As we have discussed in previous articles, no two driver lead sources are made the same. They all have their pros and cons and serve different purposes.
That is why lead source management is crucial for your company’s driver recruitment strategy.
Effective driver lead source management will create synergies across the different sources that boost your hiring efforts.
What is Lead Source Management?
3 Tips for Driver Lead Source Management
- Have a Purpose for Each Source
- Put Together a Long Term Strategy
- Keep Track of the Data
What is Lead Source Management?
First, it is important to know what a lead source is for driver recruitment.
A lead source is a channel through which a driver first learns about your company and available positions.
Driver lead source channels can include job boards, social media, search engines, referrals, events, and other advertisements.
Keeping track, coordinating, and optimizing all of these channels is lead source management.
None of these channels operate in a silo, they all are related and impact one another. If you manage the relationships between all of the sources properly you will see improved performance from all the channels.
3 Tips for Driver Lead Source Management
1. Have a Purpose For Each Source
Driver recruiting is unique because there are sources that guarantee leads. You can know exactly how many names will be generated with your desired ad spend.
However,
Far too often carriers will get complacent and rely entirely on guaranteed sources.
If that is the case, you are not maximizing the benefits of that lead channel. There is no purpose in using this channel because the guaranteed leads are weighed down by the fact that they are hard to contact.
Understand the guaranteed channel’s limitations and plan to use another channel that compliments the guaranteed channel while minimizing its negatives.
For example,
A carrier may decide to run a two-month campaign on a channel that guarantees a certain amount of leads each month. They collect as many leads as possible and upload them into an email service provider, like MailChimp.
After the two-month campaign has ended, they stop spending their money with the guaranteed channel and focus all of their efforts on an email campaign. The email campaign now has a large audience filled with qualified drivers.
In this example, the purpose of the guaranteed campaign was not to be the main supply of leads for the carrier. Instead, the purpose was to build up an audience that the carrier can target with an email campaign. The email campaign generated direct leads which have a higher conversion rate.
The weakness of the guaranteed campaign is that the leads are hard to contact. The weakness of the email campaign is that it requires a pre-built audience. By using both of these channels together the carrier emphasizes the positives and minimizes the negatives of each source.
Another quick example is running a social media campaign that focuses on getting your company in front of as many people as possible.
Then, you run a guaranteed lead campaign. The leads from this campaign will have likely seen your social media ads and will be more receptive to your recruiters’ phone calls.
Have a purpose for each source. Do not place all of your eggs into one basket.
2. Put Together a Long Term Strategy
It is common for carriers to get too focused on month-to-month or even week-to-week performance. If they have one bad hiring month carriers begin searching for new lead sources.
However, carriers need to have a long-term strategy for their recruiting. Getting caught up in the short-term results will prevent a carrier from ever running a comprehensive campaign.
In the example above, the carrier had a three-month strategy of how they were going to generate leads and hire them.
If the carrier had panicked in the first month of their plan because they had a low conversion rate, they would have not been able to run a successful email campaign with a high conversion rate.
Having a long-term strategy also allows you to plan for predictable challenges during the year.
A long-term strategy is aware that social media ads become more expensive during the holidays due to increased advertising.
To combat this a carrier would focus on building up its audience during September and October and then recruit that audience base heavily during the holidays.
Put together a long-term strategy so that your company can use the lead sources with each other and also avoid predictable challenges.
3. Keep Track of the Data
There is no shortage of driver lead sources. How do you decide which sources to use for your long-term plan?
Keep track of the data.
As you mix and match different lead channels you need to know which combinations work the best.
Tracking the campaign data will empower you to iterate and optimize campaigns for KPI’s that you establish as crucial for your company.
Otherwise, any decision you make is simply a shot in the dark.
It is best to go granular with your data tracking.
For example, instead of tracking “social media” leads, break the leads down based on social media platforms. This way you can know which platform to spend more of your money on for your social media campaigns.
Driver lead source management will create synergies across all of your different sources and boost your hiring efforts.
As we approach the New Year, make sure that you take time to strategize for your lead source management. Have a purpose for each source, put together a long-term plan, and keep track of your data.
Want to speak with an expert about how you can improve your lead source management? Fill out the form below and a Meramec Solutions expert will reach out!
