Where Freight Marketing Goes Wrong with Virago’s Jennie Malafarina
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In this episode we’re talking with Jennie Malafarina, CEO of Virago Marketing on the common pitfalls companies make with freight marketing, including failing to research their target market, using overused stock imagery, and neglecting to embrace new channels like podcasting. Malafarina stresses the importance of building a personal brand and shares insights into creating a strategic revenue generation plan.

LINKS:

QUOTES:

  1. “I find that this industry sucks you in, and you never leave. More importantly, it’s good that the industry sucks you in and that you move around the industry because we need that knowledge. We need people to understand the different nuances of the industry and be able to quickly apply solutions versus some of the greenroom people that are coming into the space.” – Jennie Malafarina
  2. “There’s never just this one path for every company. It’s really about having a conversation and saying, what is the business trying to accomplish? What are the sales objectives? And how can marketing support that? So it’s always going to be different based on that response.” – Jennie Malafarina
  3. “Don’t just start doing things to check boxes. Don’t be like, we want a blog, so we’re going to have a blog every week. Or we want to podcast so we’re going to build a podcast. Who’s your audience? Why is there a gap there?” – Jennie Malafarina


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Show Transcript

See full episode transcriptTranscript is autogenerated by AI

Jennie Malafarina: 0:05

If you're a founder, be a founder and not a website developer or the marketer. Like, lean on the expertise that exists within the industry because they can help you right. Like from your company name to your website, to your branding, all the things right. Like lean on the experts. Don't hold on to what it is because you built it.

Blythe Brumleve: 0:37

Welcome into another episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. We are proudly presented by SPI Logistics and I am your host, Blythe Brumleve. We've got another great show for you today. We've got Jennie Malafarina. Did I pronounce that right?

Jennie Malafarina: 0:51

You did pronounce that right. Good job, thank God. Anytime somebody is like what's your last name, I'm like M-A-L-A-F-A-R-I-N-A. I'm not even going to just say it, because they're trying to write it down, so I just spell it. So thank you, husband, for that one.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:06

Yeah that's very similar. My name is Blythe Brumleve. It's one of those. Anytime someone looks down at a reservation or something and they just pause, I immediately know that it's probably going to be me, because they don't know where to start with my name, but Jennie is CEO of Virago Marketing and we are going to be talking about where freight marketing goes wrong and what to do about it. So, Jennie, welcome to the show. What's your backstory? How'd you get into freight marketing?

Jennie Malafarina: 1:35

Yeah, so I started with Trimble Transportation in 2016, and then I was there as part of the merge with PeopleNet and 10Four, and then I left to go over to Transportation Insight, the Banya Technology, and then I joined Virago Marketing and I actually just hit my three-year anniversary with Virago 10 days ago. So it's been a whirlwind. I can't believe it's already been three years. So I find that this industry sucks you in and you never leave. You never leave. But, more importantly, it's good that the industry sucks you in and you never leave. You never leave. But, more importantly, it's good that the industry sucks you in and then you kind of move around the industry, because we need that knowledge, we need it to stay within the space, we need people to understand the different nuances of the industry and like be able to quickly apply solutions. Versus some of the greener people that are coming into the space. Nothing against them. They've just got a learning curve.

Blythe Brumleve: 2:27

Yeah, and you could definitely tell and especially with some of their marketing efforts that they have, which we're going to be talking about here in a little bit of where freight marketing goes wrong. But I'm curious, I want to pull in a couple strings there with your backstory. So you had never worked in logistics prior. You just kind of jumped into Trimble Transportation and then from there the industry kind of pulled you in, yeah, so it was actually TMW Systems before I merged with PeopleNet and 10Four and became Trimble Transportation.

Jennie Malafarina: 2:56

But I worked for a PR agency and they wanted to send press releases but track performance of getting mental health beds filled and I was like PR releases are not lead generation in my mind and you can't track that and say I sent this press release and now there's seven more patients in this facility. It's really hard to tie that together because there's other things that could be at work. So then I decided to go to a digital marketing agency and I can tell you headhunting is a thing and it actually worked because they reached out. They found me on LinkedIn. They reached out to me and I was like no, I've only been here for 10 months, I'm good.

Jennie Malafarina: 3:41

But then they said that magic word, insurance. And at agencies they don't typically have insurance and I have three kids. So I was like insurance, let's have a conversation. So I went in and talked to them love the team, love the company. And when I did go to TMW systems, I felt like I absolutely won the job lottery. It was amazing and I learned so much, met so many people and now when I go to shows like TCA, it's like Trimble alumni. It's like all my friends from Trimble because they just kind of move around the industry.

Blythe Brumleve: 4:14

How long do you think did it take you to sort of learn the nuances of sort of transportation marketing where you felt confident that you could start deploying campaigns, press releases, what were your duties at the time and how long did it take you to get familiar with it?

Jennie Malafarina: 4:32

Yeah. So I think I came in as the digital marketing manager and then I quickly moved to the senior marketing manager where I oversaw the team. I think it's having like surrounding yourself with SMEs and experts and being able to have the conversations but then like build on that, like understanding how LTL works and the different spokes and hubs and stuff like that, and that education is continuous. Like, as we talk to, you know new prospects and clients and they talk about how their solution serves that space. Then you kind of open your eyes to like another world. So it's continuous. It's not like I learned everything, I know everything and I comply everything. It's definitely an ongoing initiative and there's always like new technology kind of popping up and like, oh, we solve for this now. And it's like, oh, I didn't even think of that, but that's what the industry needs. Right, we need to solve for tomorrow's problems, because a lot of companies are solving for what was and by the time they catch up there's a new set of problems. And I think that's why we collapsed with COVID, because we didn't anticipate the unexpected. You know what I'm saying? We didn't plan to go remote. So I think it's continuous education, but also surrounding yourselves with smart people.

Jennie Malafarina: 5:54

I've got Aaron Huff on my team and he came from CCJ. He wrote for them for 21 years and he wrote for the technology column. He still does go to the shows and he used to attend. Well, he still does go to the shows, but he used to attend the shows. And then I've got Lee Sautter from the logistics space. So it's really surrounding myself with experts and learning as I go. I think learning the publications. I get all the newsletters in the morning. I stay on top of the trends, what's going on. So it's continuous because this industry is always evolving. There's always something going on that's throwing us for a loop and giving us new challenges.

Blythe Brumleve: 6:32

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, because it's not just the marketing space that we play in that is always evolving and changing, but it's the industry that we're serving as well is evolving and changing rapidly, especially from a technology standpoint. So, with Virago, how do you think what is your sort of, I guess, marketing philosophy, marketing ethos that is at the center of Virago?

Jennie Malafarina: 7:00

Well, my mentality is definitely work hard, play hard, like I like that idea, like I'm going to put forth all my energy and effort and do a good job and I'm going to go celebrate it. So I mean, that's how I feel. But, being a veteran, I also like transparency, honesty, just having those core values that are like integrity, doing exactly what you say you're going to do, meeting your deadlines Things like that are really really important to me, because if you don't have your word, what do you have? So if I'm like, oh, we're going to run this campaign, it's going to launch the state, as long as we can move that process forward, there's no reason we can't meet deadlines on our side, like meeting expectations and stuff. So it's really important to me to do what you say you're going to do.

Blythe Brumleve: 7:47

I didn't know that about you. I didn't know that you were a veteran as well. Yeah, also, what?

Jennie Malafarina: 7:50

branch. I was actually Army National Guard. So I joined. Well, actually, I went to college and then I was like all my friends went off to college and I went to like Cleveland State, which is like a local college, and then I was like I need more adventure. So then I went and studied abroad in Australia for six months and then I came back and life was just still the same and I was like you know what? I got to do something else. Military's kind of always been part of like my family life. Like my brother is a Marine for like I think like 22 years now. Wow, yeah, so he'll retire as a Marine. And then, like my grandfather was in the military and stuff like that.

Blythe Brumleve: 8:29

So I just had a calling and joined the National Guard and then I was in for a couple of years, nice, my fiance was in the Army National Guard as well and I think he did about six years there before he got out, so a veteran as well. So that's a really awesome nugget that I didn't know about you. So, with respect to Virago, what kind of services, what kind of solutions do you offer your clients?

Jennie Malafarina: 8:58

Yeah, we're really focused on two areas right now, just because the market's demanding it, and I mean we have a slew of services. We could be full service, but right now is branding, which is going to be your visual and your key messaging, and then that usually flows into, like your website, which is like a big thing for us right now. A lot of companies are redoing their website because they're updating their branding or even just doing their original branding because they didn't do it before. So, updating the messaging, make sure they have their unique positioning there and then making sure that their story flows through all their content, their website, their social everything. And then the other thing is a strategic revenue map and that's really identifying, okay, what are we trying to accomplish as a company and how are we going to do that?

Jennie Malafarina: 9:49

Because marketing is not just lead generation. It is integrated with every touchpoint with your external market, right, or even internal. So how are you going to show up with your key messaging and whatnot? How are you going to drive engagement with your content? How are you going to drive leads?

Jennie Malafarina: 10:14

And how is marketing and sales going to align so that we're not just putting up forms and somebody fills out the form and sales calls and expects a lead right, like we're doing the things that are really driving those inbound leads, really focused on those high quality and high intent leads, because they're more likely to close, they'll have a shorter sales cycle. Like, if you focus on where you can really move the needle and not try to cast like a wide net, you're more likely to get better results and be happier internally with, like what you're doing with the company. And so the strategic revenue map really helps identify okay, marketing is doing these things with sales. Marketing is doing these things with client success. Marketing is doing these things for company awareness and stuff like that. And so when you think holistically about how marketing overlays across the company and drives engagement and drives revenue versus leads, the story changes and it gets a lot better.

Blythe Brumleve: 11:15

And so I would imagine for a lot of companies that you're working with right now. You mentioned branding and just sort of the strategic sales process. I imagine that that's where a lot of companies are struggling right now. Do you think that that is exclusive to freight or is it a lot of companies that you kind of see, or maybe I don't know if you've worked with cause you are supply chain exclusive agency but maybe you know, in just the wider sort of marketing education ecosystem, do you find that a lot of companies are struggling with that relative to freight?

Jennie Malafarina: 11:47

Yeah Well, I think outside freight companies in general are struggling and that's why I think we've seen this evolution of a chief revenue officer. I think that started popping up. I want to say one or two years ago, where it used to be like you had marketing and sales but then you didn't have somebody overlaying marketing and sales. To say, or two years ago, where it used to be like you had marketing and sales but then you didn't have somebody overlaying marketing and sales, to say you two play nice. Now you put a chief revenue officer in place and now you level playing field and it's not marketing telling sales what to do and sales telling marketing what to do, it's your CRO driving that down and putting everybody on the same level and saying leadership expects these things and then marketing and sales executes through and they're accountable for the areas that they should be accountable for.

Blythe Brumleve: 12:32

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Blythe Brumleve: 13:23

What changed I? Always I positioned myself as a freight marketer only because I couldn't afford to hire an agency, and so I was like well, how do I get my message out there? All right, well, I'll just talk to other marketing people and I'll just market myself and our products. And that has since evolved into I can't do it all myself. I have to be able to scale. So what does that look like? How am I tying sales back to the marketing and really understanding how we make money from marketing and what that true ROI is? And so it's so important, I think, for marketers just in general to know what's driving revenue, and I think that that's the missing piece for just marketers in general. But let's keep it specific to freight for a minute. I want to talk about where people are getting things wrong. So let's, I think how we could do this is just, maybe let's pick one and then sort of go through our experience of where the burn book, yes, the burn of where we sleep the burn book.

Blythe Brumleve: 14:25

Yes, the burn freight marketing book, the logistics burn book.

Jennie Malafarina: 14:30

Logistics marketing burn book.

Blythe Brumleve: 14:32

Okay, so let's start with the first one. What is the most glaring thing that freight companies get wrong with their marketing?

Jennie Malafarina: 14:40

So one that's really standing out to me lately is understanding your market. So I think there's some companies that are like oh, we're going to build a solution for this and they do it, and then they go for investments and they might get those investments, but then what you're seeing happen is, one, they can't deliver on the technology and then investments fall out. Two, they deliver on the technology but they don't know the market. They don't know how to go to market. Or three, they deliver on the technology and there is no market. So I think market research is so important to understand. Who are we building a solution for? Like, anytime I talk to an entrepreneur in this space, like and they're talking about building a solution, they're like, the very first thing to do is know your market. Like start asking questions Is this a need, what? What do you need out of it? What are the other competitors in this space? Like really understanding your market before you come up with a solution for your market, because there's just so many misjibes.

Blythe Brumleve: 15:52

That feels like such a duh moment, but I imagine a lot of companies are experiencing this, maybe in the years when getting money and getting VC funding was really easy, during pre-2020, and then for a couple years until 2022. Now I think people are starting to tighten their belts a little bit and starting to think like, okay, we have to actually make money, we have to actually prove that we have a sustainable business model. So that's unbelievable.

Jennie Malafarina: 16:24

You would think so. But I mean, I know some companies that have built a solution and then they're like we want to go after this market. So they want to go after the LTL market, right, and they're like not the top 25, because they have a proprietary solution. I'm like top 25 move like 98% of the LTL freight, so you want to go after the market that moves one to 2% of the LTL freight. Do we know who they are? Do they know we have a need? No, we just have a solution for them.

Blythe Brumleve: 16:57

Okay, and with companies like that, is there any kind of like saving them, or are they kind of? Is that maybe part of like your pre-qualifications on? Is this going to be a good fit for my business, Because if you don't know who you're trying to reach you? Can't exactly have a sustainable business right.

Jennie Malafarina: 17:15

Yeah. Well, to be honest, I started reaching out to my friends in the industry and saying like hey, what is like? What is the LTL list? If we're not talking about the top 25, how many fleets are we talking to? So I know some LTL experts in the space Curtis Garrett, Lance Healy and it's like hey, you guys play in this space. How many are there? Who are they? Is there a list of them somewhere? And so I think we identified maybe a thousand. But if you're going after a thousand that aren't moving a whole lot of LTL freight, what is the pricing threshold for something like that? If they don't have a solution today, why do they need your solution, right? If you don't even know who they are, that would tell me you haven't talked to them and you can have a conversation about what their needs are and why you have a solution for them, right? So I really think market research just needs to overlay everything that you're doing before you even start.

Blythe Brumleve: 18:15

So market research, after you sort of develop your plan and there's a total addressable market, so a TAM that you can go after. What is that next step where people are messing up? Are we talking like a startup? Let's do startup and then maybe a broker versus carrier.

Jennie Malafarina: 18:37

Okay. So I think from a startup perspective, marketing doesn't go high on the list. They kind of jump right into sales and that kind of comes down to a financial need. But I do think from a startup perspective, you need to start building your awareness. Marketing needs to be at play for that, not necessarily the lead generation and stuff like that. You don't want to just start blasting emails and saying, hey, do you want to talk about this stuff? I think you need to get out into the market and it's hard. It's more expensive for these startups, right? Because they can't afford the 10 by 20 at the show. So then now they're getting those little startup kiosks. I saw that at Manifest and Home Delivery World, where they give them a little section with their little kiosk.

Jennie Malafarina: 19:26

But I think if they really focus their energy on building their PR and getting that third party earned media, that's probably the smartest move. Because if you get a good PR person like Amanda Bell, who will be on my show in a couple of weeks and she shares some secrets and stuff like that or tips, I should say getting that coverage, getting on the podcast, getting out in front, getting in the publications, helping tell the story, all that stuff that earned media is going to be so valuable for them. Yeah, oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to say you can get a PR person and you just pitch the stories, you do the bylines, you go on the podcast. Getting that coverage is going to help you so much in the long run because nobody knows you, nobody knows your brand. So your focus really needs to be starting to build that from a startup. You.

Blythe Brumleve: 20:21

Nobody knows your brand. So your focus really needs to be starting to build that from a startup, cargato, which is a new startup that just got going and just got their initial funding. Matt Silver is one of the founders of Cargato, because they handle cross-border trade with Mexico and tried to make that process more simpler, more streamlined. And they Matt Silver there was a note. I had followed him on Twitter for a little bit and then all of a sudden I noticed a shift in his messaging and I didn't know why because he hadn't announced anything yet, but he started talking about the complexities around cross-border freight and cross-border shipping and just all of those different. And he was just a tweet series and then he started a sub stack and he would send out regular email newsletters and he did this for months before he announced the company and I thought that that was such a brilliant move Like that is just exhibit A of building that awareness, like what you were talking about.

Jennie Malafarina: 21:15

Yep, building the hype, kind of repositioning yourself, kind of getting everybody's attention to kind of say like, hey, what is going on over here, what is he talking about? And then you're kind of listening in. Next thing you know he's announcing he's got a company. So yeah, that is smart.

Blythe Brumleve: 21:29

So from, I guess, from a freight marketing perspective, what about on the broker side, on the carrier side of things? What is sort of the, I guess, the pulse of what you're seeing with their marketing? Where are the big problems that maybe the lack of marketing for these two different groups within logistics?

Jennie Malafarina: 21:51

Well, I really think they have saturated markets and I think many times they're like we're not going to do marketing because it's saturated, like it's so saturated it's so hard to stand out. What is there like 3,000, 3pls or something like that, right, and you all deliver essentially the same services. So like, how do you, how do you set yourself apart? And so I think there's like, just like you said, a lack of marketing there. Like they just I mean, whitney Cromwell was doing KCH, right, and she started to build her digital, like personal presence, right, her own brand with her, like marketing mediocre podcasts and stuff like that, and I thought that was like brilliant. So I think and you did that too right Like everybody just kind of steps out, starts to build their personal brand and I think that that sets them apart. Like to me, she stood out you know?

Blythe Brumleve: 22:47

Yeah, for sure, and I think that that's. It's such a. I think people start a podcast thinking that they're immediately going to get leads from it, when in reality it's a listening mechanism. It's a listening tool, and in a learning tool like I to to your point that you made earlier logistics is so complex that every time we pull back a layer, there's 10 more different sections of that layer to dive into, and so it's just extremely complex and the that I learn and I know that the way that Whitney learns is through the show is talking to smart people and having conversations just like what we're having right now. The secret sauce for them is to allow their employees to maybe, you know, start to brand themselves, start to market themselves, and then the company gets that residual sort of brand awareness.

Jennie Malafarina: 23:46

I think the brokers should, for sure. I think I think they should. And you know, there's different groups and stuff where you start building your relationships and networking, like like ballast, for example, and so you've got brokers on there that are, you know, talking to other people and building relationships and identifying opportunities, and I think it's really valuable to do those things and companies should encourage their employees to do those things. But, more importantly, leaders should do those things. If you're an owner of a brokerage, you should be doing those things. You should be driving your personal brand. That will, in turn, drive relationships and drive in turn, drive business back into your business or drive opportunities back into your business. Yeah, fleets, it's hard. Like fleets, I mean it's really about there's so much, so much more there, right, like quality of service you know the driver score cards? Are you running those lanes bidding on spot freight? Like of service you know the driver scorecards? Are you running those lanes Bidding on spot freight? I mean there's just so many things that it's like fleece really don't market themselves at all.

Blythe Brumleve: 24:52

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Blythe Brumleve: 25:40

So there's a couple different examples that I know.

Blythe Brumleve: 25:43

Of BCB, transport is probably the most, the one that sticks out most in my mind, because they started years ago with just Facebook, live streaming their safety meetings, because all of their drivers would be someone would be.

Blythe Brumleve: 25:57

Some of them would come into the office in order to come to the meeting, but some of them would actually be out working, and so they had to have a way to communicate that to, or communicate their safety updates to, all of their drivers, and now that's a pivotal show for them is that they're regularly making content around different safety and notifications and things like that and just driver updates from the company standpoint, and they use a YouTube series in order to communicate that value to them. But I think for a lot of carriers, I don't know why more carriers aren't using the content that their drivers are already producing. To me, that is such a hidden opportunity that they already have the audience of drivers that you're trying to reach, and the driver is a company spokesperson. So, whether you're a broker or a fleet owner, your drivers are the people that your customers are meeting.

Jennie Malafarina: 26:53

There's a ton of content out there, a ton of drivers just popping up and now doing TikToks and stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, fleets are definitely doing the driver recruiting and the driver marketing, but they don't market their services to like shippers and stuff like that. That's what I meant. But for the driver recruiting, there's I think it's Bulldog Works and they have like a massive Facebook group of truck drivers and they can get out in front of them and they're doing some really cool stuff with A-B testing on imagery and things like that to recruit drivers for fleets and that's really cool. But I love what you were talking about with the drivers creating their own content and maybe fleets embracing these content creators that are driving for them to be like, hey, let's get some more people like you, like kind of building that new next generation of of drivers because they're on Tik TOK.

Blythe Brumleve: 27:48

Hundreds of thousands of what it's. Youtube and Tik TOK, I think, are their probably biggest platforms for drivers. But I there was one driver that that trucker was here. I I've talked about him on on previous shows before, but he documented his entire sort of recruitment and then training, going to truck driving school, getting his CDL and what he learns out on the road. He's documented all of that and I just I'm thinking back in my head and like how I wonder how many leads he has sent his company because of the content that he's creating, but he doesn't really mention the company that he works for, and so for me that's-.

Jennie Malafarina: 28:25

Well, I wonder if you can actually represent the company you work for. I bet they can't, and I bet they can't say who they drive for. I wouldn't.

Blythe Brumleve: 28:33

So some of the I think the bigger fleets probably want to control that message a little bit more. So his content is still like very like corporate friendly because he edits them really well. But I think it's you're probably right where there's like strict, you know, sort of user generated content guidelines that some of the bigger fleets may use. But I feel like that's such a good opportunity for some of the you know the smaller fleets out there, which the majority of them are, to use your driver content as influencers and they actually pay these truck drivers to do these TikToks to drive engagement around a solution.

Jennie Malafarina: 29:13

So I mean, maybe it's just a matter of the company they work for, contracting with them to do it, but they're doing it for other companies Like, yeah, if they use this solution and they reach like they got a following. It's funny because I used to, when I was at the PR agency, we used to hire influencers to talk about the products that we were doing PR around to get you know some like third party credibility, right, and now these now these drivers are doing it to talk about these solutions. Like if they use like relay or best pass or pre-pass or elios or anything like that. I mean not that those ones are using them, but if, if these drivers use those solutions, they'll, they can make money just talking about using the solution, because they've got the audience.

Blythe Brumleve: 29:59

What better way to sort of make money as a driver than getting these little side deals More money on the road.

Jennie Malafarina: 30:07

Yep To have an appearance at the truck show. Get paid to have an appearance there.

Blythe Brumleve: 30:15

So okay, so we talked about where brokers're brokers. You know that, so it should be founder driven marketing for brokerages and then, on the carrier side of things, maybe dabbling in some user generated content and with with your drivers, let's go into where, where? The next thing that you see where a lot of freight companies get it wrong, just sort of general. It could be tech, it could be brokers, but what's another sort of glaring thing that you see where they get their marketing wrong?

Jennie Malafarina: 30:46

I'm going to have to go with imagery.

Blythe Brumleve: 30:48

Imagery for 500, please Expand on that while I bring up our B-roll. That gives a good example of where people are messing up.

Jennie Malafarina: 30:58

Yeah. So I mean, shutterstock is very limited and it appears that everybody's using the same images. It's the same truck, it's the same people. But then, furthermore, the UK seems to have all the truck images. And then you get somebody to come in like this picture here and it's like here's a picture of a truck. Well, somebody to come in like this picture here and it's like here's a picture of a truck, well, we're in the United States market and that is not a truck here.

Blythe Brumleve: 31:26

No, you're talking and for folks who are just listening, you're talking about the trucks that you know have more of the flat front, that's more of the European style trucks. They have to, I guess, be smaller to go through the smaller streets of Europe, but the bigger US trucks drivers are very especially American truck drivers. They are very sensitive to the accurate.

Jennie Malafarina: 31:47

Yeah, because they know what's wrong, like it stands out like a sore thumb, it's like you couldn't find a truck in the United States, and I mean it's hard to, but it's there and it should at least be right. And then, furthermore, like, oh, if you got a reefer, a flatbed, like you better have all your nomenclature right, you better have it all buttoned up and correct Because, as you can see here, you're going to get called out.

Blythe Brumleve: 32:12

Shout out to Ed Burns, who made this post on LinkedIn that we are referring to, and this is another one of my favorite images, and it's just the mass collage of all the planes flying overhead and the trains and the boats and or the ships I should say not boats, ships, because you have to get your nomenclature right but this is another one that grinds my gears. It's just. These are like the guy on the iPad who has all of the moving gods?

Jennie Malafarina: 32:41

Yeah, but you have a transformer back there.

Blythe Brumleve: 32:46

Yeah, these images need some work, people. And with ChachiBT and Dolly and all of these different image tools, there's no excuses anymore for getting the wrong photos for your branding, for your marketing.

Jennie Malafarina: 33:01

Just go to Dolly and say a United States 18-wheeler red whatever color you want.

Blythe Brumleve: 33:09

And then Michelle LeBlanc. She also owns a drop and hook marketing agency, a social media marketing agency, but photos that are used by the same same company, used over and over and over again. Why do you think that this? What's the problem you see here, with the same image being used by multiple different companies, and how can you avoid this?

Jennie Malafarina: 33:30

Well, I mean it's your branding, right Like it's your. It's your visual branding, it's what catches people's eye. And when you don't do an overlay, you don't do a filter, you don't have something unique. You look like everybody else and it looks like you just don't know what you're doing because you're using the exact same thing everybody else is using. And I mean, yes, we're limited in our stock photography, but I mean, look at how many companies use this one photo. I couldn't tell you like where I saw it, because everybody uses it. So I mean, I think you should own your brand image and you know, even though you might be limited, that means you got to get creative. That's what marketing is there for.

Blythe Brumleve: 34:17

There are at least eight companies on this, and if you're just listening that this is a photo grid, someone did Michelle did a reverse image search, I'm assuming, plugged it into Google and it tells you where else that image appears. And so that's maybe a good tip for you know, if you've hired a marketing agency or recruitment agency or anything like that and you want to make sure that your advertisements aren't using the same image that 10 other companies are using, maybe do a reverse image search just to sort of fact check or not fact check, but quality check the agency that you're working for, because this image is not. If people see it a lot, it's not going to stick out right.

Jennie Malafarina: 34:57

No, no. And we have clients that, like you know, we use, we use Dolly like they're. They require unique photography because they don't want to look like everyone else and, um no, this is another image.

Blythe Brumleve: 35:11

You know, it's sort of like the slow exposure, the slow exposure of a shot drone three years ago, gu Guilty.

Jennie Malafarina: 35:22

I like it because of the movement, but again everybody uses it. It's like that abstract movement transportation highway. We got to get a little more creative.

Blythe Brumleve: 35:33

So how would you, how are you advising your clients to get a little bit more creative with imagery?

Jennie Malafarina: 35:39

Well, like I said, like filters and overlays. Like if you want to like overlay something that's going to be like a blue filter and make it look techie, or or zoom in in an area or embrace AI, like embrace the AI so you can do iterations with AI to get what you really want. Like I want an 18 miller, I want a Peterbilt, I want it in a shop, I want it to be red, I want it to be blue. Like you have the ability to do those things today. So if you're not doing it, then I mean you're kind of dropping the ball and you look like everyone else and you're just doing the easy route.

Blythe Brumleve: 36:15

Yeah, it's definitely one of those things that it's small improvements, because I tell people from a website perspective that your images are the easiest way to stand out from everybody else. And even if you use a combination of stock photo sites and AI and even some user-generated photos from employees within the office, that's going to make your website stick out so much more in a good way, not a bad way where if you have a bunch of these images on your site, then someone coming to your company probably sees those and they're not exactly sure if they can trust you because it looks like you don't know what you're talking about. So in this competitive market that we're in, where you know, like you said, there's 3000 brokers the brokerages that are out there. So if that's you, then an easy way to stand out from that pack is to make sure that you have your imagery dialed in.

Jennie Malafarina: 37:07

It's like $10 a month. That's cheaper than buying one photo on Shutterstock and everybody else already has that photo. It hasn't been updated since 2010.

Blythe Brumleve: 37:21

All right, so let's go on to the next one you had mentioned. So we've talked about market research, we've talked about imagery, we've talked about brand awareness. Where else are our companies sort of missing the mark when it comes to their freight marketing?

Jennie Malafarina: 37:37

So let's go with embracing new channels. So podcasts, um, you know these really popped up during during COVID, but guess what? They're here to stay and people want to get on you know the podcast and share their story and talk about their success and do these interviews. And a lot of people are just not embracing that quite yet and I think that kind of goes back to that personal brand is like build your personal brand, embrace these new channels, but don't depend on these channels. So, for example, I was going to say, like people are using these AI tools and they're putting all their money into these AI tools that are going to tell me the buyer's journey and tell me what page they went on, and then I'm going to give them this piece of content and that's all overkill. That's overkill. So I think it's embracing the right channels and this market is still very much word of mouth and relationship.

Jennie Malafarina: 38:36

So if you're not going to the shows, if you're not doing podcasts, if you're not joining communities, if you're not building your personal brand, you're going to fall behind Because, like I mean, I'm Jennie Malafarina, right, like, and if you don't start to know me as, like Demand, jen and I do podcasts and I go to these shows, all this stuff, I'll just fall. I'll be another employee of Virago Marketing and so I think for anybody who's going to stay in this space and they want to have a presence and they want to have relationships and they want to build community, you have to make your name, not just your company. So I think that's really important that people join communities and they get out there, like, don't just stay home. You got to go to the shows, reach out to people that do podcasts and ask if you could, you know, come on and talk about your story and like what you're doing in the industry. It's going to build so much awareness and drive so much engagement.

Jennie Malafarina: 39:35

I told my team I'm like my goal for my first podcast, which was with you, I'm going to get a 100 impressions. I got an email yesterday. I posted it, I think Thursday, and I got an email like Friday with like 2,300 impressions.

Jennie Malafarina: 39:51

I was like well, mission achieved. But I mean, at first and I got to be honest, like I was one of those people that's like I think podcasts are too much work. There's like I mean, is it worth it? Like, if you're doing all the editing, if you have to have the technology, if you have to do, like, all the production, if you have to reach out and have people come on and like, and I think what you can do is figure it out and make it work and embrace it. Like don't, don't be scared of new channels, don't be scared of new channels, don't be scared of new tools. Like there's going to be a new evolution in the space, right.

Jennie Malafarina: 40:26

Like, do you remember when content marketing became a thing? Well, now, every company is a content marketing production company. Everybody produces content. They're all, all all turned into production companies that just put out two blogs a week and stuff like that, right. But now I think there's like an evolution in building your personal brand in the space and through that, through the connections and relationships that you create, you can create opportunities for your company. And I think that's we need to go back to a more personal touch on a marketing standpoint and I think that's where we're going.

Blythe Brumleve: 41:05

Do you think that there's still a place for blogs in freight marketing?

Jennie Malafarina: 41:11

So I have a client that we do their blog and, for whatever reason, we get exponential blog subscribers and I think that has to do with really great content, really good messaging, insightful information. I don't think you should have a blog to have a blog. I think if you have a story to tell, you should tell your story through the blog. But I don't think like, oh well, we do two blogs a week, check that box. I don't think so.

Jennie Malafarina: 41:39

We do blogs as part of campaigns, so we're repurposing the content. We use the pillar content for things like the publication ads or the netline ads or the downloads on LinkedIn lead gen forms, and those things still work to get new opportunities or new leads. And then we repurpose the content and spin it out into the blogs, which is good for fresh content on the website. Seo with the keywords. We have the blog subscription and if you want the content, great, you can sign up and get the content. So I think it still serves a purpose, but I do think it's going to get phased out. But if people are searching for something in Google, you still want that answer to come up, you know, on your blog and you still want to optimize your website.

Blythe Brumleve: 42:29

So I mean, why not let it be? You? I'm of the opinion that blogs definitely still serve a purpose, but to your point, there has to be a reason why you're publishing that blog. It can't just be something that you punch into ChatGPT and it spits out a blog article for you and then you just copy paste that into your site. It has to be something that has more meat on it. It has something that the reader can take away, because you only really have one shot at getting someone's attention. If they did all the things where they click on the link and they come to your article, and if they don't read it, then you just wasted your time and you wasted their time. And so they're not. They're not going to subscribe.

Jennie Malafarina: 43:10

You're not going to subscribe, they're not coming back. In fact, now you've pretty much turned them off, turn them. Turn them away, cause now you don't look like or you don't sound like you know what you're talking about. But I think if you're going to talk to your experts and your experts are going to demonstrate their expertise in the blog, there's definitely value there so that they see somebody. 88% of the people are doing the research because before they want to talk to a salesperson, so you got to give them something to digest, right, and so coming to the blog and reading the stories and actually seeing that you guys have the expertise is important.

Blythe Brumleve: 43:47

And I would think that that's a big reason why you started up your podcast. Tell everybody the name of it where they can find it. I'll put a link in the show notes too.

Jennie Malafarina: 43:56

Yeah, it's Free, marketing Gurus, and you can find it on YouTube, um, and we'll be sharing it on uh, virago marketing's LinkedIn, as well as my LinkedIn.

Blythe Brumleve: 44:06

So freight marketing gurus, I'm just adding that into our show notes just to make sure I can add a link to it. Um, how many episodes, how, how, how are you, I guess, how are you balancing the new podcast with your just current work that you're doing? Because that's a big complaint from people is that they start a podcast, they never make it past 10 episodes and then it just sits there dormant. So how are you sort of setting yourself up for success from that landscape?

Jennie Malafarina: 44:32

I think it's taking one bite at a time. So I mean I did research talking to other podcasters in the industry, like, what technology do you use? And I learned like, use JotForm and send. Like you have your email template, invite them to the podcast, fill out the JotForm, then you could take that and identify what questions you're going to ask them and identify what questions you're going to ask them. So it's really been outlining the process and production, putting that into my project management tool and like, okay, this is the step and I'll tell you I'm committed to going beyond 10, because I've already lined up beyond 10 people to interview.

Jennie Malafarina: 45:16

But what's nice is I committed to two a month. That's what I can do and that's what I can be consistent with, without like, oh, I've got to. I don't know. I have all this time in production. I've got to line somebody up for next week's podcast and stuff. Just bite off what you're comfortable with and work through that.

Jennie Malafarina: 45:37

I think that's really been the secret to success thus far, instead of like, okay, I need four people to talk to this month and then I have all these production tasks to do. It's just like I've already recorded the next two episodes and they're not coming out till end of May and in June, so I'm already ahead of the curve. So I think that's like so helpful to like, like not be like. Okay, we're just going to fully jump in and start doing podcasts every week and we got the production and the social media shares and optimization and all that stuff. It's like you know what Another thing is kind of we were doing blogs before, but now we're doing these podcasts. We're having these conversations with experts that are sharing the secret sauce, and what we're doing is we're turning that into blogs and then linking to the podcast. So, if you want to watch it, great. If you want to read some tips and we're actually writing them like very digestible, like hey, here's how you could get better lighting.

Blythe Brumleve: 46:42

Congratulations on the new lighting. By the way, that was something we talked about in your first episode.

Jennie Malafarina: 46:47

Right, right Now. I just got to do something with this picture, so I don't have antlers, here we go, but I'm learning and so, like you said, talking to like doing these podcasts are like learning opportunities, and I'm learning these things and the whole reason I'm doing the podcast is to share this insight with everyone else. Let's win together. Everybody can use this information, especially if you're doing marketing in this space. I want to have another lady come on and talk about outsourced BDR companies and there's just so much value. Don't you want to share that information with others? It doesn't benefit me in any way, you know, but to help other companies just do better and like have that insight. So I mean, that's what I'm trying to do and I'm doing it in a way that I feel I can deliver on and not try to bite off too much at once.

Blythe Brumleve: 47:38

Yeah. So there's a couple of key things that stand out to me after what you just said, and that's having the distribution in place, or the distribution plan, or post-production, so you're editing where you're sending those podcasts. A big mistake, I see, is that people start a podcast and then they don't have a distribution plan for after the show is live and you just expect people to discover your show. Podcasting doesn't work that way. You have to market it, you have to put it out over and over and over again to your social, to your email, to your website, um, and all of those different areas.

Blythe Brumleve: 48:13

And I've heard of other companies too. Maybe they don't want to get started with a podcast, but they want to share their expertise and so, especially during, like COVID and you know, a lot of the shipping issues that were going around with, you know, not being able to find containers and warehousing space and you know just all of those different things but they were communicating that actively on a regular basis, sometimes weekly, every other day basis, where they're just sending out essentially an email campaign to all of their customers letting them know what's going on in the market. So they're setting them up to be an expert within their company, and I think that's very similar to what you do with the podcast, where you're having these experts on and then you can communicate that insight to your customers and then they see you as sort of you know the user generated content of where you're finding those different experts. Does that make sense? Yeah?

Jennie Malafarina: 49:06

I think I'm, you know. I'm trying to align with the experts and give them a platform to share their story, because I really think they have awesome stories to tell, like people are just really doing cool things, or they have insights that, like other people don't know. People are just really doing cool things or they have insights that, like other people don't know. I'm just giving them a platform to tell that story and I mean I'm getting the information myself, which I find very valuable, so I hope my audience does as well.

Blythe Brumleve: 49:29

Okay, so let's talk about, I guess, the website too, because we've been working together on, you know, creating different websites, bringing those to life. It's been super rewarding for me, because it's one of those things where I can you know, I can learn even more about this industry just through the companies that we're building these sites for.

Jennie Malafarina: 49:48

So tell me where most companies get it wrong with their website if you're a founder, be a founder and not a website developer or the marketer. Like, like, lean on the expertise that exists within the industry because they can. They can help you right like um, from your company name to your website, to your branding, all the things. Right Like, lean on the experts. Don't hold on to what it is because you built it and I say that in a very nice way in the sense that, like, there are founders who are building something and they're, they are so passionate about what they're doing and I can definitely appreciate that. But when you're going to take it to market, there's experts within the space who can help you by understanding who your market is, basic requirements of what a logo and name should look like or be, but then going into the website and understanding the technical components, having the SEO on the back, having the mental model, the strategic map for it, the site map. What do we want to happen on this page? What do we need to communicate in terms of features and benefits and how are we moving them through their journey and how are we delivering their experience and more content and opportunities for engagement and lead scoring? There's just things happening on the website. It's your storefront and you should let marketing experts help guide you through that, versus holding on to what you create because you created it and I know that's hard for founders because they're so passionate about what they've created and they built it and they want to own it. But once you get to a certain space where you want to go to market with your brand, button that up before you go to market.

Jennie Malafarina: 51:57

I think is my advice, because everything you do digitally is you're trying to drive traffic back to your website. If you don't have your branding, if you don't have your messaging, if you don't have a website that delivers a good experience, it's just like a bad blog. They're going to turn away. There's going to be mistrust. You don't look professional, you don't look buttoned up, I'm going to go away. There's going to be mistrust. You don't look professional, you don't look buttoned up, I don't like. I'm going to go look somewhere else. And so I think you know and I, a lot of companies, like I said, are looking at their, their branding, their key messaging and their website right now, and I'm actually really happy to see that, because they're making sure that they're putting their unique value out there, that they're communicating the solutions they provide, what sets them apart, and helping people understand how to make these decisions, whether or not they want to partner with them or not. So I'm really happy to see the amount of websites we're doing right now.

Blythe Brumleve: 52:56

Yeah, me too. I just want to put that out there, me too. Now, yeah, me too. I just want to put that out there, me too, and so I. It is interesting that the, I guess, sort of the ebbs and flows of people investing in their marketing, because over the last you know, I would say probably 2020 to 2020, or I would say 2021 and 2022, it was sort of the height of freight rates, even late 2020, heightight of freight rates. Nobody thought that they needed a website, needed social media, because they thought that this income train was just going to last forever.

Blythe Brumleve: 53:28

But during the down market, I don't have to tell you that that is when the smart companies are investing in their marketing, in their sales processes, in their digital footprint, how they show up online, how they show up online, how they show up on their website.

Jennie Malafarina: 53:41

Yeah, you still want to look present and relevant and still look like you're. It doesn't matter if things are not necessarily going as planned internally, right, you still don't want to project that into the market. And if you just disappear, you're out of sight, out of mind, people aren't thinking about you. Then it's just going to make you harder to come back.

Blythe Brumleve: 54:04

So where, I guess where people, because COVID changed so much about everything. Yeah, so where do you think is sort of an outdated marketing strategy that's going away, and where do you think that more companies should be investing?

Jennie Malafarina: 54:23

All right, so outdated marketing strategy that's going away. I honestly I think SEO has a place, and what I mean by that is you've got that backend stuff. You've got to have like a speedy website, you've got to have your alt tags and your meta tags and all those things. So the backend SEO is absolutely necessary. But I think some people are still doing keyword research and developing content around keywords that I think should organically flow. So when you focus on, okay, this is the service we provide or what we want to talk about, it should organically flow instead of trying to stuff in agency of marketing. You know what I'm saying. Stop writing content for SEO and just optimize it and things should organically flow. I think there's a lot of focus and Google one. I think you told me Google's going down right.

Blythe Brumleve: 55:28

That's my prediction. I'm actually working on a show around that topic just because I mean, as the date of we're recording this, chatgpt just launched their new interactive features with all of their app and desktop app and they're going to be coming after Google Search and they've already been kind of chipping away at it. But I've got a show on that coming out soon. I just got to put all the P's and Q's together, but I do think that we are witnessing almost a Yahoo level downfall of a once giant. I do think Alphabet the company will still survive because they have their hands in so many different data pockets that I think will pay off in the long run. But the way that we search online to your point from a traditional SEO building content, from looking at keyword volume and trying to rank against the competitors, no competition and high search volume.

Jennie Malafarina: 56:23

Let me use agency of marketing. Let me figure out how to write that sentence.

Blythe Brumleve: 56:28

Yeah, that's out the window. That I think is gone and it's been trending that way. More and more people are searching on social or in social media and you find better results. That way I get better results. Are searching on social or in social media and you find better results. That way I get better results.

Blythe Brumleve: 56:41

When I search for something on TikTok and I asked Chachi BT a question, then Google serves me up and so it's just going to. It's an interesting thing that when a platform dies, or when they start to die, they start to show you more ads to make up for the loss of revenue, but that just turns off the current users that are still using the platform, and so it's like this death spiral that you just kind of got to embrace. And so I'm of the opinion that you know just Google is just getting crushed, and I don't know that they'll. We've never seen a business have this much dominance, market share, wise, money making, wise for so long that it's just you know you have other players now that have slowly been chipping away at it, and I think chat GPT is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Jennie Malafarina: 57:27

Yeah, well, I think new technology like the TikTok, the chat, GPT, all the AI there's so many. I think it was like overnight, right, like last year in November, it was Chet, gpt and 2000 other AI tools launched last night and I think we got to start embracing more of the available channels. I'm getting old and the newer generation does use TikTok, right, and Snapchat, and even though you don't see traditional B2B companies on there, I think things are going to evolve and I think it would be smart to be at the forefront of that and figure it out before you're a late adopter, right? So I think that's kind of what I want to look at is, is video in new channels? It's going to go there, it's just a matter of when.

Blythe Brumleve: 58:28

And so would you know that video is is where you think more companies should be investing.

Jennie Malafarina: 58:34

Yeah, and it can get really expensive, but it doesn't have to right, like, how much does it cost for us to create this video right now? Right, our time plus StreamYard's $20 a month, yes, and we've got this video right Now. You can use video production companies and sometimes it makes sense to do that, but you don't necessarily have to do that. So I think there's some mentality that, like video is just expensive, can't do it. It's like $10,000. And in many cases it can be super expensive, but it doesn't have to be. So I think building your personal brand in video is a very smart way to go.

Blythe Brumleve: 59:12

Yeah, I definitely co-sign that. Now, sort of last few questions here. If you were to give advice to a current freight marketer right now, what would be sort of a few steps that you would give to them to realign what they have going on in their day-to-day job and in order to build that sales strategy like what you talked about, what few steps of advice would you give to them?

Jennie Malafarina: 59:39

Yeah. So one thing I always say is like there's never just this one path for every company. So it's really about having a conversation and saying what is the business trying to accomplish, what are the sales objectives and how can marketing support that? So it's always going to be different based on that response. So, for example, if somebody wants to do brand awareness, I would say, well, what are you doing today? Right, what is your brand perception? Do you have authority on your brand? Are you getting traffic to your website? Like, you really got to do the analysis to understand where you are. And then, okay, where are you trying to go? What does success look like? Now, let's map how to get there. Where are you trying to go? What does success look like? Now, let's map how to get there.

Jennie Malafarina: 1:00:25

So, and I think that is for anything they're trying to accomplish, like you might, your company might be trying to expand markets. Now you got to think, okay, how am I going to go into this market? Do I have a partnership? Do I have content? Do I have a website for this? Like, it's all dependent on what you're trying to accomplish, not necessarily like, okay, you want to do marketing, all right, now you need to do this, this and this, like it just really depends what you're trying to accomplish. And I welcome those conversations. I'm more than happy to share my thoughts if anybody wants them, but I mean, that's what I do. I love having these conversations, I love talking about it, I love brainstorming and I'm more than happy to just kind of answer your questions and give you some advisement.

Jennie Malafarina: 1:01:06

If you're like, hey, we want to expand markets, all right, did you think about these things? Are you planning on doing these things? Goes back to that strategic roadmap and saying this is our objective, these are the strategies and tactics to get there. So, building the plan and executing as basic as that sounds, it works for any objective, right? Don't just start doing things to check boxes. Don't be like we want a blog, so we're going to have a blog every week. Okay, well, why? Why? Or we want a podcast, so we're we're going to build a podcast. Okay, who's your audience? Why is there a gap there? Right, like it's just it goes back to the uh, industry solutions. Know your why. Know your market. You know what I'm saying. Like, why are you doing this? Don't just do it to do it.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:02:00

You know what I'm saying, Like, why are you doing this? Don't just do it to do it. Very wise words, All right. Last question, or second to last question Social media wise. Where should we only have enough time in the day? Bandwidth is limited. Most marketing quote unquote departments in freight are one person teams. Where should they spend their efforts when it comes to social media?

Jennie Malafarina: 1:02:24

I kind of have an idea of where you're going to, what you're going to answer, but I'm curious if it's different than what I'm thinking in my head. Well, um, I mean many times like the audience is on LinkedIn, but I think it depends Where's your audience? Right, if you're going after owner operators, you should probably be on Facebook, right? So I think go where your audience is is my first suggestion for where to focus your efforts. I'm really loving this opus clips in these like 30 second reels from the podcast. I can't speak to the performance yet. I think I have one coming out in a couple of days. Or we did the one that got the 2,300 impressions last week, or we did the one that got the 2,300 impressions last week. I think video is eye-catching. I think if you could deliver quick value, that's what you should do. Is that what you thought I was going to say?

Blythe Brumleve: 1:03:08

I thought you were going to go LinkedIn like for sure. I mean yes, but if that's where your audience is, I love the marketing answer. It depends, it depends.

Jennie Malafarina: 1:03:19

Well, well, is that what your target market is? I mean, um, I think there's definitely a place for organic on social, but I think there's something to be said about boosting your posts to get in front of your target market. Um, just to ensure you get in front of them, because I I love when you work with a company who has no social following and they're like organic post, organic posts, I'm like who's seeing it? Very good point let's build your reach, let's build your following. But also, if you're going to build your following, do it in a organic, value-driven way, versus buying them, because just because you get 2000 people to follow you and you paid for them doesn't mean they're the right 2000 people. So don't do that.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:04:05

Yeah, that that. I would echo that, that statement as well. Like you're, you're going to notice it. On the lack of impressions Um, you might have the follower count, but if you don't have the engagement, then it's kind of all for nothing. All right, Jennie, this was, I mean. A ton of insights, a ton of gems. Where can folks follow you? Follow the podcast, follow all of Virago's work.

Jennie Malafarina: 1:04:25

Yeah, so the website is viragomarketingcom and then we're on LinkedIn under Virago Marketing, and then you can find me on LinkedIn Jennie Malafarina.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:04:37

Sounds like perfect. Well, Jennie, this was a wealth of knowledge. We'll have to do this again soon to talk about more things that companies are getting wrong with their marketing and, more importantly, what to do about it and how to fix it. So maybe in the future we can dive into a specific use case, but until then, I'll encourage all the folks to check out your podcast, especially that PR one. That's going to be really interesting.

Jennie Malafarina: 1:05:04

I'm looking forward to listening to that and check out the show notes for more links. But thank you again for your time and your insights.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:05:08

Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show, sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everythingislogisticscom. And in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let y'all know about another company I operate and that's Digital Dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times, we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a coworker's child, a neighbor down the street or a stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website.

Blythe Brumleve: 1:05:52

Well, that doesn't happen at Digital Dispatch. We've been building online since 2009, but we're also early adopters of AI automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as $1,500, along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus freight marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digitaldispatchio. Just check out the pricing page once you arrive and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go Jags.

About the Author

Blythe Brumleve
Blythe Brumleve
Creative entrepreneur in freight. Founder of Digital Dispatch and host of Everything is Logistics. Co-Founder at Jax Podcasters Unite. Board member of Transportation Marketing and Sales Association. Freightwaves on-air personality. Annoying Jaguars fan. test

To read more about Blythe, check out her full bio here.