Nobody ever said that running a successful food truck business would be easy. First, you had to come up with the necessary capital to buy a food truck at an affordable price. Then finding the right balance between ingredient costs and prices to earn a steady profit proved to be another challenge. Now you have finally found a great concept, a bunch of loyal customers and a team of fantastic employees. Yet your business fails to grow. What should you do?
Finding an effective advertising strategy for your food truck is a vital step to meet this goal. Fortunately enough, thanks to the impressive reach of social media, this project is not as much expensive or time-consuming than it used to be.
Keep reading to learn more about the essentials of marketing in the food truck industry.
Retweet People Who Talk About Your Food Truck
There are many social media management tools available, like Hootsuite and Buffer that will help you to track discussions about your brand. If you jump into these conversations you may easily promote yourself to that person and their friends. It is a quick and almost effortless form of marketing that can provide surprisingly effective results.
Learn How to Respond to Negative Feedback
Negative feedback can be painful, to say the least. But it comes with the territory. Answering to a disgruntled customer with an open (yet not servile) attitude will show everyone else how much you care. Never ignore even the most negative review. Instead, engage those clients who complain about something by responding with solutions or suggestions. There may be a chance that some of them will eventually change their review to a positive one!
Share Positive Press as Much as Possible
While negative reviews are too be expected, you are bound to receive positive feedback as well. Whether you paid a for advertisement in a local magazine or newspaper, or you simply attracted the attention of local media, there’s a chance that your food truck might become the target of some positive press. Whenever you are mentioned by a local, national or digital news outlet, take full advantage of this opportunity and spread the word by sharing it on your social pages.
Post Enticing Pictures of Daily Specials
Facebook, Twitter and especially Instagram are great places to engage your followers and fans with enticing photos of a menu special. A great photo will increase loyalty as it helps your best customers show their friends how tasty your food is. It can attract hungry customers to your service window and even spark an interesting conversation that will naturally boost your post through other users’ feeds.
Offer Incentives for Social Shares
Everyone loves free stuff. Try creating a Facebook or Instagram post to offer complimentary or bonus food to the first 25 people that tag your company’s food trailers in their social media pictures. It will engage your customers, and attract a lot of new people who scout the web to farm new giveaways. Friends of these users will see the post since it has many interactions, and can boost it up even further by adding new comments.
Post A Poll For Users to Express Their Opinions
It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to create a poll on Facebook. If you ask a question, your loyal customers will feel like they’re part of your decision process, increasing their engagement. Additionally, you will receive a lot of useful feedback that can help you to better cater to your customers’ needs. Be sure that you’re willing to change your menu according to the results of the poll, however.
Reach Out to Local Food Bloggers/YouTubers
Local food bloggers and YouTubers are an incredibly effective way to market your brand. Although everyone knows that their contents are sponsored, all the fans who follow their channels will know that your brand exists if you sponsor it, actually increasing your brand awareness. Reach out to them and invite them to your food truck. Offer them a free side dish and ask them to mention your food truck in an upcoming post and watch your customer base grow.
The Bottom Line
Traditional advertising methods do not work as they used to do. Whereas the boomer generation was easily marketed to in traditional print, millennials need to be addressed in new, smarter ways. A large majority of their interactions occur in social media, so that’s the place where you want to market yourself today. Think of social media like a modern “digital plaza” where you can promote your brand in many creative, simple and cost-effective ways.
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