Agri-Fresh Truck Driver Marketing Case Study

About Agri-Fresh:

Your Refrigerated Transportation Specialists! Agri-Fresh Inc. is your team of refrigerated transportation specialists. We specialize in truckload, temperature-controlled freight with the equipment and expertise to ensure your products are transported safely, at the specified temperatures you require. Our fleet of professional drivers are trained, drive legally, follow the Hours of service rules, and place top priority on the safe delivery of your products. To provide our clients with the best in quality control, we operate late model (2012 to 2017), well-maintained tractor units that comply with all California Emission Standards. Tractors and trailers are inspected at the beginning of each trip allowing us to ensure everything is in top working condition before your freight is loaded. We know what it takes to ensure your products arrive at their destination in the same condition they were in when they were loaded. When you want your perishables delivered fresh and on time, choose Agri-Fresh Inc.

Background:

Based on their expertise and ability to deliver on their promises, Agri-Fresh was well-positioned for growth. Just one thing stood in their way. As Kevin, President and CEO of Agri-Fresh describes, they felt like the only solution to get drivers was to ‘Hope and Pray”. All other areas of the business were dialled in, but the driver recruiting was an ongoing problem.

Audit & Initial Learnings:

Once Farmers was engaged, both teams quickly assessed the driver recruitment environment. We found there:

  1. Was a very complicated application process
  2. Their CRM was robust but not dialled in well, so it was hard to move drivers through their pipeline
  3. Were very few drivers coming to their website and calling them directly
  4. There was a very compelling value proposition, and their branding was great. I commend them for being the only trucking business to not have a truck on their website. They really took a different approach that was very fresh
  5. Was no clear strategy to hire drivers
  6. Turnover was very high

Action Items:

With the audit process behind us, we quickly went to work and:

  1. Built a new streamlined application process
  2. Used visual mapping and call and lead tracking ensuring we could generate the insights needed to make informed decisions
  3. Created new digital assets and recruitment pages on the existing website
  4. Launched online ads
  5. Agri-Fresh also made significant improvements to the position by improving compensation and improving communication

Results:

Initially, we were tasked with generating 1,000 MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads), and in 2021, we generated close to 5,000, and their fleet has grown by almost 50%.

  1. When they won a large piece of business from an existing customer, we were able to ratchet up our activity and quickly get the qualified drivers we needed in place
  2. Unseated tractors were greatly reduced
  3. In addition to numerous reports and dashboards, we built a revenue scorecard showing our weekly results. Agri-Fresh can easily see at a glance their weekly results, including what percentage of MQL, become SQLs, the become hires, and how much their ad cost is per MQL, SQL, and hire.
  4. There is now a marketing machine in place and we can dial up or down driver recruiting, even at the specific job level, based on Agri-Fresh’s weekly needs.

This is just a short summary of the many strategies and tactics that the Agri-Fresh and the Farmers team implemented, but due to Agri-Fresh’s action, they solved a major problem. With confidence in their ability to attract qualified drivers, Kevin and the Agri-Fresh team can now focus on maximizing their growth!