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When you're running a business where margins are frighteningly tight, you'd be forgiven for dropping any kind of marketing expenditure in order to save money. But equally, investment in an idea that raises your profile above that of your competitors could help pay your bills and boost profits for the foreseeable future. Marketing has a huge amount of mumbo jumbo attached to it - phrases like 'brand identities', 'publicity opportunities' and 'communications strategies' abound, and proving that  intangible concepts like these have had a direct affect on a firm's bottom line is not easy.

But at its simplest, everyone agrees that in logistics and distribution if your customers and clients see clean, well-presented vehicles, your chances of success are high. "Who wants a heap of scrap turning up on the doorstep?" explains Stuart Holt, for Goole-based HB Holt. The company relies almost completely on its vehicles' livery to sell an image of a professional, efficient haulage operation. The company also has a website, but Holt says it is word of mouth that keeps business ticking over. "It's like the uniform," he adds. "Our drivers turn up at our customers and they are dressed appropriately. You don't want them in shell suits!"

Dextra Lighting is a luminaire manufacturer that also runs its own LGVs to distribute its products. Logistics manager Tim Pickford says it wanted to promote the transport side of the business as much as the manufacturing side to show how Dextra offers  customers a total service package. So, it reliveried its entire fleet and reproduced these colours throughout its business Pickford thinks this branding has contributed to 13% turnover growth already this year. "I don't think you can measure [marketing success]," he admits. "But the vehicles really stand out on the road. The fleet has become well known, whereas before perhaps it was a little anonymous."

He adds: "If you put your goods on to a subcontracted vehicle you can't see the state of it. It could be the worst, ripped-up relic you have ever seen in your life. "We have also got the website, our own catalogues and we do quite a few promotions at football matches." Suckling Transport thought long and hard when it came to designing the livery for its pioneering oil tanker groupage service, TankShare. It needed to avoid any colours associated with a major oil company, so primary colours were out. Managing director Peter Larner explains: "I went to see Frank Harris, our [then] chairman. 'I've got it,' I said. 'Gold'".

Larner adds: "I think it looks great. It is easily recognisable, does not associate us with any of the oil companies and, when you think of its predecessor, the white fleet, it is a massive step forward. Six consecutive years of growth since TankShare was introduced in 2000 speaks for itself." Larner says he doesn't favour direct marketing, but he recognises the need for it. The company exhibits at the annual Federation of Petroleum Suppliers exhibition because it can meet all its customers in one place. It also distributes a news bulletin to employees. He says: "It was never designed as a marketing instrument, but it clearly is."

Suckling Transport is also one of the few companies to keep its website up to date Larner says the company could happily trade without it, but its importance is to "add value": "Perception sometimes has a greater value than reality," he adds. "People's perception of us matters. We must never forget that." Home Delivery Network's (HDN) MD Walter Blackwood puts considerable emphasis on the final stretch of its vehicles' deliveries:

"The last four feet of delivery is immensely important and our drivers are 'brand ambassadors' for each and every retailer we represent," he says. "The livery in its simplicity plays an important part, heralding both the announcement of a delivery to a customer and the implicit trust which we carry on behalf of our clients." Blackwood is also able to measure the success of its marketing concepts, which includes its livery, drivers, trade shows, website, advertising and literature it sends to clients. He says: "To date, 40 out of every 100 new business parcels received into the network can be attributed to our sales and marketing department's activity."

The PR Experts

Public Relations, or PR, is a marketing tool that you'd be hard pushed to find smaller companies ever giving too much thought to. But according to Andy Parker, senior account executive at Spa PR, which works with Innovate Logistics, it can provide ample opportunities for any sized company to get the publicity it craves: "The benefit of powerful PR is that it can create a level playing field, enabling aspiring businesses to punch above their weight."

PR is often criticised for being a dark art, in which sharp-suited types shuffle words around until they can 'spin' a message that presents their clients in the best light possible. Admittedly, these are generally journalists' opinions, but for a company searching out inventive ways of marketing their business, PR offers a chance to channel an idea through the media. What's more, the PR industry is adamant that it can boost your bottom line.

"Well targeted and focused PR should generate both enhanced image and direct sales leads," says Parker. "Also, advertising can be extremely expensive compared to the cost and effectiveness of PR." Angela Mitchell, director at DMD Design and Marketing, agrees its client Expect Distribution has just been judged MT's 2007 Haulier of the Year. She says: "The vast majority of the initiatives we have been involved with have had a very positive impact on the company concerned.

"The rebranding exercise we managed for [Expect] last year - involving design of the new identity and all support work, including PR, company literature and website - have had a very positive impact on the company's business. Expect Distribution themselves believe it is largely the rebranding exercise which led to them bringing on board a significant number of new accounts over the past 18 months."

Mitchell believes that too many companies undertake random initiatives, which lack a coherent strategy and are not aimed at anyone specifically. She says: "It is our business to guide, advise, alert our clients of suitable opportunities and ensure that projects are evaluated to assess their efficacy and impact." In Expect's case Mitchell points to 178 new accounts that it opened in the 12 months following its rebranding and an 8% growth in turnover in the first two months of its new identity.

She adds: "Obviously much of this was due to the hard work of the company themselves, but the new identity certainly opened both eyes and doors!" Chris Lawrance, director of consultancy JBP, which has provided PR advice to Cert Group, Palletways, NFT Distribution and Wincanton Logistics, has clear ideas of how a company should use PR. He discusses identifying exactly who a company should be targeting and how these people normally source their information, before developing the message it wants to convey. Lawrance says this message should be "simple, clear and powerful and used consistently in all marketing communications activities to convey the desired image of the company"

He also stresses the need to capture the imagination of the media, beyond sending out press releases, which "provide opportunities to engage with existing and prospective customers." He adds: "By providing such a return on investment, PR has an integral role to play in the success of a business, even during an economic downturn when budgets are streamlined."

Going It Alone

Not everyone favours marketing some businesses still rely on - and succeed with - traditional values, like face-to-face contact and word of mouth recommendation. Ian Ramsay, Wisbech Roadways' chairman says: "I've been in this industry all my life and my experience of getting customers has been that networking, and the people who are passed on to you because they know someone who knows that you are good at your job, those sorts of things are where business has come from."

Ramsay works closely with Knowles Transport (right), which is one of three East Anglian haulage businesses that make up the Wisbech Roadways consortium (the others are R Garn Transport and Jack Richards & Sons), and he is proud of the success it has experienced through hard work and not relying on marketing gimmicks: "Exhibitions and mail shots and all those things generally speaking have produced very little," he explains. "It's the old-fashioned values: people seeing good looking equipment around the roads and ringing up and saying 'You look like a good outfit', and then warming to the fact that they are dealing with people who are hands on."

Ramsay says Knowles has employed the services of a PR consultant in the past, and the company even won MT Haulier of the Year in 2000. But it's the contract deals won by gentleman's agreements that it relishes the most: "Sadly, it's probably changing a bit now," Ramsay adds. "We look hopefully to a return of men shaking hands and looking each other in the eye and doing deals. That's much nicer."