent 250 completely personalized emails,” she said.

Implementation Strategies for Success

With so many opportunities to use AI in marketing, Harrell cautions against doing too much at once. She noted that AI implementation doesn’t mean you should invest in buying 100 tools and then trying to figure out how to use each at 10%.

Leffer strongly agrees, adding: “Don’t buy every tool. Get one generic tool that can help you with all kinds of things you’re doing and another very specific to your industry. Learn how to use them, learn their capabilities, and you’ll start to adopt it and see the value.”

Training and Team Development

Leffer emphasizes the importance of proper training: “Companies are trying to realign their marketing resources without ever teaching their teams how to use the tools they expect them to get more done with,” she said. “This is a brand-new skill. People do not just inherently know how to use a large language model to accomplish what you want.”

Looking Ahead

The transportation industry is uniquely positioned to benefit from AI in marketing efforts. Organizations may not need to restructure to leverage AI capabilities better. As Leffer concludes, “I am a big fan of not using AI as an excuse to fire people. Let’s instead use AI to get more done daily at a higher quality with a higher return on investment with the people we have.”

Companies that successfully integrate AI to operate more efficiently and strengthen human connections will be best positioned to thrive. The key is finding the right balance between automation and personal touch, using AI to enhance rather than replace human connections.

Virago Marketing has created a list of helpful AI tools for you. We use many of these tools regularly to help our clients stand out. We agree that AI cannot replace human expertise or the hands-on approach required to create, plan, and execute winning strategies. However, it frees human resources to focus on activities that deliver the best results.

You can access our curated list of AI resources here