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Running a delivery business can be hectic. While getting items to your customers is your main focus, it’s important not to overlook the behind-the-scenes tasks that keep your business running smoothly. Setting up a website, automating daily tasks, and building a simple marketing plan can save you time and reduce headaches as your business grows.
Even if you don’t feel ready to dive into marketing right away, laying the groundwork now will make things easier when you’re ready to scale up. In this post, we’ll give you practical tips to automate your operations and streamline your marketing efforts so you can focus on deliveries while the rest works behind the scenes.
Running a successful delivery business isn’t just about getting from point A to point B. It’s about building an efficient system that supports your daily tasks and fuels growth. A great place to start is by creating a professional, user-friendly website. This will help establish your online presence, capture leads, and automate key aspects like order processing and payment systems—ultimately saving you time and effort.
Now, let’s dive into how to set up a website for your local delivery service.
Creating a Website for Your Local Delivery Service
Every business needs a website. It’s essential for building brand identity, capturing leads, converting customers, and creating an online presence.
A mobile-friendly website allows you to market yourself as a reliable local delivery driver, accept orders and payments online, and ensure the same safety you had with Uber Eats or Spark by delivering only prepaid goods.
You can even set up automated tipping reminders—just like the major apps you deliver for today.
Why a WordPress Website?
Since you’re a driver, not a web designer, let’s keep it simple. WordPress is free, easy to set up, and very user-friendly. It allows you to manage your site without the headaches of ongoing maintenance.
If you lack tech skills or time, you can always outsource. The great thing about WordPress is that you don’t need an expensive web developer. Many teens, family members, or neighbors can help you set up a professional, mobile-friendly site that processes local delivery orders with ease.
Key Features You Must Include
A mobile-friendly website ensures that customers can easily access and order from your site using their phones, while built-in payment systems allow you to collect payments securely and efficiently, avoiding cash transactions.
Scheduling tools streamline the process of booking deliveries, reducing back-and-forth communication and making it easier for you to manage multiple deliveries in a day. Lastly, route planning is critical for saving time and gas, ensuring that deliveries are completed in the most efficient way possible.
Here’s how to get started:
- Mobile-Friendly Website: Choose a delivery-friendly theme on WordPress and install plugins to manage orders, payments, and scheduling effortlessly.
- Payment Systems: Offer pre-payment options like PayPal, Stripe, or Square. For in-person tips, carry mobile payment tools.
- Scheduling Tools: Use plugins that allow customers to book delivery appointments with ease, such as Calendly.
- Route Planning: Connect to Google Maps for simple routing or advanced tools like Route4Me to optimize your deliveries.
Popular WordPress Themes:
These are just two popular WP themes—each has a free version if you’re starting on a budget, with premium versions offering more features for affordable annual fees.
- Astra (Free + Premium $17/year): A lightweight, fast theme ideal for small businesses. It’s customizable with drag-and-drop builders, perfect for designing mobile-friendly sites.
- OceanWP (Free + Premium $18/year): Offers responsive design, eCommerce support, and fast load times, making it a great choice for local delivery sites.
Popular WordPress Plugins:
Here are just some popular options—each comes with a free version if you’re starting out, and the premium versions unlock extra features, with affordable annual price tags.
- WPForms Lite (Free + Premium $19/year): A simple drag-and-drop form builder to create order forms, contact forms, and even customer surveys.
- WooCommerce (Free + Paid Extensions under $20/year): A powerful eCommerce plugin that helps manage orders, payments, and deliveries.
- The Events Calendar (Free + Premium $15/year): A great tool to manage delivery schedules by allowing customers to book specific time slots.
- Route4Me (Free + Paid $15/year): Optimizes your delivery routes, saving time and gas.
With these tools in place, you’ll have the key features needed to run your local delivery business efficiently and smoothly. Once your website is set up to manage orders, payments, and scheduling, it’s time to focus on marketing. In the next section, we’ll explore how you can automate your marketing processes to grow your customer base without adding extra work to your plate.
Let’s dive into Automating Marketing Processes!
Automating Marketing Processes
Even if you’re not ready to fully promote your delivery business yet, it’s still really important to set up your online presence and capture leads early on. This allows you to focus on your daily tasks without worrying about marketing for now.
When you’re ready to promote, you’ll already have everything in place, including a list of potential customers who are ready to hear from you.
Why Set It Up Now?
Once you’ve got your website running, the next important step is linking your social media profiles. Even if you’re not posting regularly, having those profiles connected boosts your online visibility and credibility. Customers can easily find you across platforms, and having everything ready to go now will make it easier to market when the time’s right.
Linking social profiles also helps generate more touchpoints for customer engagement, making your brand more recognizable in the local community.
3 Key Tactics to Automate
Automation is a game-changer for small business owners because it frees up time while keeping things running in the background. Here’s why these three areas should be automated and some popular automations tools you can find online:
1. Social Media
Start by creating business profiles on popular social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Even if you’re not planning to post regularly right away, linking these profiles to your website will start building your online presence and visibility. As your business grows, you can use these platforms to share updates, customer stories, or special promotions to keep your audience engaged.
Automating your social media helps ensure your business stays visible, even when you’re focused on other tasks. By scheduling posts and setting up automated responses, you maintain an active presence, which helps boost your credibility and recognition. Plus, tools like analytics provide helpful insights about your audience, giving you valuable information for when you’re ready to engage more consistently.
Not all of the tools mentioned in the list below are free, but many of them offer free plans or trials, with premium versions for more advanced features.
Here’s a breakdown of common social media automation tools and their pricing details:
- Buffer: Offers a free plan that allows you to manage up to 3 social channels with 10 scheduled posts per channel. Paid plans start at $6 per month.
- Hootsuite: Provides a free plan with limited features, allowing you to manage 2 social profiles and schedule up to 5 posts. Premium plans start at $19 per month.
- Later: Has a free plan that lets you schedule up to 30 posts per profile for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Paid plans start at $12.50 per month.
- Sprout Social: No free plan but offers a 30-day free trial. Paid plans start at $99 per user per month.
- CoSchedule: Offers a 14-day free trial but does not provide a free plan. Paid plans start at $29 per month.
- Zoho Social: Provides a free plan for managing 1 brand with up to 7 posts per platform each month. Paid plans start at $10 per month.
- Sendible: Offers a 14-day free trial but no ongoing free plan. Paid plans start at $29 per month.
- MeetEdgar: No free plan, but offers a 7-day free trial. Paid plans start at $19 per month.
Next, let’s dive into how to automate your lead generation, so you can start building a customer base while running your day-to-day operations!
2. Lead Generation
Start collecting emails early by offering simple incentives like free consultations, small discounts, free downloads, exclusive content, etc… This allows you to build a customer base in advance so that when you’re ready to market, you’ll have a list of leads ready to contact directly.
Automating this process helps you keep gathering emails consistently without extra effort. Using an automated system ensures you’re always capturing potential clients’ information and organizing it, so that when it’s time to ramp up your marketing, you’ll already have a list of potential customers ready to engage with your services.
Here’s a list of lead generation tools, their free features, and pricing details:
- Mailchimp: Offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails per month with basic lead generation tools like forms and landing pages. Paid plans start at $13 per month.
- MailerLite: Free for up to 1,000 subscribers with limited features, including automation and email forms. Paid plans start at $10 per month.
- ConvertKit: Free plan allows for up to 1,000 subscribers with access to landing pages and email sign-up forms. Paid plans start at $9 per month.
- HubSpot: Free plan includes forms, landing pages, and a CRM to manage contacts. Paid plans start at $50 per month.
- Sleeknote: No free plan, but offers a 7-day free trial. Paid plans start at $49 per month.
- OptinMonster: No free plan, but it offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. Paid plans start at $9 per month.
- Sumo: Offers a free plan with limited features for email capture and pop-ups. Paid plans start at $39 per month.
These tools help automate the process of gathering emails and building a customer base, making lead generation easier to manage as you grow your business.
Next, let’s dive into how to automate your blogging process, so you can start building a customer base while running your day-to-day operations!
3. Consistent Relevant Blogging
Writing short, locally focused blog posts about delivery tips, customer success stories, or how your services help solve problems is a simple way to improve your online presence. Consistent blogging boosts your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), making it easier for local customers to find your website through searches.
To keep it manageable, you can outsource the writing, ensuring you stay consistent without having to dedicate too much time away from running your business.
Automating your blog posts allows you to regularly update your website without needing to do it manually. This steady stream of new content signals to search engines that your site is active, improving your search rankings.
Scheduling posts in advance on your WordPress blog keeps your website fresh with valuable, locally relevant information, bringing more traffic to your business even while you focus on your daily operations.
Creative Ways to Get Consistent Blog Content Without Writing It Yourself
Here are some creative ways to get consistent content scheduled on your blog without creating it yourself. Once you find the right content creators, give them the access they need to schedule their posts so you can publish new content daily, or weekly, or however you see fit.
- Guest Bloggers: Put a call out on your website and social media for guest bloggers, either free or paid. You’d be surprised how many writers or local business owners might contribute posts. See who responds and what they charge. This option saves time and brings different voices to your blog.
- Freelancer Sites (like Fiverr, Upwork): Use platforms like Fiverr or Upwork to find affordable content writers who can consistently produce blog posts. Specify that you need short, locally focused posts, and you’ll find writers who can work within your budget.
- Content Subscription Services: Consider signing up for a content service that provides pre-written blogs or custom content on a monthly basis. This ensures you always have fresh posts scheduled in WordPress without spending time on writing or editing.
- Partner with Local Colleges or Writing Groups: Reach out to local writing programs or community groups. Students or new writers looking to build their portfolios might contribute blog posts in exchange for exposure or a small fee.
- Invite Industry Experts or Collaborators: If you partner with other local businesses, invite them to write a guest post or collaborate on content. For example, a local bakery you deliver for might write a post about their services, while you highlight the delivery side.
- Interview Customers or Local Figures: Conduct short interviews with local business owners or customers and turn these conversations into blog posts. Interviews are easier to schedule and provide engaging, community-focused content.
- Hire Local-Based Content Creators: Consider outsourcing your blog writing to a local expert like Content Marketing Geek of Hemet. They can create posts tailored to your business and audience, freeing you up to focus on deliveries.
With these strategies in place, you’ll keep your blog filled with fresh, locally relevant content without spending your own time on writing. Whether you tap into guest bloggers, work with freelancers, or partner with local businesses, these tactics ensure your marketing keeps working behind the scenes while you focus on providing excellent delivery service.
