Recently, a new food truck owner approached us to give them a list inexpensive food truck marketing ideas to help them get the word out about their new mobile food venture. After numerous budget discussions and reworking of our initial list of tips, we came up with a straight forward marketing guide any food truck owner can use to help set up a marketing plan.

Anyone can tell you that you not only need to find new customers for your food truck, but you also need to increase sales to your current customers. You need them to come back regularly, to bring their friends and family to eat too, to recommend your truck to their friends, and to spread the word that you serve the Best (insert your cuisine here) in Town!

Inexpensive Food Truck Marketing Ideas:

Social Media

Utilize the power, reach and low cost of social media … especially Facebook & Twitter

  • Today’s Specials. Let your customers know that they can easily find out the daily specials on your Facebook page or via Twitter. If you have a Facebook and/or twitter stream on your website, then the special will automatically show up there too.
  • Menu Changes. An easy way to let your customers know that you’ve changed things up and keep them in the loop.
  • Chef’s Tips. Become a resource for your customers and help them out in their own kitchen with tips on time-saving, food freshness, food prep, complimentary food combos … whatever you can dream up that might be useful information. Have a Weekly Recipe for home cooked meals that you promote via your blog and social media.
  • Social Only Discounts. Reward your customers for interacting with you via social media and offer them exclusive discounts with the proper code that was posted/tweeted. Make sure you put something like: Today Only, This Week, 48 Hours, etc.
  • Online to Offline Social Gatherings. Invite groups from Facebook and Twitter to have real world socials at your food truck … be sure to get all their Facebook names and twitter handles so you can thank them for hanging out around the truck afterwards. Be sure you give them one of your social-only discounts too.

Email Marketing

Make sure you’re using email marketing to it’s full advantage. The number one focus of your email needs to be the subject line and it should be short, to the point and enticing.

  • Newsletters. One of the great things about a weekly or monthly email newsletter is that you can present all the same items from the social media section, but link them back to your website/blog … especially the menu changes and chef’s tips.
  • Holiday Happenings. Give your customers a heads up on your upcoming holiday specials and events.
  • Email Contests. Contests that can only be entered via an email invitation so you can reward those who actually open and read your emails … they’ll keep opening them in hopes to find another one.
  • Customer Surveys. Feedback from your customers can often help you avoid disasters down the road. You can also use surveys as a crafty way to introduce new menu items to your customers … on your last visit, did you try our new Spinach/Artichoke Dip side dish? If not, did you not see it on the menu?

RELATED: Top 10 Tips For Food Truck Festival Marketing

Loyalty Programs

Reward the loyalty of your frequent food truck customers.

  • Loyalty Programs. Reward your customers for repeat visits. This can be as simple as a buy 10 get 1 free card or as complex as a points system built into your POS registers. Encourage customers to bring in their friends & family with buy one, get one or entree; half off deals.
  • Bouncebacks. A promotional offer given to a customer after a recent sale to encourage them to revisit soon, or “bounce back” to your mobile food business. Bouncebacks can be a straight discount, time-specific, product-specific, free item with purchase or BOGO (buy one, get one). You can give a greater discount for the customer returning during off-peak hours (20% off Lunch or 10% off Dinner) … only use generic discounts with first time customers, not repeat customers, since you don’t want to create a perception of lower value offerings.
  • VIP Party. Throw a private party with free food (and drinks?) for a selection of your most loyal and long-standing customers … even better, let them bring a plus 1. You’ll be amazed at how much buzz this can create for your truck.

RELATED: 5 Food Truck Strategies To Attract Customers

Miscellaneous

Think outside the box for unusual ways places to further the food truck marketing ideas you use for your customers.

  • Charity Fundraiser. Chose 1 day to promote that 10% of All Sales will be donated to a local charity … send out a press release to the local papers and television stations about the event.
  • Contests. Everyone loves a contest … be it competitions, games, giveaways, raffles … whatever you can dream up.
  • Holiday Parties. Let customers know that they can rent your catering services for their holiday parties.
  • Customer Receipt: Print, or even hand write a special discount on the receipt redeemable on the customer’s next visit to your service window.
  • Walk Away Order Boxes. If you use generic, non-branded boxes, write down the date of the meal (customer convenience), what’s in the box, and your food truck’s name.

The Bottom Line

As a final note for you to remember. When using any food truck marketing ideas it’s important to make sure that a consistent “personality” is presented to your target audience. All of these marketing ideas should be tailored to fit the concept of your food truck to keep the differentiation of your truck from other food trucks and restaurants in your area.

Do you have any additional food truck marketing ideas we may have missed? If so, please feel free to share them on social media. Twitter | Facebook