Author Archives for ‘Jim Bierfeldt’

Jim Bierfeldt

About Jim Bierfeldt

Jim Bierfeldt is the founder and chief strategist at Logistics Marketing Advisors, a marketing firm that helps logistics businesses define and communicate their value, and then translate that value into revenue.

Recent Posts

Logistics Marketing has Become a Game of Hide-and-Seek – in Reverse

The way buyers purchase high-value logistics products and services has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, but too many logistics businesses haven’t adapted their marketing and sales efforts to reflect how today’s logistics decision makers buy.

Marketing has become a game of Hide-and-Seek – but in reverse.

Read the Full Article

Empathy is Key With Marketing Logistics Services

As logistics marketers, the greatest gift we can bring to our work is empathy – a genuine understanding of the buyer’s needs, wants and feelings. This empathy informs our strategy and messaging work like nothing else.

The best way to build empathy is to talk directly with these buyers. But, unlike salespeople, the day-to-day job of marketing doesn’t require regular interaction with our customers and prospects. One of the things we must guard against is reliance on second-hand sources as the pathway to empathy.

Read the Full Article

How to Market Logistics Services: New Research Provides Direct Advice from Buyers

Wouldn’t it be great if our prospects – the buyers of logistics products and services – told us the very best way to get and keep their attention?

Well, they kind of have.

Every two years, our firm has been asking these very questions and publishing the results in a report entitled, aptly, Marketing Logistics Services: How to Get, and Keep, the Attention of Buyers of Logistics Products & Services.

Read the Full Article

Marketing During COVID-19: Time to Recalibrate?

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was coordinating a marketing planning session at a Chicago hotel with most of the management team for the 3PL that I then ran marketing for.

When the news about the World Trade Center attack hit, the rest of that morning was spent absorbing the devastating news and communicating with loved ones. But it was clear no one was traveling home, even if they wanted to, since all flights were cancelled.

Read the Full Article

Why an Active Marketing Program is a Logistics Company’s Best Salesperson

I was talking recently to my colleague Joe Lynch, who produces the Logistics of Logistics podcast. We got on the subject of marketing being a logistics company’s best sales person and Joe suggested “Let’s do a podcast on that.” So we did. Check out this recent episode of the Logistics of Logistics podcast.

Read the Full Article

Marketing Logistics Services: How to Get, and Keep, Buyers’ Attention

Every couple of years, Logistics Marketing Advisors does a survey of professionals who make or influence purchasing decisions on logistics products or services.  This year, we surveyed 100 buyers online and then followed up with direct interviews with 10 of these respondents to dig a little deeper.

Read the Full Article

Who Cares? Very Few.

You think your logistics business has a compelling value proposition and you try to get prospects to pay attention, but it’s hard.

Very few care.

You could try and get more people to care.  Think UPS. For years, they told the world “we love logistics,” which artfully begged the question, “Shouldn’t you, too?”

Read the Full Article

Should Your Logistics Value Proposition Be Accurate or Memorable?

One popular and important marketing exercise is defining a logistics value proposition – your company's “promise” to the market. You want it to be BOTH accurate and memorable, certainly.  But too many companies focus on the accurate part. They look in the mirror and describe what they see. The result is a stultifying barrage ofsameness designed to avoid, not attract, attention.

Read the Full Article

Content Marketing for Logistics: Does it Work?

See this image?  It’s a choice that our prospects face every day as they look for solutions to problems. Which direction would you take? Which direction would your prospects take?

Content marketing for logistics is based on helping, not selling

Lots of companies want to engage in a sales discussion. But fewer simply offer to help with useful information aimed at solving a common problem.

Read the Full Article

Logistics PR Opportunities: Avoid “Pay for Play” Ploys

The email may start out something like this:

“XYZ Logistics has been identified as an innovative logistics provider that we would like to feature in an upcoming issue of INDUSTRY WORLD (I made up this name) – a magazine aimed at CEOs and senior operations executives…”

The email is typically sent to the CEO of

Read the Full Article