Moving Right Along

This business has trucked through the recession and seen two years of growth

Yarbrough Transfer Company
Location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Website: http://www.yarbroughtransfer.com/
Open Rate: 25%
Customer Since: November 2010

The current recession hasn't been kind to any industry, but trucking was hit particularly hard. In the third quarter of 2008, 785 trucking companies went out of business altogether, with nearly 100,000 trucks going idle for lack of demand and drivers. While the deepest cuts to the industry have healed, the aftershock of a lackluster economy is still evident.
These days, transportation businesses have to be dynamic and forward-thinking to keep growing. Constantly reevaluating marketing and sales strategies has helped North Carolina-based Yarbrough Transfer Company not only stay afloat, but grow business by 20% since 2009.
The trucking company runs almost 50 trucks and 100 trailers up and down the east coast, hauling everything from generators for hospitals to tons of granite for memorials. Mike Chaudron, the vice president of sales, notes wryly that most people would probably recognize the kind of transporters they use as "those flashing trucks with escorts that slow down traffic on the highway."
Until the fall of 2010, the business depended on phone calls for sales and a somewhat chance-based approach for marketing. "It used to be that our clients would just contact us when they needed a job done," Mike explains. However, he decided that there had to be a way to keep the Yarbrough name in front of customers, even when they may not need a trailer. After attending a seminar in Charlotte, he decided to try Constant Contact Email Marketing.  A little over a year later, he says that Yarbrough Transfer's newsletters and cards have been a primary factor in the company's impressive growth.
"Dripping" on customers
Mike says that he was intrigued by the possibilities that email marketing offered in terms of "dripping." "I wanted to keep reminding people that we're there," he explains. "We could drip on them by staying in touch, so when they needed something done, they thought of us."
So what does dripping mean to Yarbrough Transfer Company? The strategy entails a quarterly newsletter, with pictures and project highlights that showcase the trucks in action. For example, Yarbrough Transfer transferred 70 granite blocks from North Carolina to New Jersey in October 2010, and Mike highlighted an article about the move in the first-ever newsletter issue, which was sent in January 2011.
Of course, Mike admits that sending out four newsletters a year may not be enough to keep the business top-of-mind. That's why the Yarbrough Transfer Company sends out holiday cards, too - whether the occasion is Thanksgiving or Veterans' Day. The cards often prove to be popular; the 2011 Veterans' Day e-card was shared by newsletter subscribers on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
The dripping strategy has worked in other ways, too. Mike says that some newsletters include an availability feature, which helps show potential clients where trucks are located at any given time. "We're a company of cents and dollars, and everything counts. Reducing the number of 'deadhead miles' - miles that a truck travels with nothing in it - can save us quite a bit of money," Mike tells us.
Click here for prospects
In the end, it all comes down to potential sales. The Yarbrough Transfer Company started an email list with about 200 contacts in January and now has nearly three times as many.  Each email gets around a 25% open rate, well above the industry average, which Mike attributes to the fact that the business doesn't just "throw people on the contact list."
"Since most everyone on that list wants to hear from us, when we do send out a newsletter or a card, we're touching more potential clients in one click than sales can do in a week," he says.
The sales team has made use of the analytics available through email marketing, too. "If we see that a lady looked at our email three times in two hours, we know that there's some interest there and we'll get in touch," Mike explains.
He knows that he has learned a lot over the past year about online marketing, especially through emails, but notes that figuring out email marketing is like learning how to use a computer: "You can use it effectively, sure, but you know you're only using about 20% of it."
Mike's excited about the prospect of learning more about email marketing in 2012, and plans to get more aggressive with the coming year. "This year was a great introduction to the potential of new marketing channels. We kind of figured out how to use it in 2011, and now we're hoping to put that knowledge to even better use in 2012," he says.