Breaking Through the Noise
The Problem: Your Company Looks and Sounds Like All the Others
Be honest with yourself and admit that sales prospects see most logistics providers as interchangeable. And your marketing doesn’t help. This is because most companies lead with capabilities lists rather than outcomes. In other words, your marketing relies on undifferentiated messaging in a commoditized market.
What’s happening:
Your company is lost in all the noise. And the cost is significant… You end up competing on price, dealing with longer sales cycles, and having difficulty commanding premium rates.
How to Fix It:
Start by changing the ways you talk to prospects and about yourself. For example, develop outcome-focused case studies that quantify customer impact: "reduced inventory carrying costs by 23%" beats "state-of-the-art warehouse management." Better yet, interview your top 5 clients about business problems you solved, not services you provided. And, train your team to ask discovery questions about prospects' strategic goals before discussing your solutions. The result is that your marketing messaging and sales conversations will be based on their actual needs and wants rather than generic messaging.
Surprise! AI has uses beyond just producing mediocre content. It can also be used as an effective competitor tracking tool. For example, using Google Alerts combined with ChatGPT is an easy and automatic way to summarize weekly competitive intelligence. Here’s an example… Create a prompt: "Summarize these articles about [competitor name] and identify any new service offerings, leadership changes, or market positioning shifts." This gathers scattered information into actionable intelligence. You can also use AI to analyze competitor websites quarterly and identify messaging changes or new target markets they're pursuing.
When differentiation is hard, the best approach can be to get more targeted, and there are tools to help. An approach growing in popularity is working with one of the many intent data providers on the market, which can help you track when specific companies research logistics-related topics across the web. Doing so can identify prospects actively evaluating providers before they contact anyone. This allows your sales team to reach out when buyers are in research mode rather than waiting for inbound inquiries. Companies using intent data report better response rates because their outreach aligns with the buyer’s readiness to talk. Message me if you’d like to know about providers we've worked with.