We’ve analyzed over 100 long distance moving companies to see what keeps businesses alive during the winter season, versus the companies that fade away. The simple answer is that the successful companies stop competing and take the time to build. The winter season is undoubtedly the time to pause, get creative and optimize your workflow.
Moving companies, especially long distance moving companies, are struggling big time right now. Natural selection is taking its course, only granting the companies that have worked really hard on establishing a solid foundation to weather the storm.
For all the carriers that relied on brokers to fill their calendars, that gave no emphasis to building a brand, the time may have already ran out. Many will blame the economy. Some will say it’s the high interest rates and the housing market…others will just write it off as part of the business. Certainly some will look into themselves and question what they could’ve done better to establish an evergreen funnel. With the cost per acquisition nearly tripling in the winter season, it makes little sense to advertise or buy leads. One thing is certain. Every valley is followed by a peak. Movers have around four solid months in hibernation to prepare for a summer season that will make up for it all. Get started here.
Implement Automation Tools
Take action now to position your company to capitalize on business more efficiently during the summer. To be a long term player in the long distance moving game, it’s imperative to take the winter months to create, build, test and optimize. Here’s what we found in the brands that are here to stay:
Cold calling is dead. Unless the caller id is saved, people don’t enjoy answering the phone anymore, and it’s only going to get worse. Buying washed out, over-sold leads from equatemedia or quoterunner, and sending them to a room full of cubicles is a thing of the past. Its an easy way to burn out your sales reps, and your budget, trying to find the 3-5% of desperate customers who buy without doing research. It not the 90’s, and it just doesn’t work anymore.
It’s time to set up automation. Automated out-bound calls that make your speed to call less than 10 seconds. Its time to stop depending on your remote sellers to refresh Granot and call the lead as soon as it comes into the system. It’s time to eliminate human errors, miscommunication, and inaccurate inventories that cause the moving nightmares. Put into play automated systems that have high efficiency, zero turnover, and maximize your output.
We can help you with that here.
Design for Conversions
This industry is competitive. The cost per lead is so high that having a decent website is not enough. Your website must be designed to convert. People think of websites as a brochure for their company and design it as one. That’s a very old school mentality. In the age of diminishing attention spans and increasing advertising costs, you must think of your website as a trap. Ask yourself, “How can I build the strongest traffic trap possible? How can I design my website be as engaging as possible so that users can’t stop scrolling until they hit submit on your lead form?”
The answer is designing for conversions. This doesn’t mean that you have to re-create your whole website. Work with landing pages. A quick and simple way to put everything your user is looking for, into one page. Then start testing.
A/B Testing
Also known as conversion rate optimization, it’s one of the most underrated services to perform on a website. Conversion rate optimization should be running on auto-pilot. It’s a very healthy investment considering how much it will save you on the cost per lead when you start running paid traffic. You can use a tool like https://unbounce.com/ to design two versions of your website or landing page, and run them against each other. For example, you can test if its better to have 1 form on your site, or add a pop-up form. Automatically you would suppose that a pop-up form in addition to your standard form would help, but some users can find it annoying and bounce out of your page. You can never really tell until you test.
Content Creation
Content is king. People want to see that your long long distance moving company is actually alive, working, thriving, and engaging. They want to see the employees faces, the uniforms, the equipment, and the work being done. They want to see the customers, the feedback, and the reactions. We recommend having a person in charge of gathering content on the day of the move. This content camera man can also be on charge of documenting the inventory that is being loaded onto the truck. A small detail that will give your customer a piece of mind.
Keep churning out fresh new content. Post them on your social channels and website. The momentum builds slowly. It may seem like a tedious task that has no returns at first. Remember, the point of the content will not be to drive traffic, but it will surely help your conversion rate once the user lands on your site.
Review Funnels
This one is a no brainer. Long distance moving has a bad rep, so customers want to be extra sure of who they’re choosing. It’s one thing to have good reviews, it’s another thing to have an automated system that gathers reviews from customers and automatically posts them to all the typical review sites; like Facebook, google, yelp, and BBB all at once. This is called a review funnel. And it’s also an excellent way to handle negative feedback before its published online.
But if you want to go a step above, work with the US Moving Protection Organization to get certified. A certified USMPO carrier profile will drive traffic to your site from people who have already done their research, ready to make a purchase decision. During the off-season, work with the USMPO to get certified.