Evaluating New Marketing Strategies for Australian Sea Freight

This dissertation proposal focuses on identifying and analyzing new marketing strategies used by freight forwarders in Australia for sea freight, addressing the increasing competition and the need for innovative approaches in the digital age. The research aims to identify current freight management practices, analyze the importance of new marketing strategies, and critically evaluate these strategies within the Australian sea freight context. It explores contemporary marketing approaches such as digital and social media marketing, diversity marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and relationship marketing, examining how these strategies shape the dynamic marketing needs of sea freight. The proposal includes a literature review discussing the impact of low-cost shipping, customer needs, integrated services, and trade agreements on market growth, and outlines a research methodology involving both primary and secondary data analysis to investigate these marketing strategies.

Running head: DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Dissertation proposal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Topic- New Marketing strategies used by freight forwarders in Australia for sea freight
1.1 Introduction
The proposed research is fundamentally focused on developing new marketing strategies
used by freight forwarders in Australia for sea freight. A freight forwarder in other words known
as a non-vessel operating common carrier, which is a single entity that organizes different
categories of shipments for individuals and even for the large corporations. Hence, such carrier
receive goods from the manufacturers to market or to the ultimate point of distribution1. Usually,
it has been identified that forwarders contact with a carrier or multiple carriers to move the
goods; but forwarders actually did not move the goods rather act as an expert on the logistic
network. Freight forwarders or the agents that arrange shipments for the sector from the
manufacturer to the eventual destinations. It is noted that forwarders tend to have the contracts
with the shipping line carriers to move the goods. However, there have been several dynamics in
the freight forwarding services due to changes in the business. Especially in the sea freight, there
are many players in the sector. This growing sector creates the trigger of developing suitable
marketing strategies for freight forwarding agencies. In addition, due to increasing use of
technology in business across the every sector, freight management or the pattern of logistics
management have changed2. The major purpose of their research is to identify and analyses the
marketing strategies for freight forwarders. It can be mentioned that the organizations are in the
need of developing a suitable market strategies and mix approach to gain competitive advantages
1 Ding, I.F. and Tsai, P.P., 2012. Ocean Freight Forwarders in Taiwan. Information Technology Journal, 11(11),
pp.1579-1587.
2 Lehmann, H., 2010. European International Freight Forwarders: Information as a Strategic Product. In IT
Outsourcing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1125-1139). IGI Global.

2DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
and cost efficiency3. The proposed research would investigate the contemporary marketing
strategies such as digital and social media marketing, diversity marketing, word of mouth
marketing and relationship marketing.
It will also be investigated how all these contemporary marketing approaches shape
dynamic marketing needs of sea freight. Organizations that are able to cut marketing cost can
avail the top position in the market, while some other obvious pan-points tend to perform more
effectively4. Nonetheless, a more significant concern is the need for greater innovation and
technology advances but reaming budget conscious at the same time. One of the most significant
costs helping to cut down the cost of transportation is the fuel price5. This means higher fuel
price are more likely to enhance the cost of transportation. It is noted that the cost of new
technology in the freight service often makes the headlines and this is becoming an increasing
challenge to remain at the top of the new business process. On the contrary, it has been identified
that service enhancement in the freight sector has become a significant challenge as every service
providers want to maintain transparency with better customer experience and facilitation.
Moreover, work practice through the digital portal makes it easy to manage the transferring of
goods and reduce time and cost. Thus, most of the large sea freight agencies such as A.P Moller,
BBC Chartering, Evergreen Marine Australia etc, are incorporating digital strategies to
differentiate itself in the market and to gain competitive advantages6.
3 Winston, W. and Mintu-Wimsatt, A.T., 2013. Environmental marketing: strategies, practice, theory, and research.
Routledge.
4 Cahoon, S.C., Haugstetter, H. and Bhaskar, P.R., 2010. Overcoming seafarer shortages: Human resource
management and marketing strategies for a sustainable future. In IAME: International Association of Maritime
Economists Annual Conference (pp. 1-12).
5 Ho, T.C., Chiu, R.H., Chung, C.C. and Lee, H.S., 2017. Key influence factors for ocean freight forwarders
selecting container shipping lines using the revised dematel approach. Journal of Marine Science and
Technology, 25(3), pp.299-310.
6 Wong, T.N., Chow, P.S. and Sculli, D., 2010. An e-logistics system for sea-freight forwarding. Journal of
International Technology and Information Management, 19(2), p.29.

3DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
1.2 Problem Statement
It has been identified that organizations in the freight sector has been facing a tough
competition in relation to service improvement. As technology incorporation has been an easy
task, several organizations in the market are joining the digital race and thereby, implementing
social media or digital marketing, which once was advantageous to freight businesses, no longer
provides the relief and opportunity of competitive advantages. The organizations are in the need
of developing suitable marketing strategies for sea freight management in Australia.
1.3 Research aim and Objectives
The aim of the study is to identify and analyse suitable marketing strategies used by freight
forwarders in Australia Sea freight. Following are the key objectives to meet the stated aims.
 To identify the current freight management practices used by freight forwarders
 To analyze the importance of new and innovative marketing strategies for freight
management services
 To critically evaluate the new freight forwarding marketing strategies used by Australia
sea freight
1.4 Research Questions
 What is the importance of new and innovative marketing strategies for freight
management services?
 How do Australian sea freight agencies are shaping their marketing strategies to meet
dynamic marketing needs?
2.1 Literature Review

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There is a high demand for the low-cost shipping, which stands as the key factor that
significantly influences the growth. Another significant factor driving the growth is the
capability of identifying the customer needs and responding swiftly along with suitable supply
chain solutions7. Thus, it can be mentioned that growth of the market is fundamentally dependent
upon the high demand for integrated services. Freight forwarders have the ability to deliver
customers greater range of integrated services, which does not include typical cargo and other
services8. In addition, the rise of trade agreements between the nationals help to enhance the
market growth but increase in manufacturing may prevent the market growth. Despite the
challenges, there is a greater level of intermode freight transport, which could further boost the
market growth in the coming future. Developing a freight forwarder with an effective or
successful operation and steady growth can be no longer different from just doing it any other
business, particularly when it comes to the alignment of technique, technology and people9. To
be successful, the freight forwarder owners or the agencies should understand the complexity and
the need of diversity in the personal relationship in business. This means that the diversity in the
personal relationship can help to generate value to customers10. Communication between people
and the system may cause the delay or frequent breakdown but if the user is able to handle it or
control it, the communication is most likely to become effective and stronger resolution to
further grow the business11.
7 Surchi, M., 2011. The temporary store: a new marketing tool for fashion brands. Journal of Fashion Marketing
and Management: An International Journal.
8 Wilson, R.M. and Gilligan, C., 2012. Strategic marketing management. Routledge.
9 Shang, K.C. and Lu, C.S., 2012. Customer relationship management and firm performance: an empirical study of
freight forwarder services. Journal of Marine Science and Technology, 20(1), pp.64-72.
10 Feo, M., Espino, R. and Garcia, L., 2011. An stated preference analysis of Spanish freight forwarders modal
choice on the south-west Europe Motorway of the Sea. Transport Policy, 18(1), pp.60-67.
11 Jirsak, P. and Kolář, P., 2012. Customer Orientation and Marketing in Containerized Freight Distribution and
Logistics-Perspectives of the Czech Republic. Central European Business Review, 1(3).

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Business-to-Business marketing
Even though new organizations focus on addressing potential customers, the business can
get a lot of work from other businesses12. Hence, business to business marketing help to use the
resource of other organizations to find new customer networks. The most effective part that
business does not have to spend anything more to this.
Digital and social media marketing strategies for freight forwarding
Delivering competitive less-than truckload and full truckload and warehousing and
logistics solutions always require more than being able to make collection of shipment boxes and
schedule the shipments. When a brand needs to go through the digital activation state of digital
marketing strategy, it has to understand the difference between the digital assets and social media
platforms and eventually the online communities.
Digital assets:
It is noted that digital assets are online environments the business creates from the
beginning. This means digital assets are frequently created the use of technology framework and
hierarchy of navigation. On the contrary, it is also noted that most social platforms the business
sets up requires it to amass a following in order to be effective; this means there are some
platforms where the everything that the business establishes requires the followers and then new
values can be added to the same. Social media strategies would help the organization to create
the market awareness of the services that businesses need to do attract and increase the clientele.
To penetrate the market through social media marketing, freight forwarding agencies should
12 Gladkovska, V., 2018. Substantiation of the development variant of freight forwarding company under uncertainty
conditions. Technology audit and production reserves, 1(2 (39)), pp.46-52.

6DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
leverage top-most social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter13. When promoting the
services, the brand needs to highlight and demonstrate the kind of freight services it handles such
as cargo or other goods.
There are tremendous level of changes in commerce in the past decades and the major
prospects and growth can be seen in some major industries like transport and
telecommunications. It is necessary that freight forwarding services should be aware of vast
amount of opportunities that are available to them and particularly, it is related to digital
marketing campaigns, which open up more doors of exposure and profitability. As the use of
internet is growing with the information on the power of business-to-business-digital marketing;
nonetheless, the most effective freight organizations tend to negotiate to invest in the digital
platform14. Logistic and freight management sector is most the effective industry where the
business can grow through the digital marketing strategy. There are two major factors/reasons
behind this: the customer relationship tend to depend on trust and digital marketing certainly
helps to build trust. Digital marketing can give the business a suitable opportunity to set the
business above the competition by increasing up the level of expertise. There are almost twenty
randomly selected logistics organizations in Florida in United State. It is also noted that almost
35% had optimized websites and there is less than the basic web analytics implemented in the
websites. Almost 5% Florida logistics firms use marketing automation15.
13 Ho, T.C., Chiu, R.H., Chung, C.C. and Lee, H.S., 2017. Key influence factors for ocean freight forwarders
selecting container shipping lines using the revised dematel approach. Journal of Marine Science and
Technology, 25(3), pp.299-310
14 Kowalska, K., 2014. Non-market factors of competitiveness of transport, freight forwarding and logistics
companies,". In Forum Scientiae Oeconomia (Vol. 2, No. 5). Akademia WSB. Wydział Nauk Stosowanych.
15 Kilibarda, M., Nikolicic, S. and Andrejic, M., 2016. Measurement of logistics service quality in freight forwarding
companies. The International Journal of Logistics Management.

7DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Figure 1: Digital Marketing Strategies used by Logistics companies
Source: 16
It can be mentioned that as the transportation sector is widely depended upon the
relationship based selling to develop the business as per the needs, statistics do not make big
surprise. Followed by this fact, strategies related to logistics take forms different tools like CRM
marketing and customer targeting, business can develop the relationship along with a large base
of potential customers.
It has been identified that customer relationship management (CRM) software
significantly helps the business to further manage the both future and current consumer data and
communication. It can also be mentioned that it significantly help to understand the customers
16 Kilibarda, M., Nikolicic, S. and Andrejic, M., 2016. Measurement of logistics service quality in freight forwarding
companies. The International Journal of Logistics Management.

8DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
and how they communicate with the organization. Marketing automation can automate repetitive
marketing activities like small, social media as well as website activities.
Online advertising and Audience targeting software
Online ad and advertising to the puzzle is the online audience targeting and advertising
software advertising is known as the programmatic advertising. This means while CRM and
marketing automation nurture contracts and prospects, programmatic advertising uses the
software to promote the brand and obtain some elements17. Programmatic ad buying opens the
door of logistics organizations to particularly target the audience. Behavioral targeting enable the
business to demonstrate the ads to people online based on the jobs industry and other purchasing
behavior, geographic locations rather than advertising on one website. Another significant fact is
that logistic businesses tend to obtain customer through the relationship developed on trust; if
there is no trust, one cannot use it and moreover digital marketing can help to develop the trust
and they might become invaluable in the first stage in the logistic marketing18. With the help of
appropriate synchronized technology, the business can integrate sales and other marketing effort
to measure or scale the growth of the logistic expansion through the marketing effort.
(Digital & social media marketing, diversity marketing, word of mouth marketing and
relationship marketing)
3. Research Methodology
17 Huang, G., Xu, X., Song, H. and Lim, H., 2018. Analysis on the Development of International Freight Forwarding
Company-Taking Changbao International Freight Forwarding (Shanghai) Co., Ltd as an Example. Global Finance
Review (TRANSFERRED), 1(1).
18 Parola, F., Pallis, A.A., Risitano, M. and Ferretti, M., 2018. Marketing strategies of Port Authorities: A multi-
dimensional theorisation. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 111, pp.199-212

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Research methodology is the most specific technique used to identify, select, process and
analyze information about the context and thereby, research methodology is considered to be the
backbone of the entire research. It can also be mentioned that research methodology is kind of a
path through which scholar need to conduct the study. Methodology shows the path through
which thee problems and objectives can be formulated and findings can be derived. In order to
identify and investigate the new marketing strategies of freight management for freight
forwarders, both primary and secondary data analysis would be presented. This section of the
research report provides an in-depth overview of research techniques, which would be used to
perform the study.
3.1 Research philosophy
It has been identified that research philosophy is a set of a belief, which would help to
judge and analyses the context of the study from different perspectives. There can be several
other aspects of beliefs that are used to analyses the context of research philosophy19. A research
philosophy is more of a belief about the way in which data regarding a particular context can be
analyzed and gathered. Hence, then term associated with the philosophy is epistemology which
is associated with doxology. Doxology consists of different philosophies of research approach
and here the technique of converting the believed things into the known things that means doxa
to episteme. It can be mentioned that philosophy is used in the analysis to extract the current or
authentic evidence so that research cannot be biased. There are three different types of research
philosophies such as positivism, realism and interpretivism20.
Positivism:
19 Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.
20 Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage

10DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
According to the belief of positivism, it can be mentioned that positivism claim that
reality is stable and can be observed and described from an objective viewpoint without
intervening the context of the study21. Positivism beliefs insist on the fact that phenomenon
should be more isolated and repeatable. It can also be mentioned that positivism is the only
research philosophy, which significantly helps to convert the data into meaningful formats like
digits and numbers. This number and digits can be presented in the form of table and graphs.
Interpretivism
On the contrary, interpretivists research philosophy is about the subjective interpretation
and intervention in reality which means that reality can be effectively understood. For example,
social media marketing is effective for freight forwarding services –it helps to penetrate the
market more rapidly and influence the revenue margin. However, this may not be a static finding
as there are can be other insight associated with it, which is revealed through interpretivism
research philosophy22.
Proposed study and positivism research philosophy
However, in the proposed study, positivism research philosophy would be selected and
applied because positivism research philosophy would provide a concrete view about how new
marketing strategies are used by freight forwarders in Australian sea freight. In addition to this, it
is also important to learn the extent to which new marketing strategies are helping the freight
forwarders; thereby the study needs statistical data in the form digits and numbers.
21 Ledford, J.R. and Gast, D.L., 2018. Single case research methodology: Applications in special education and
behavioral sciences. Routledge.
22 Michel, J.B., Shen, Y.K., Aiden, A.P., Veres, A., Gray, M.K., Pickett, J.P., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D., Norvig, P.,
Orwant, J. and Pinker, S., 2011. Quantitative analysis of culture using millions of digitized
books. science, 331(6014), pp.176-182.

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3.2 Research strategy
To make use of positivism research philosophy and lead the research towards a statistical
underpinning, it is highly important to choose appropriate research strategy. Thus, to meet the
same, a survey and interview method would be performed in the study. Surveys enable the
researcher to obtain data about a particular practice, situations and other views with the help of
questionnaire and interviews. Moreover, the survey would be used in the study because survey
allows the researcher to study more variables at one time, which is typically possible in the
laboratory or other field experiments23. In the proposed study, survey would be conducted among
the employees of sea freight organizations in Australia.
3.3 Research Design
Research design gives an in-depth insight about how research can be implemented and
design works as the medium through the outcome can be reached and processed in the study. The
research design is fundamentally intended to deliver and provide the most appropriate framework
for the study. However, it can be mentioned that research design includes several interrelated
decisions. To identify the extent to which new marketing strategies can help the freight
forwarders in Australia Sea freight, both survey and interview will be performed in the study. In
order to perform the survey, a well-structured questionnaire will be developed along with semi-
structured questionnaire for performing the interview in the study. In order to derive the
descriptive views about the new marketing strategies being used in the freight management,
interview method would be applied to the stud. Hence, for performing the interview a broad set
of open-ended questions will be developed.
23 Bulat, F.A., Toro-Labbé, A., Brinck, T., Murray, J.S. and Politzer, P., 2010. Quantitative analysis of molecular
surfaces: areas, volumes, electrostatic potentials and average local ionization energies. Journal of molecular
modeling, 16(11), pp.1679-1691.