Logistics & Material Handling PR
Rankin PR
Delivering for Logistics
900+
Published Articles
45+
Million Impressions
$7,200,000+
Equivalent Advertising Cost
Everyone is well aware these days of just how important supply chains are. For those companies involved in this industry, it has never been more important to work with a material handling and logistics PR agency that understands all that goes into this sector. That is why we created a niche writing feature articles and getting those published, as essentially contributing writers, for top-tier trade publications. This allows you the ability to control the entire process and the content that gets published. By taking this approach, you can get one article published 10-15 times (or more).
By being hyper-focused on materials handling and logistics PR, we have delivered the highest quality campaigns for our clients. Our feature articles have been published over 10,000 times in major trade publications and have been read by over 250 million people worldwide.
What is materials handling and logistics public relations?
In some ways, the PR industry is a lot like the CIA. Everyone has heard of it, but no one really knows what it is… Except, of course, for what we see in the movies.
PR can be a lot of things, but to put it simply, public relations is about storytelling. For materials handling and logistics, these stories utilize your customers who are getting things moving in the right direction thanks to you. We take their stories and create an article that can be published in numerous trade publications that your prospects are already regularly reading.
Now you can see how PR stories can spread the word to hundreds of thousands of potential customers every month.
Why partner with Rankin PR for your material handling and logistics PR:
- Guaranteed media placements
- Build credibility, brand awareness, and shorten sales cycles
- Leverage the articles for content on all other digital channels
- Maximized media coverage due to our access and established relationships with the media
- Almost zero time and effort required from you and your team
Inside look at materials handling and logistics PR
Don’t just take our word for it. Here is an article we wrote with Bastian Solutions, a Toyota logistics company:
Over the last year, few industries have witnessed demand skyrocket like material handling and logistics. The pandemic forced a shift in shopping habits and challenged an already thriving industry into satisfying the sudden boom in demand from online shopping and home delivery. Amazon alone hired more than 100,000 new workers in 2020 to beef up its operations. The typical ebb and flow quickly turned into flow and even more flow.
Companies that design and service the backbone of these operations – namely warehousing and distribution centers – struggled with the decision on whether to hire more CAD engineers or if it was finally time to outsource. For some, the option to contract out has proven to deliver increased savings and flexibility, while ensuring their workforce is made up of cutting-edge designers who are easy to train and manage.
“We are slammed,” explains Chris Perry, engineering manager for Bastian Solutions’ conveyor division. Bastian Solutions, a Toyota Advanced Logistics company specializes in providing some of the most complex material handling services throughout the world.
“We’ve got an engineering team that’s often working at 110% capacity,” Perry adds. “So, my challenge was to figure out what to do when two huge projects get thrown on top of that. We just felt that outsourcing the CAD modeling and drafting would give us greater flexibility and take the pressure off our internal team.”
While the material handling and logistics industry was at the forefront of the inhouse versus outsourcing decisions in 2020, a number of manufacturing and engineering operations have been wrestling with this conundrum for years.
Material handling and logistics PR content
We know that the content that your company produces has a huge impact on its success. Rankin PR also works with the editors in the material handling and logistics sector every day. We know what type of content they are looking for, what they will and won’t publish, and how to create the content that promotes your business while at the same time engaging with the reader.
The public relations strategies we offer are tailored specifically for companies in the material handling and logistics world. With our team’s experience and expertise, you can rest assured that your company will be able to present itself in the best possible light when it comes time to publish articles.
Utilizing positive customer feedback
The internet is the first place your prospects go when researching possible solutions to their problems. While your website may be one of the first results that pops up, people tend to be more trusting of what other (non-vendor) sites are saying about you. In fact, according to a recent report, these are the top 5 places material handling and logistics buyers go to research solutions:
- Digital publications – 74%
- Online training – 49%
- Vendor websites – 47%
- News aggregators – 37%
- Social media – 36%
A huge part of this decision-making process comes down to reviews, recommendations and testimonials. People want to know if you’ve solved similar issues. They want to know what others felt about their experience with you. They even want to know about how you handled those experiences that may not have been so great (it happens). These all help paint a broader picture of whether or not a potential customer will do business with you.
Note: The good news is with materials handling and logistics PR, you can help publicize all the good work you’ve done and help your potential customers find the best possible solution, i.e., you.
Improve your brand reputation
Perception plays a key role in brand building. You can’t control everything that is said about your business, but you can own and manage much of the narrative with a consistent approach to content marketing. Material handling and logistics PR is a powerful reinforcement for building trust and shaping the perception of your brand.
Tip: Stop focusing on yourself. Customer-focused content is the easiest way to get your potential customers to come to you.
Trust + Credibility= Positive Brand Reputation
Just like so much of life’s success, the growth that comes from good marketing starts with doing the small things right. When is the last time you, your company, your services or your customers were featured in the media? Newspapers, magazines (trade or general), radio, TV… think of all those potential customers who don’t even know you exist yet!
If they’ve never even heard of you, how can they seek you out?
[NOTE: Advertising is media you pay for. I’m talking about earned media, when the media features you for free.]
Securing articles in trade publications isn’t hard, but it is also probably not your core competency. That’s okay, because it is for us.
Content challenges
As a supply chain operation, how do you present your value proposition in a credible, consumable way? How do you provide brand awareness, credibility, and build a positive image for your company? And how do you expand your reach and speak to more potential customers?
Today, the answer is through insightful, educational content that gets distributed via logistics PR to hundreds of thousands of people in your target markets. Hence the phrase, ‘content is king.’
We have developed a process of writing feature articles that get published in top industry journals. The articles are actually not focused solely on you, your products, and your services. Sorry, but no one wants to read about that.
Instead, the articles provide value by actually delivering answers to the issues your customers are facing. After all, we’re all motivated by our own self-interest; it’s human nature. In the end, this type of content has been proven to shorten sales cycles, boost SEO results, and increase leads. Ready to learn more?
10X your “word of mouth”
What your customers are saying about you can make or break your business. We’ve all seen scathing reviews on Yelp, Google, or paragraph-long complaints on social media from dissatisfied customers. However, just as powerful is a good review about how you were able to solve problems in ways that no one else could. Now that can go a long way toward building your business.
While posting these on your website or social media is good, what works even better is distributing those within an article that gets read by hundreds of thousands of potential customers.
These are not articles about how great you think you are, but instead how great your customers feel you are and are 3x more visible and 6x more impactful than a similar size ad.