Revisiting the marketing approach between seaports and dry ports in Malaysia: current trend and strategy for improvement

Purpose This paper aims to explore the comparative analysis of marketing strategies between seaports and dry ports. Second, this paper proposes a recommendation to improve marketing approaches in both nodes.Design/methodology/approach This research analyzes current marketing approaches to improve the freight volume and enhance interrelation between them for a comprehensive collaboration in the freight supply chain. This research employed semi-structured interviews via an e-interview questionnaire.Findings The result shows that dry port and seaport practices a mixed marketing strategy. Some marketing elements that seaport applies are also applied by dry port, like focusing on the target customer, joining exhibitions and face-to-face meetings. Customized service to clients, frequent discussion on the effective marketing plans, increasing the facilities at the seaport and dry ports can improve the marketing strategies in dry port and seaports.Originality/value Seaports are the critical components in esteem-driven context, which add to supply chains by creating value-added services in the transport chain. Nonetheless, research between dry ports and seaports has increasingly drawn the attention of scholars during the last decade. Having said like that, there have not been any pragmatic studies undertaken in the Malaysian context that mainly discussing the marketing prospect of the dry ports and seaports especially during COVID-19 outbreak.