If you just bought a food truck, or you are contemplating buying a food truck, you are naturally wondering how to market a food truck business. Luckily, you don’t need a business degree or a marketing degree to attract customers. All you really need is to know your customers and what they like to keep them coming back for more. But it still helps to get some advice from professionals who have done it before.
This article is intended to help new food truck owners, or aspiring food truck business owners, learn about the different types of marketing that work well for their industry.
How to Market a Food Truck
The food truck business is competitive and knowing how to market yourself is an absolute necessity if you want to survive. These food truck marketing tips will help you build and grow an audience for your business.
1. Create Eye-catching Exterior Designs
You will want to make sure your exterior food truck design allows you to actually convert traffic brought in from marketing. After all, if you get 200 people in a day coming to your food truck because they saw your menu on social media, but if the food truck design doesn’t make a connection with potential customers, and they leave to eat at a competing truck, the marketing efforts are in vain. After all, what good is traffic if it doesn’t convert to a sale?
That said, the food truck design should reflect your menu, appeal to your target buyer audience, and reflect the primary area you work in. For example, if your food truck sells gourmet surf and turf on a beach where surfing is popular and there are lots of locals and tourists that pass through the area, a vinyl wrap food truck design featuring a surfer wearing a tuxedo-wetsuit eating lobster on a fancy table with the cityscape in the background and the waves off to one side will communicate the menu in a fun way that will attract people and make them curious. A design like this is that baited hook that converts sales once the marketing efforts have brought them to your business.
2. Be Active On Social Media
Social media marketing is likely going to be your best marketing channel for growing your business. The food truck culture is thriving, and the same cohorts that love these trucks are also social media addicts.
When you use platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram you can let your fans know where you will be, when, what the specials are, and run promotions. In fact, word of mouth spreads quickly and there are large numbers of people from out-of-state who follow food trucks simply because their friends rave about them, and the business owner created fun, engaging content. And when these people and all of their friends and family head to your city, you can guarantee they will look you up.
So not only can social media marketing attract loyal locals, but even people from afar. In fact, many food truck business owners report that earnings solely from social media marketing helped pay off their food truck financing loan within the first two years alone.
3. Get a Website and Run an SEO Strategy
A large percentage of people who try food trucks for the first time do so unintentionally: they want sushi, turn to Google to find the best sushi joints in the city, and when creative food trucks pop up in the results, many people give them a shot. Your website should reflect your food truck’s exterior design, menu, and speak to your target customers. And make sure your SEO specialist knows how to write buyer-focused content that will help you rank for the right search terms that lead to sales.
Build Your Food Truck Business Today
You want to give your customers a memorable experience when they visit your food truck and we are here to help. From flashing lights and booming sounds to seamless transactions, we will employ the latest technologies such as LED lights, digital menu boards, speaker systems, and mobile POS systems to create a memorable experience for your customers. We can even set you up with a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot to attract new guests. Use our custom food truck builder to get started now!
