In September this year I launched Zoom2u to change the way you could send and receive a parcel at speed throughout Australia. Today we deliver in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; and I’m excited to announce we have just hit 1000 deliveries for the month of November. I’d like to say a big thank you to our customers who took the risk to give us a try and believed there is a better way to use a courier.
My vision for Zoom2u has always been to deliver exceptional customer service (pardon the pun :). I believe having a parcel delivered doesn’t have to be painful experience (as is often the case with existing courier companies).
We started by making it easy to book a same day delivery. You can book online via your pc or through our app on your smartphone.
The other major headache we wanted to solve, was knowing when your parcel would arrive. So we provide real time updates on when you should expect a courier to arrive.
We also wanted to build a relationship between the customer and courier, something that doesn’t exist in traditional courier companies today.
We launched our technology platform and waited for our first booking. I remember turning on Google Adwords on Sunday afternoon wondering when our first booking would come in. 2hrs later our 1st booking arrived! We thought it was just a test booking at first!
So how did we go from 1 booking to breaking 1000 a month?
This is how we did it:
Google Adwords: Adwords was a big part of the strategy in acquiring customers in the short term, it’s simple and fast way to get new customers. However it has become a popular way to get new business and that popularity has driven the price up. Having a skilled person to look after your adwords account is vital for success. Long terms we will still use adwords but it won’t be a big part of our strategy to acquire customers. But it’s a great way to get things kick started.
Domain Names: When I started Zoom2u I went on a hunt for existing businesses and domain names that already ranked well in Google. I came across GoParcel. The business had closed down however the website managed to rank well in Google, we acquired the domain name, rebuilt the site and each day we receive new leads from it.
I also acquired Samedayexpress.com.au. This domain ranked number one for the keyword same day courier, it was by far the best purchase I made to grow the business quickly. The domain was about 10 years old, ranked well for a number of keyword however the site was not well build and there was a lot that could be improved.
We rebuilt the site using WordPress, added a lot of content and within 3 month we tripled the traffic we received to the site. Check out the graph below:
Referrals and Repeat Business: Referrals have been really important in terms of spreading the word about Zoom2u. This comes down to making sure we deliver every parcel at speed and that we ‘deliver’ the service our customers expect. It’s hard to track referrals but one thing you can do is check Google Analytics for the name of your company and see what traffic you receive on that keyword. The search term ‘Zoom2u’ has consistently grown each month.
Cold Calling: We have experimented with some cold calling and have found it effective. Typically what we would do is ask for an email address to send them some information on our service; we would then put a link to our website in the email which we could track if they clicked on it. 50% of the people who click on the email would request a quote compared to 20% of people who landed on our site from other means. It’s certainly is effective, however more time consuming.
We also continue to market to our growing customer base via email and using Google Adwords Remarketing so we continue to be front of mind for our customers.
These are some simple steps that can help any business to grow whether you are big or small.
I’d like to wrap up by sending out a big thank you to our team of couriers and office staff we couldn’t have done this without you. Getting to 1000 deliveries a month from 0 in 3 months, is only possible with a great team around you!
For now it’s back to working on the next stage of our growth….
