Parnity Logo Blog

Tips to acquire more forwarder partners

Created on | Last updated on February 15, 2024 at 07:17 pm

Looking for tips to acquire more forwarder partners? Navigating the logistics landscape requires strategic partnerships.

The last few years have been unusual for many companies, including freight businesses. 

It can be confusing to use and think of new strategies, especially in an industry that is used to doing things the traditional way.

In this blog, we’ll explore effective methods to expand your network and foster valuable collaborations with forwarders. 

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a newcomer in the industry, these insights will help you enhance your business relationships.

New trends in freight forwarding are emerging, especially through digital transformation, for lead generation. 

So, it is time to change course and explore new paths.

Your forwarder’s website is one of the most important assets in the digital landscape and, consequently, should be a considered point in freight marketing. 

Moreover, it’s how a potential partner can have the first contact with your company. 

Therefore, it must meet some basic requirements to attract potential partners.

This means that your page should have the right amount of information about your company (such as a brief presentation of the company, the services you offer, contacts, etc.).

It must also contain a simple navigation, and communicate to your potential partner a clear message.

Remember that your website is one of the main tools for converting leads into freight partners.

Thus, you must ensure that they can easily find everything they need.

Using social media can bring many benefits to your company. 

This is because, with so many people online, you will certainly be able to reach an audience of forwarders interested in what you have to say and offer.

You can start by updating or creating (if you don’t already have one) the profile of your company on social media, such as Linkedin, Facebook, and Instagram. 

This way, potential partners will know that your business is active and will be able to contact you through these profiles.

Besides that, make sure to create engaging content that “talks” to your target audience – in other words, the target market for freight forwarders – to attract them even more to your page, and consequently, to your business.

We have prepared a blog post explaining everything you need to know about a good social media strategy, click here to read it.

Participating in social media groups is another way to take advantage of the benefits that these platforms can bring to your business. 

Facebook and LinkedIn groups, for example, are a great strategy for freight forwarding companies. 

They are a big opportunity to improve your networking, make new partnerships, and keep updated with the latest industry news.

In a group, you can, for example, share your freight company’s materials with a larger audience of forwarders around the world.

Besides that, you can also share news and insights into the industry to start discussions and engage with other group members.

Speaking of social media, it’s important to remember that a crucial step in acquiring new partners is to define a marketing strategy for your forwarding company.

Moreover, make sure that it is aligned with the strategies of your sales team. 

This is because, in a freight forwarder, the sales process does not necessarily start with the sales department. 

So if your sales team is working on sending and answering emails and calls, your marketing team may work on other channels.

Developing a new partner requires an alignment of your entire team, as well as obtaining as much information as possible to build a complete freight forwarding sales strategy. 

So make sure you send the right message through your other channels.

In the same way that you consider the opinions of buyers before purchasing a new product, freight forwarders trust other freight forwarders and their opinions. 

Through your freight partners’ recommendations and feedback about your services, you increase the visibility of your forwarding company. 

That’s because good feedback and referrals, attract more forwarders who will be talking about your company’s services. 

One of the best ways you can ask your forwarder partners for feedback is by sending them an email.

However, you can also ask them to fill out a survey and/or answer some questions about your services. 

Asking for feedback every 6 months or annually is a good option.

Building a relationship with your customers and partners is the key to success in the logistics industry. 

So take the time to research your potential partners, ask questions, and prioritize listening over talking. 

Find out their needs and learn their challenges, so you can figure out where your services fit in. 

Your freight partners also provide business, so maintaining a good relationship with them is key to continuing to receive business. 

Again, ask for feedback and make sure your partner’s journey is the best it can be.

Just as in other industries, in the logistics industry, it is also crucial that you study your competition.

Be aware of what your competitors are doing and decide what your value proposition will be to differentiate your freight forwarder from the rest.

You can use your competitors’ strategies as inspiration, but remember that your strategy must fit your business. 

After all, you wouldn’t want to attract freight partners that don’t match your business needs, would you?

There are many options for establishing new freight partnerships.

Perhaps the most effective way to acquire new forwarder partners and gain more business volume is to join a logistics network

This is because most of them require that forwarders provide certain documents to be accepted into the network. 

The global presence that some logistics networks offer also makes it easier to acquire new partners because allows forwarders to expand their business to other countries and cities.

When compared to other industries, the logistics and freight forwarding sector has embraced digital transformation more slowly. 

However, the new challenges caused by the coronavirus crisis and other major events have opened the eyes of forwarders to the role of technology in logistics.

The implementation of technological processes has been observed as one of the major logistics trends. 

In recent years, some logistics companies have used technology through artificial intelligence and automation, for example, to find new partners and improve their business.

The research done by the innovation intelligence company, StartUs Insights, revealed that some of the most promising technologies that are boosting innovation in logistics are AI, IoT, and Blockchain.

So let’s meet them…

Artificial Intelligence (AI): The Global AI Survey pointed out that adopting artificial intelligence in logistics can increase companies’ profits by up to 5-10% per year. 

This is certainly the reason why market leaders are increasing investments in AI technologies to save time and money in the future. 

The use of this technology in logistics, helps companies reduce manual labor, optimize costs and enable intelligent decision-making.

Internet of Things (IoT): The Internet of Things is a big topic in the digital world.

IoT will be responsible for connecting almost everything in logistics, from packaging to people, thus adding value to the supply chain. 

An IoT solution can provide critical information for logistics companies to increase overall supply chain efficiency.

Blockchain: Today, Blockchain technology is already used in several logistics chains around the world, creating reliable, transparent, and secure processes. 

This technology consists of having access to a distributed and decentralized database for registering information that cannot be modified. 

Through Blockchain, logistics companies can increase their efficiency, transparency, and traceability.

If you are not familiar with using technological processes in your forwarder or if you are just starting to apply them, the technologies mentioned above can be complex. 

That is why I suggest you start using more simple and intuitive technologies that will bring positive results just the same.

What I’m saying is that you don’t need to rack your brains and come up with miraculous plans to turn your forwarder into something hi-tech overnight. 

You can start with the basics to acquire expertise and then continue innovating your business.

This is a simple way how you can improve your freight partner’s experience and increase the chances of them closing a shipment with you.

Extending your sales channels into the digital environment.

Forwarder directories, digital logistics networks, and social media for example are great options to improve your company’s reach and increase the chances of expanding sales.

A freight management system helps your company to make faster quotes and decisions.

Having your freight forwarder partners gathered in one place will give you a better view of which ones you have been doing business with.

Moreover, which ones do you intend to establish a new freight forwarder partnership with. 

Parnity has an excellent add-on feature for partnership management – Click here to learn more about it.

There are many ways to find new freight partners. 

However, you can spend hours and hours searching on Google, freight forwarding directories, and logistics networks but still end up unsatisfied with the options you have gathered. 

Fortunately, this is a problem that Parnity can help you solve…

Parnity has combined technology with the freight forwarding industry to improve and optimize the daily routine of forwarding companies

Consequently, allows them to have more efficiency in their internal processes.

Parnity is a digital logistics network updated to today’s freight forwarding industry.

Offering its members the benefit of finding new partners worldwide in 10 seconds, which uses 60% less time when compared to other logistics networks and forwarder directories. 

With the help of technology, Parnity puts forwarders from more than 75 countries in the palm of your hand, so you can choose your next partner based on your own needs. 

Besides that, all the forwarders you meet on Parnity have gone through a transparent validation process to ensure that you only quote validated freight forwarders.

You can also filter searches by type of cargo, country, city, services, branch office, or headquarters to speed up your search for partners. 

And if you become interested in one, you can see their complete information in their profile – company description, logistics certification, photos, videos, services offered, branch offices, quotation contacts, and the documents the forwarder uploaded to be a Parnity member.

Last but not least, Parnity’s members can see who viewed their company profile.

They can see all other members who have accessed their profile and performed some action, such as copying a contact or sending a message for example. 

This optimizes the forwarder’s opportunity to close deals because it provides the information of a potential lead.

In addition, it indicates which forwarders are looking for partners in your country.

As you can see, there are many alternatives to acquiring forwarder partners.

Through technology, you can increase the efficiency of your internal processes and thus improve your freight forwarder.

And even though it’s not easy, using these tips to acquire more forwarder partners you can make it.

But keep in mind that, establishing improvements within your freight forwarding strategy is not an easy and quick process. 

So, take your time and start slowly.