9 Effective Strategies to Quickly Generate Logistics Leads

For freight brokers, forwarders, and 3PL companies, logistics leads are vital. If your goal is to generate more logistics leads to maintain a robust sales pipeline, integrating both inbound and outbound strategies proves more effective than solely concentrating on one. This approach enables acquiring more leads without depending solely on a single strategy.

In a previous blog, we discussed inbound lead generation strategies. This time, we’ll explore various methods to acquire additional logistics sales leads using outbound lead generation strategies. These methods can be employed to supplement your current lead generation plan.

This article will highlight nine strategies to quickly generate logistics leads so that you can expand your logistics business.

1. Purchase Lists of Leads

There are companies dedicated to selling lists of leads. If you provide them with the demographics of your target market, they will deliver a list of hundreds or even thousands of leads for your logistics business. This gives your sales team a great jumping-off point for finding new clients.

However, it is important to note that buying lists of leads has both advantages and disadvantages.

Since lists of leads can have outdated or incorrect data, we suggest hiring a lead generation specialist to clean the leads you purchased and verify the businesses listed there and their contact information. This approach eliminates unqualified people from your lists. Then, your sales team can end up with a shorter, more accurate list of leads, and not waste time contacting unqualified leads.

2. Maximize Lead Databases for Logistics

Databases designed for businesses to find leads contain thousands of professional contacts in various industries, and you can narrow your search by entering your target market’s demographics into the relevant search filters. Then, the database will provide you with lead results you can purchase to access the lead’s full contact information.

Lead databases that provide accurate leads are powerful enough to pump your logistics sales pipeline. In addition to purchasing a list of leads, you can maximize the power of databases to look for leads that fit your customer qualifications.

3. Ask for Referrals from your Clients

Asking for referrals can be an effective way to generate leads, especially if done strategically and properly. You may use Hubspot’s guide on how to ask for referrals from your customers.

Personal referrals are much more effective than cold calling. Although it’s hard to elicit referrals in bulk, you’re much more likely to close the deal with a quality lead than a cold lead. A great question for your current customers is, “Who else do you know could benefit from our services?”

4. Join LinkedIn Groups

In a time when every business is constantly looking for leads, you should know how to stand against your competition and show up for your potential customers. LinkedIn, particularly professional LinkedIn groups, offers a valuable avenue for discovering new leads. Search for these groups that align with your target audience. By joining discussions and interacting in the comments, you can establish connections with potential leads, gradually building recognition over time.

5. Attend Conferences

Conferences offer an excellent opportunity to establish in-person connections and encounter potential customers in a single setting. To effectively network at conferences, consider the following tips:

• Choose conferences that align with your business objectivesConsider events that cater to your industry niche or target audience. Assess the event agenda and past participant profiles to ensure alignment with your goals and interests.
• Research the participants before the event. Utilize social media platforms or event networking tools to learn more about attendees’ backgrounds, interests, and professional affiliations. Look for common ground or mutual connections to facilitate more meaningful conversations.
• Engage with the attendeesUse the insights gathered from your research to interact with them actively. Initiate conversations by referencing shared interests or topics of relevance identified during your pre-event research. Also, be genuinely interested in their perspectives to foster authentic connections.

6. Utilize Google Maps

You may be so accustomed to using Google Maps for directions that you neglect its power as a lead generator. While it functions primarily as a mapping service, nearly all businesses have a Google Business Profile. Given that businesses thrive on targeted markets, Google Maps can serve as a hub for geographically specific lead generation.

For instance, if your target businesses are supermarkets in Miami that might need your services, a simple search for “supermarkets in Miami” yields immediate and relevant results. This single search result jumpstarts your lead search using Google Maps.

7. Hire Experienced Salespeople

Salespeople are one of the most expensive assets in your logistics company. Therefore, you must carefully consider their expertise, network, and influence when hiring them. If they have established relationships within the logistics business, then this is a huge benefit as it widens their reach and builds their credibility with both leads and customers.

8. Hire a Dedicated Researcher

At the beginning of this blog, we suggested employing a cost-effective resource to refine lead lists. You can consider hiring a lead researcher for this task, responsible for refining leads and executing strategies such as exploring lead databases, collecting leads from Google Maps, and engaging in LinkedIn group networking.

By delegating these tasks to a researcher, your sales team can dedicate their efforts to closing deals. A lead researcher provides meticulously curated, precisely targeted, and reliable lead lists tailored to your company’s needs. They aim to augment your sales team’s efforts and fill your pipeline with prospective clients.

9. Hire an Appointment Setter

Hiring an appointment setter may not directly generate new leads, but it will help streamline your outbound sales process. Securing a meeting with leads is a time-consuming process. It can take ten sales touches or more before you meet your lead face-to-face or over a video call. Hiring a dedicated appointment setter allows your salespeople to focus on interacting with leads farther along the sales pipeline. If your salespeople channel their energy toward qualified leads, they’ll yield a much higher conversion rate.

Setting up appointments concludes the outbound lead generation process. When an appointment setter schedules a meeting with a qualified lead, the internal sales team takes charge. They attend the sales meeting, present a compelling sales pitch, and close the deal.

Conclusion

Outbound lead generation is usually synonymous with cold calling or emails. But even before this step, you need to generate a list of logistics leads, and the strategies mentioned above can help you accomplish this. One thing to note is that while these strategies allow you to generate many leads quickly, they produce cold leads, which are less likely to close compared to leads generated using inbound strategies.

We recommend executing outbound and inbound lead generation strategies to generate leads quickly over the short-term (outbound) while laying down the foundation to generate quality leads over the long term (inbound).

If you’re looking for a CRM that can help you manage your leads and is made specifically for logistics, request a demo here.

Thank you for reading our article. For more educational content, you can explore all our blogs here. You can follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook to receive more logistics sales strategies over social media. If you have other inquiries or suggestions, do not hesitate to contact us through this link.