Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

FRESH

Monday, January 13, 2025
Logistics

Marketer advises customer experience focus during freight industry uncertainty

Global marketer Andrew Lark used a racing analogy to compare how freight companies can survive and even grow their businesses during a recession by focusing on customer experience and marketing.

“There’s a great quote that I really love that says the best operators — and many of you are the best operators — know how to win on a wet track and it’s a wet track out there, but it’s pretty easy to win on a dry track,” said Lark during his keynote address at FreightWaves’ Future of Supply Chain event in Cleveland on Thursday.

“We always sit and look at the current condition and go, ‘Oh, my God, it’s never been this nuts,’ but then people that are old and tired and exhausted like me remember, ‘Yeah, actually there was that Iraq War and there was another war before that and then there was another recession,’” Lark said. “We’ve been through this before.”  

As an investor, adviser, mentor and founder of multiple startups, Lark chairs Group Lark, a global consultancy that helps companies survive and thrive during difficult times when the markets take a sudden turn. 

He’s also one of the authors of the international bestselling book, “The Augmented Age: Life in the Smart Lane.” The book is about the rising use of artificial intelligence.

Lark, a native of Auckland, New Zealand, advises companies not to cancel their marketing budgets during a recession but to evaluate how that marketing money is being spent and how much of the budget “actually touches a customer.”

“You have to look at the ratio in your business and go, ‘If I’m putting $100 into marketing and only $10 is viewed, there is something fundamentally wrong.’ In my businesses, we target a minimum of 50% of all spend has to be viewable,” Lark said.

“Marketers make for pretty soft targets when it comes to budgets,” he said. “But spend is a huge issue in marketing.”

Lark added, “The reality today is business-to-business marketers spend roughly 92% of their budgets chasing 5% of their customers in the market.” 

Instead of investing more money in search engine optimization, focus on using existing customers as a source of revenue, he said.

“Find customers who love [your business] and get them to introduce [you] to other customers,” Lark said.

He said the supply chain is a fundamental differentiator in creating customer experience. 

“Don’t think of yourselves as shippers, as freighters, as pallet orchestrators. Think of yourselves as a fundamental component in delivering customer experience,” Lark said. “I would argue that one of the largest breakpoints today in customer experience is what you do.”

The post Marketer advises customer experience focus during freight industry uncertainty appeared first on FreightWaves.

Related Posts

Load More Posts Loading...No More Posts.