When marketing your food truck, you want to make the most of the money you’ve budgeted for your advertising. Unlike the large corporate brick and mortar restaurants that spend millions of dollars on television commercials, as a mobile food business you need to plan carefully and spend your offline marketing dollars wisely.
In today’s world, the Internet has become one of the most popular and low-budgeted means of advertising. However, not every food truck owner will have success with online advertising. A food truck business has to work harder to get their name in the public eye. This is because you are not in a set location every day. There are several offline marketing strategies you can employ that do not involve the typical methods of advertising and are relatively low cost.
4 Tasty Tips For Offline Marketing For Food Trucks
Local Media
Take advantage of the media in the town or city in which you operate. Local newspapers and magazines quite often will write business profiles for their paper. An ad you place in the newspaper is apt to get lost within the scope of all the others. Readers will notice a food truck business profile. Take the first step and contact your local newspaper or a local magazine and ask if they would be interested in doing a profile on your mobile food business. Prepare yourself for this interview and focus on what your food truck has to offer and why they should choose to focus on your business instead of another.
Sponsor Your Community
Getting involved with the community in which you live in is a major advertising strategy. For example, sponsor a local team sport, such as Little League Baseball or Hockey. Soon you’ll have ten or more children running around with your food truck’s name and logo on their back. When their parents are bragging, they’ll end up mentioning your truck’s name when telling their friends and relatives what team their child is on.
Collect Written Testimonials
When a customer states you’ve provided a great meal for them, don’t be afraid to ask them for a written testimonial on Yelp or some other online medium. It can also be as simple as a quick thank you note. These written testimonials should be added to your marketing materials. This includes your web site or any other material you hand out from your truck. Testimonials add a trust factor to your mobile food business.
Encourage Referrals
Set up a referral system. Offer your existing customers something free from your menu for referring someone else to your truck. When applying this method of advertising make the referral system action oriented. The customer will get their free item only if their referral purchases something from your truck or cart.
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The Bottom Line
When you own a food truck business, advertising dollars will always need to be spent wisely. It is important that with each advertising platform you use, you need to set up a tracking system to monitor each advertising method used. This will allow you to analyze the success or failure of each approach you have utilized.
The outcome of each advertising campaign you use for your food truck will help you to determine the best way to spend your offline marketing dollars.
If you have any other suggestions for offline marketing for mobile food vendors, please share them on social media. Facebook | Twitter
