The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, or the law of the vital few) states that, for many marketing, roughly 20% of your customers drive 80% of your sales. This means that there’s always a core group of loyal customers who not only spend money at your food truck, they bring their friends, give your truck glowing reviews, and otherwise work as brand ambassadors for your food truck.

Determining who those 20% are can be a full time job, just to target them effectively. Today we’ll share some tips to bring your food truck marketing up to date.

How To Use The Pareto Principle To Market Your Food Truck

So how does the Pareto Principle apply to your food truck?  Well, for starters, your food truck is a business.  And as a business, food trucks have products that need to be sold to the right customer.  Every day your truck has the opportunity to learn more about your customers: how often they show up at your service window, how much they spend, and what they order.

The more you know, the better you can target your promotions and marketing.  Too often food truck vendors take a blanket approach to their marketing campaigns. This type of advertising includes ads in local media and general coupons.  As more food trucks pop up to compete for the same customers, this type of marketing approach simply doesn’t work anymore.

RELATED: Marketing Truths ALL Food Truck Owners Should Know

Know Your Customer

You’ve probably heard this one before, but it has never been more true.  The main difference is that you have many more ways to get to know your customer today.  For food trucks specifically, consider some strategies to learn more about your customers.

  • Hold a raffle/service window prize event.  Customers who place an order can fill out a card with their email address, favorite menu item, or anything you want to know about them.
  • Use an email marketing campaign to engage customers and collect information about them.
  • Conduct surveys, either electronically or on paper at your food truck.
  • Use coupons to learn more about your customers. If you can collect an email when a customer redeems a coupon for a specific menu item, then you can use that information to target them for specific types of future promotions.

Leverage Your Knowledge

Now that you’ve put some effort into collecting information about your customers, you need to leverage that information to your advantage.  Separate customers into specific groups with particular tastes.  Then target those groups with specially tailored promotions made just for them.  The goal is to get your conversion rates higher.

Engage Your Followers

Targeting smaller groups of loyal customers should generate an enthusiastic response.  And when customers respond, you should be ready to engage them.  The tools you have available to you today make customer engagement even easier.  Experiment with different social media sites until you find the platform that works for you.

Review, Rinse, Repeat

The idea of targeting smaller groups is that they will respond at higher rates than using traditional marketing strategies.  The key is to find out the results and then determine how and what worked. Use coupon codes and other ways to measure who’s using what, and then modify and improve your tactics until you have it setup as a well oiled machine.

RELATED: Low Cost Marketing Solutions For Food Truck Vendors

The Bottom Line

The Pareto Principle has long been hailed as the Holy Grail of marketing, the one rule by which all marketing efforts succeed or fail. For those willing to put the time in in tracking the 20%, finding out who they are and how they respond to your marketing, the gains can be huge.

Do you use the Pareto Principle in your food truck marketing? Share any addition tips on this topic in the comment section or social media. Facebook | Twitter