Expanding a brand in a market that is foreign to a team comes with significant challenges and substantial risk. To offset the risk of failure, international brands often hire native marketing experts to help them appeal to native markets and speak to a local audience.
The client featured in this case study is an international third-party logistics firm looking to expand its presence in the North American freight market. VisualFizz helped them speak to their American audience, and branch into emerging markets during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Here we explore the partnership in detail and the marketing steps VisualFizz took to further the company’s brand in North America.
VisualFizz-3PL Partnership
Though well established in certain areas, the client’s efforts to build brand awareness in North America were largely unsuccessful. They hired VisualFizz to help them speak to an American audience and market their services to North American companies in need of freight transportation.
The initial phase of the partnership would see the VisualFizz team act predominantly as marketing consultants, providing guidance, strategy and recommendations regarding the best ways to grow the brand, improve their design, and identify new opportunities for growth.
During the second phase of the partnership, VisualFizz would assist the client with the creation and implementation of all new web and digital branding strategies. This phase would not only utilize every aspect of our team including designers, developers, CRO specialists, and logistics professionals, it would also blend multiple services including:
- Search Engine Optimization – In addition to reporting and benchmarking of the client’s current SEO landscape, VisualFizz SEO’s would also implement ongoing strategies for content, video, media and backlinks, as well as improve internal page content, and conduct a competitive ranking analysis.
- Creative Work – The VisualFizz creative team endeavored to create unique content that would appeal to the appropriate audience including infographics, mini-videos for promotional purposes, social media post designs, custom GIFS, designs to share on social channels, and physical promotional materials.
- Blog Strategy and Monthly Marketing Content – The content strategy for the client would primarily focus on the creation of longform content aligned with the SEO strategy and business goals. This took the shape of a monthly freight market update distributed to the customers and industry leaders.
- Organic Social Media, Paid Social + Calendar Creation – The social media strategy would include the creation of a social media content calendar and subsequent posts to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all other relevant platforms.
- Videography and Photography – The VisualFizz team social media team would also create a diverse range of 15-30 second videos designed to get the user’s attention on all the relevant platforms.
- Web Updates & UX Design – The website accounts for 60% of the company’s revenue; therefore, It was integral that the client’s website convey a professional tone, and provide an exceptional user experience to the brand’s vast community of shippers and carriers. The VisualFizz team would update and improve their site via new landing pages, menu changes, forms and other improvements.
VisualFizz Promotes Thought Leadership via Content Strategy
A significant portion of the partnership was centered around the creation of longform content that would promote the client as a thought-leader in the supply chain industry.
To facilitate this goal, the VisualFizz content team utilized logistics and supply chain experts to create 20,000+ word freight market updates, each month, to be distributed among the target customers, and other leaders in the field.
Social Media Strategy: Drive Engagement With Informational Posts
The VisualFizz strategy to boost brand awareness and visibility for the client on social media worked phenomenally well. As the most visual medium, Instagram featured similar messaging shared on LinkedIn and Facebook and adapted to ensure a visually appealing profile. Posts were concise, attention-grabbing, and provided useful information without the need to link click.
Results: More Conversion. Great Engagement. Bad Timing.
This partnership was atypical in many ways. From the outset, the highly technical nature of the supply chain industry meant that VisualFizz would need to utilize a supply chain expert to ensure created content was both accurate and appealing to the right audience.
Fortunately, the VisualFizz team is incredibly talented and diverse in their expertise. Our resident supply chain expert was able to supplement the marketing expertise of the team and provide valuable context to client meetings and feedback.
Ultimately, the partnership ended prematurely because of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which drastically affected the freight transportation industry. Like many third-party logistics providers, the client had to upend their marketing strategy to focus on the proliferation of their core services.
Though the partnership ended early, in the short relationship, the VisualFizz team was able to not only facilitate the client’s intro to the North American market, but also improve their social media presence across every platform. We drove engagement. We increased conversions. But, most importantly, we showed that our marketing services are applicable to every industry, no matter the complexity.
If you have a web development project or website refresh that you’re working on, content and brand updates, or brand strategy needs, then now is the time to contact VisualFizz for a consultation. We’ll listen to your goals; chat about your brand, and get to work creating a custom strategy to not only complete your project, but unlock the true potential of your brand.
