CURTAINSIDE TRAILER BLOG

A semi-trailer and the wide open road add up to a powerful strategy for advertising your company and brand to millions of motorists.

The considerable available square footage on both sides of a 50-foot trailer offers powerful potential to reach out to an ever-changing market. Every mile your trailer travels down the road with blank sides, on the other hand, is a missed marketing opportunity.

Lead generation is a process that motivates prospective customers to take the next step.

In mobile trailer advertising, lead generation means the prospect who glimpses an effective ad is inspired to take action, expressing interest in a product or service in some way, shape or form. That may include going to a brick-and-mortar location to shop for it, making a telephone inquiry or simply visiting a website. Advertising on semi-trailers visually exposes thousands of potential customers to your message as the truck covers miles of busy streets and highways every day.

According to the Owner-Operator Independent Driver’s Association (OOIDA), in the United States today there are approximately 350,000 registered owner-operators.

The average has been on the road as an independent for 18 years. A trucking career as an owner-operator is an achievable goal—both for those already behind the wheel as company drivers and those who are just beginning to think about getting a CDL. It's a dream with an undeniable allure: Becoming your own boss, relying on your own efforts and taking the reins of your own destiny are classic American values. However, any time you reach to achieve any goal, along with the rewards, there are also challenges. Here are four tips that may optimize your chances of finding success and minimize the pitfalls along the way.

According to the American Trucking Association, our industry is now short about 35,000 drivers.

How did that happen? Consider another statistic from the ATA: In large truck fleets, driver turnover stands at about 95 percent—and that’s actually a slight decrease from other recent years. Conversely, at smaller fleets with less than $30 million annual revenue, turnover is currently around 90 percent, but trending upwards. The fact that the minimum-wage fast food business has even worse employee turnover (averaging 145% annually) should be little comfort. Now more than ever, the question of how to keep drivers happy keeps fleet managers and trucking execs awake at night.

Choosing the right drivers for your company and ensuring that they are competently trained is a critical component for any fleet.

However, this component can also be among the most costly of expenditures. There's a delicate balance required to both attract and retain skilled drivers while keeping costs low at the same time.

Back-hauls help make the return trip from shipping destinations profitable as well as productive.

Deadheading, driving an empty trailer back from a delivery, is a waste of fuel, driver time, and vehicle wear and tear on the return trip. Locating a back-haul load at or in the nearby vicinity of where the outbound load was delivered is the key to optimizing revenue opportunities.

Multi-tasking is increasingly the nature of the fleet manager's job.

It's a trend that seems likely to steepen as time goes by. Staying connected to the industry at large is just one of the items that demands daily attention. It’s important to keep up with industry trends, financial metrics, government regulation and advances in technology—all of which affect the freight industry and your company's ability to compete profitably. In addition to flipping through the pages of printed publications, the internet offers a number of sites that should be included in your bookmarks. The challenges posed by fleet management—and the ability to formulate the right decisions at the right time—rely on the quality of information you’re exposed to every day. Here are some reputable and clickable sources to keep you in touch with the pulse of the industry.

Until recently, the infrastructure of trucking didn’t exactly occupy the cutting edge of innovation. While trucks themselves became more high-tech, software applications for the trucking business lagged behind. Today, the smartphone has become a must-have accessory for truckers and freight managers. Apps produced by a wide array of start-ups have gained ground and re-defined business as usual in the trucking industry. Here are just three trucking apps that now boast impressive download figures:

Self-driving cars and solar-powered aircraft: the media is full of transportation advances that promise to impact our lives in the future. Likewise, the trucking industry is also spawning a stream of innovation. The future of freight hauling looks more efficient, more profitable, and greener. Eighteen-wheel rigs with micro-turbine electric drive, truck platoons linked by vehicle-to-vehicle speed and braking control—these techno-wonders are still well beyond the horizon. However, in the more immediate future of 2016, we can look forward to examples of practical innovation in trucking like these:

It won’t come as a surprise to any fleet manager: Traffic congestion is a factor that complicates daily dispatching and it’s only getting worse. Today, freight in urban areas moves slower than ever. Increasingly, fleet managers have to make on-the-fly schedule adjustments as trucks are snarled in standstill traffic. The Department of Transportation estimates that traffic congestion imposes $27 billion dollars in wasted fuel and labor hours on freight companies. It’s also a public relations issue for our industry. Trucks inevitably tend to be the highest-profile, most visible target for the frustrations of commuters fuming behind the wheel in ever-growing gridlock.