Trucking is an old industry that’s the conduit for commerce and a smooth-running economy. It's also a complicated one. Remember how long it took to get big items — or even, toilet paper — delivered during the pandemic when the supply chain broke down?
The industry is clearly ripe for disruption. In 2022, trucking brought in $940.8 billion in gross freight revenue — making up over 80% of the transportation industry according to the American Trucking Associations. Plus, it’s not as consolidated as some other industries, so there are many more potential customers to target. 1.86 million companies operate trucks and 16% of truck drivers are independent contractors.
Needing to shift into high-gear to lap the competition
Companies working to disrupt this space have ample opportunities, like TruckInfo.net. But to keep the business running, they need to lap their competition in brand awareness.
TruckInfo.Net was founded in 1995 and became a leading source of information for truckers and transportation professionals looking for products and services to run their business, from trucking software to recommended fuel cards. The website provided a very useful resource for millions of drivers that wanted to become more successful behind the wheel. At the time, the concept of providing information on such a specific topic via an internet site was unique.
27 years after its launch, Kyle Fretwell acquired the company. He quickly recognized that he needed to expand the reach and authority of their brand to keep its lead on a rising number of competitive sites. The secret would be to remain a top result on search engines by securing many more high-quality referral links, and by expanding its content library. The trouble was that they didn’t have the in-house editorial resources or distribution engine to get them over that line.
Once they were introduced to Stacker, TruckInfo.Net knew that they were the right partner to rev up the company’s content distribution engine with Stacker’s newsroom-as-a-service offering.
Shifting into high gear
TruckInfo.Net chose to work with Stacker’s Connect+Studio, and it was a great fit. In less than a year, TruckInfo.Net:
- Selected 7 stories from a curated list of unique, newsworthy angles that were relevant to one of their key sub-markets — the insurance industry. They were able to leave the rest of the storytelling process to the Stacker Studio writers and editors.
- Distributed the stories to national and local markets via the Stacker Connect newswire and reached over 880,000 new readers throughout the US.
Within 9 months and hands-on effort required, TruckInfo.Net had substantial improvements in their downstream search results and keyword rankings, along with new inbound authority signals. They had more opportunities for revenue generated by their stories and impressive growth in organic traffic. Most impressively, their website secured over 90 keywords ranked in the top 3 positions on search results.
10-4: Message received
An added benefit of working with Stacker’s Studio+Connect product meant that TruckInfo.Net was able to glean the ability to tailor their stories for local markets. They leveraged Bureau of Transportation data automation to generate data-driven stories about how much the roads across metros and states like Florida and New York have deteriorated over time.
As a company providing localized services, learning to enhance their local authority through editorial and earned links in local markets was something they needed to shift their brand into high gear, and they weren’t able to find anywhere else.
But after a year, the success of the partnership led TruckInfo.Net to drive down another path, without the Stacker partnership, to see if they could replicate — or exceed — the success they had with Stacker. "In 2023, Stacker exceeded our expectations in terms of brand authority and earned media reach," said Kyle. "However, after a year, we wanted to submit our own content to the wire, which Stacker didn't allow at the time.”
Putting TruckInfo.Net Back in the Driver’s Seat
In 2023, Stacker Connect was launched to give brands the ability to write their own ready-to-publish editorial and send it out via Stacker’s proprietary and diverse distribution network. Connect distributes brands’ editorial content to thousands of publishers on the Stacker Newswire after undergoing a review by Stacker’s editors to ensure each story meets journalistic standards, is optimized, and timed to maximize reach and engagement.
The new launch of Stacker’s standalone product, Connect, drove TruckInfo.Net to return to partner with Stacker again — now certain that they could deliver the highest return on investment for their earned media initiatives.
Kyle said, “Now, with Stacker Connect, we can submit our own reviewed content to the wire. This is a game changer, and I'm eager to see our growth at both local and national levels."
As a returning client, TruckInfo.Net delivered a much more valuable cargo of content to amplify on Connect. They leveraged their new knowledge on the craft of branded editorial content gained during their previous collaboration with Stacker's experts, and though they didn’t need editorial support anymore, they continued to use Connect to enhance their brand visibility and authority.
Partnership 2.0 Delivers More Horsepower
In their new collaboration, TruckInfo.Net and Stacker have clear lanes to support one another. Their CEO Kyle can continue investing time and resources in-house to create highly valuable editorial for truckers and transportation professionals — while Stacker ensures that content is distributed widely and reaches as many people as possible via valuable earned media placements. With the Connect platform, TruckInfo.Net also benefits from detailed and real-time insights on the performance of their stories including how many publications picked them up, via a self-serve reporting dashboard.
TruckInfo.Net now distributes stories on the Stacker Newswire the team created themselves, like The most dangerous roads during Thanksgiving, which earned 346 placements in partner publications and enabled TruckInfo.Net to drive more than 1,600 high-quality backlinks to their site — one of their main initial objectives. The partnership continues to enable TruckInfo.Net to earn more media placements and be seen over their competitors on local and national levels.
"Stacker provides both speed and quality when it comes to third-party referrals and brand authority," says Kyle, "You can't find this amount of earned media value anywhere else on the market right now."
TruckInfo.net has now strengthened their foothold as a leading online portal for the trucking industry. Thanks to their modernized editorial and distribution strategies, they remain one of the top “trucking information” sites listed on Google and regularly publish their original research.
“What truly set Stacker apart was its ability to secure local and national brand authority, something we couldn’t find anywhere else. With Stacker, we now have the flexibility to distribute our own content while still benefiting from the powerful network. This has been a game changer for us,” says Kyle.
Brands that are keen to put the pedal to the metal on brand visibility and earned media have a lot to benefit from partnering with established editorial and distribution platforms like Stacker, because an investment in your stories doesn’t just provide ROI once, it can spur a scalable in-house editorial team that can power virtuous growth cycles for your business. Read the full case study on TruckInfo.Net's success here or contact us to get your own earned media distribution engine on the road!
Doriane is Stacker’s Director of Marketing. She previously headed marketing departments in various companies, owned a marketing agency for 7 years, and built a startup combining automated marketing workflows with a marketing services marketplace.
Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva