Branding is an essential aspect of marketing for a food truck. It establishes how and why your truck is different from other mobile food businesses. A food truck’s branding cycle is a circular process that involves your product, positioning, promise, presentation, perseverance, and perception analysis.

Understanding The Food Truck Branding Cycle

Every aspect of marketing begins with knowing your customer, which means identifying your truck and knowing everything you can about the people who make up your market. It means knowing who they are, what matters most to them, where you can find them, how to get their attention and when is the best time to put your message in front of them.

Product

Your product (your food) is the important first step in your food truck branding cycle. A vendor can brand products, services, themselves or a personality. The branding cycle starts by defining what you’re branding and whether your brand will be one thing or one of several in your food truck organization.

Positioning

Every product in your food truck business needs to fill a unique, meaningful, and available spot in the marketplace and in the consumer’s mind.

Promise

A brand is a promise to your customers. It can define your entire food truck business and thus it needs to touch every aspect of your company. Your brand needs to provide a sense of confidence in your customers that develop expectations for your food truck brand.

The promise you make and keep is the backbone of the brand cycle and the basis of your food truck’s reputation.

Presentation

How you present your food truck brand can make or break your ability to develop consumer interest in your menu. Start with a great name, logo and food truck wrap.

Then begin consumer communications that establish your food truck brand that conveys a compelling message, engages your audience, and builds two way communication with local consumers.

Perseverance

This is the point in the branding cycle where many food trucks lose steam. After a food truck brand is established, vendors often begin to improvise with new menu items, new messages, and even new promises.

Just when consistency is most needed to gain clarity and confidence in your local marketplace, food truck brands that lack persistence head off track.

Perception Analysis

Great food truck brands constantly keep an eye on their brand perception. This allows them to see that the vendor’s ideas are in synch with consumer wants and needs.

Based on the results of perception analysis, food truck vendors begin their trip around the branding cycle again, this time adjusting products, fine tuning positioning statements, strengthening promises, updating presentations, monitoring perceptions in preparation for brand realignment.

RELATED: 5 Questions To Ask To Conduct A Food Truck Brand Audit

The Bottom Line

The branding cycle is a never ending process which businesses go through to maintain, develop and overhaul their brand. Made up of the 6 Ps, the branding cycle consist of product, positioning, promise, presentation, perseverance and perception analysis. After that, you repeat, cyclically forever.

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