Real-Time Interaction for Competitive Advantage.

ADS Logistics :
ADS Logistics provides supply chain management solutions for trucking, warehousing and intermodal transportation. The company‟s site used to be stagnant, resembling the appearance of a brochure. “It was initially expected by ADS that the truck driving industry is not on the bleeding edge of technology, and as such they didn't have a great need to put any effort into their website,” said SJ Petteruti, an inbound marketing consultant working with the company. 
However, it turned out truckers were highly attached to the Web thanks to their mobile devices. “What we found was that because they spend so much time on the road, a surprisingly high number of them rely on mobile devices such as smart phones, and as such are surprisingly „plugged‟ in to blogs, twitter account, and other internet marketing channels,” said SJ.

As a result, ADS focused heavily on improving its online presence and started seeking a clear return on their blogging efforts. Blogging helped them carve out a niche and build thought leadership in their industry. After a few months of steady content creation, the company started generating traffic for important keywords and began ranking high in search engines for desired phrases.
Blogging also helped them create categories for specific audience segments. Because ADS offers products that might appeal to different customers, they create blog posts targeting particular personas. “With RSS feeds of our blog tags coordinated to the content on the static pages, we can make sure each visitor is seeing exactly what they want,” SJ noted. 
The company also developed a unique approach to social media engagement and building a reach using these real-time communication platforms. “With ADS on Twitter we tried to dedicate the majority of our tweets about traffic updates on the roads our drivers routinely travel. Not a lot of companies are doing that, and we‟ve had good results,” SJ said.
Using social media and blogging, ADS remains up-to-date with industry news and that helps the company gain a competitive advantage in the market. “With ADS, we are almost always the first to know about any industry happenings because we are constantly plugged into the conversation online. Our audience has come to expect us to be a reliable source of information for them, and we take that seriously. Once you gain this trust, you have a competitive edge that you can only lose if you abandon your internet marketing efforts,” SJ explained.

Marketing takeaway:
If you think that you represent an industry that is seemingly removed from the Web, take a step back and reevaluate the situation. You might actually be able to take advantage of inbound marketing and real-time communications like no other company in your niche. Being the first to dominate this space gives you tremendous competitive advantage and makes it difficult for the rest to catch up.