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Fourth Annual Trailer Safety Week a Success

By Savana Morrison, NATM Marketing Director

Trailer Safety Week (TSW), a national awareness campaign focusing on trailer education, made its debut just four years ago. Since its inaugural year, this safety initiative has piqued interest across the nation amongst trailer manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, end-users, and law enforcement. The 2021 Trailer Safety Week was no exception and saw another successful year that included participation across the country, social media engagement from a variety of companies, and a plethora of media coverage.

Trailer Safety Week Allies

Trailer Safety Week Allies ranged from law enforcement departments and industry partners to trailer manufacturers, suppliers and dealers. The 2021 TSW saw over 317 allies committed to trailer safety and education—a 37 percent growth from 2020. Allies were equipped with the official TSW Communications Kit, a marketing toolkit created specifically for TSW Allies, to effectively communicate the importance of trailer safety to their audience. This year, Allies sent TSW information

A graph displayingTrailer Safety Week Ally growth over the last four years. directly to over 2,300 dealers and end-users. Allies played an important role in not only the education of their customers and followers, but in helping generate awareness and drive traffic to NATM and TSW’s social media platforms as well as www.TrailerSafetyWeek.com.

Social Media Success

Through the #TrailerSafetyWeek social media campaign, and with the help of more than 317 TSW Allies, the importance of safe trailering reached thousands across several social media channels. Countless social media posts were created and shared on Facebook in hopes to better educate end-users on important safety measures to take when trailering. In addition to this, NATM shared several trailer safety posts on its social platforms. These posts featured loading tips, general safe trailering practices, the value of the NATM Decal, and more! Visit NATM’s or TSW’s Facebook page @NATMpage and @TrailerSafetyWeek respectively.

TrailerSafetyWeek.com

TrailerSafetyWeek.com hosts an easily accessible Towing Safely Guide that is free to all. Since the inaugural TSW, this website

has seen nearly 30,000 unique visitors. The TSW website also earned over 277,000 SEO impressions in 2021 alone. TSW Allies’ efforts on social media led nearly 3,000 new visitors to TrailerSafetyWeek.com throughout the week itself—a testament to the impact Allies have on generating safe trailering awareness. It is apparent that TrailerSafetyWeek.com is not only being utilized during the week itself, but 365 days a year.

TSW Was Featured Here

Trailer Safety Week was featured in a variety of ways. From a WSBT 22 news segment featuring TSW Ally LOOK Trailers to a feature in the Texas Department of Insurance’s Safety At Work

A circle chart breaking down Trailer Safety Week Ally demographics.

e-Newsletter, TSW garnered an increased amount of coverage. Thanks to the hard work of TSW Ally Kenda Americana Tire and Wheel (Kenda ATW), the Governor of Georgia made an official proclamation to declare June 6-12, 2021 Trailer Safety Week in the state of Georgia. Learn more about TSW news here: www.TrailerSafetyWeek.com/news.

Engaged With Law Enforcement Around the Nation

2021 marked the first year the TSW team made a strategic effort to reach Law Enforcement and Public Safety officials across the nation. TSW understands the large role these individuals have in passing along safe trailering information to their communities. Because of this, the TSW team crafted the official Law Enforcement Kit containing relevant regulations, safe trailering practices, and an invitation to join the TSW movement as an official Ally. This strategic push resulted in new TSW Allies including:

• State of New Hampshire–Dept of Safety • Office of Highway Safety–Delaware • Kentucky Office of Highway Safety • Los Angeles Police Department • Indiana Department of Transportation • Texas Department of Transportation, and more.

In addition, NATM Executive Director Kendra Ansley was invited by the Florida Department of Transportation to speak on trailer safety at their monthly safety meeting.

Join The Movement

Trailer Safety Week continues to be a step in the right direction for the trailer industry. With the support of our members, an effective social media campaign, countless TSW Allies and coverage in several news publications, this safety awareness campaign allowed safe trailering to become more visible to the general public. “Trailer Safety Week was once again a huge success thanks to the support of Trailer Safety Allies across the country,” said NATM Executive Director Kendra Ansley. “A special thank you is owed to Peerless Industrial Group, the first Trailer Safety Week Partner, for helping grow the cargo securement information available on the www.TrailerSafetyWeek.com as well as our 2021 Trailer Safety Week Champion Felling Trailers. The staff is using the momentum and excitement of this year’s success to begin planning for next year’s Trailer Safety Week that will be held June 5-11, 2022. Improving trailer safety will take every facet of the industry working together to be successful and we look forward to more organizations getting involved at the level— ally, champion, partner—that best suits their needs.”

Those interested in joining this trailer safety movement can find more information at www.TrailerSafetyWeek.com/interest or by contacting the TSW team at TrailerSafetyWeek@natm.com.

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