You’ve started an awesome food truck with a great concept, loyal customers and wonderful employees; but you want to grow your business. Finding effective marketing techniques for your food truck is the first step to meeting this goal. The best part, is that with the advent of social media this project doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming.

For today’s article we came up with 10 effective marketing ideas to promote your food truck in 30 minutes or less.

10 Effective Marketing Ideas To Promote Your Food Truck

Retweet People Talking About Your Food Truck

Using social media management tools like Hootsuite make it easy to track conversations about your food truck. Jumping into these conversations, especially without being prompted, is quick and effective marketing.

RELATED: Adding Hootsuite To Your Social Media Toolbox

Respond To Negative Feedback

Just as you should never ignore newspaper food truck reviews, you shouldn’t ignore negative feedback that comes through social media. Engage customers with complaints by responding with suggestions or solutions.

RELATED: How To Deal With Negative Customer Reviews

Post A Photo Of A Daily Special

Engage your fans and followers by posting photos of a menu special on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Not only can a great photo spark conversation, it can also attract hungry customers to your service window.

RELATED: Food Photography Tips

Hand Out Business Cards At A Local Event

Although face to face networking isn’t as easy as social media networking, people still love face to face communication. Taking a half hour to go to a local event your truck isn’t attending can be a quick and cost-effective way to market your mobile food business.

RELATED: Food Truck Business Cards

Offer A Complimentary Food For Likes Or Comments

Create a Facebook post that offers a complimentary side dish to the first 25 people to like or comment. Not only are you engaging your fans, but their friends will see the interaction which will create an even wider amount of discussion about your truck.

Post A Poll On Facebook

It only takes a few minutes to create a poll on Facebook. Ask a question and get your customers to weigh-in with their opinions. Questions like what seasonal entree would they like to see added permanently to the menu will give you relevant feedback while engaging your Facebook fans. Just make sure that if you run this type of poll that you are willing to implement a change based on this feedback.

Share Positive Press On Social Media Networks

While this may seem like a no-brainer, but many food trucks don’t take advantage of the positive press that they receive. If you are mentioned by a local or national news outlet, spread the word by sharing it with your followers.

Publically Praise Employees

Take a few minutes to recognize your employee of the month (if you don’t have a program like this…start one now) or to share a quick story about an employee who has recently gone above and beyond their daily tasks. Sharing positive news about your food truck employees not only boosts morale but reflects well on the culture you are building in your food truck.

Reach Out To Local Food Truck/Food Bloggers

Find out who the local food bloggers are in your area and invite them to your food truck. Offer a free entree or side dish and ask if they would mind mentioning your food truck in an upcoming post.

Weigh-In On A Current Events

Effective marketing comes when the consumers see you as something other than the typical money-hungry food business. Humanize your food truck business and remove the disconnect between you and your profits. Do this by engaging in topics that don’t center around YOU. Just be sure not to delve too far into politics or religion. It’s too easy to lose a customer if they feel alienated after reading about how you feel about their favorite presidential candidate.

The Bottom Line

The current trend by this generation’s consumers has shown their disdain for traditional advertising and promotion. So, how can you approach the situation and employ non-traditional, creative and cost effective marketing tactics to promote your food truck? We hope this article has given you some ideas.

What have you found to be effecting marketing strategies for your food truck? Share your thoughts in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter