Your Food Truck Marketing Plan

Your flat top is hot and your fryer is ready. You’ve spent hours and hours testing your menu, to see how quickly you can cook each dish in the small space you have. Your friends and family love the concept and you know the food tastes great. You’ve gotten the permits and hookups you need, and the food truck has a full tank of gas. You're ready to go!

So where are the customers?

When you’re running a truck, the food is important. But so is restaurant marketing, community outreach, and strategic partnerships. The food truck business is incredibly competitive, which means you need to put together a plan in order to create hype, and let people know how they can actually find your truck!

All restaurants need a marketing plan. Check out our 2021 Restaurant Marketing Plan template and calendar, and keep reading to learn the nuances of food truck marketing, some specific food truck marketing strategies to try, and tips on driving customers to your mobile business.

Social Media Marketing for Food Trucks

Social media is critical for food trucks. Since it’s a mobile business, your customers need to  follow your feeds in order to know where to find you! It’s crucial to keep your location and hours updated constantly, because you don’t want to disappoint a customer who mistakenly went to the wrong location. 

Nowadays, if you’re not regularly posting new content, you’re not doing enough to market your business. Even if you’re not on the road on any given day, you never want to miss an opportunity to introduce new people to your food truck concept! So engage with your audience. Use stories to ask your followers where they want to see your food truck parked. Take photos of the new recipes and secret menu items you are testing. And of course, make sure your hours and location are updated.

People spend hours on social media every day, and yet, so many food trucks still lack a social media presence. We understand that the daily demands of posting can feel overwhelming, but it’s a critical step to let people know where you are!

Here are some examples of amazing food truck businesses using social media in unique ways: 

• Bing Mi - Portland Oregon - Instagram

• La Maceta 52, San Antonio, Texas - Tik Tok

Food Truck Partnerships with Bars and Breweries

Bars who don’t serve food are looking for ways to bring customers in and keep them drinking. Many of them partner with multiple food trucks, and rotate them throughout the week. Breweries are also excellent to join forces with, because many of them are located in industrial complexes further away from a city’s metro area. This provides more room for ample parking and an outdoor sitting area for your customers. 

So reach out to your favorite drinking hole or brewery, to see if they’d like to add a new concept to their food truck rotation. Once you get on a regular schedule, the local brewery-goers might just become your loyal customers!

Here are some examples of food truck businesses that partner with Bars/Breweries: 

• Tikila’s and Hot And Buttered - Houston, Texas

• Ponysaurus Brewing and Little Pizza Box - Durham, North Carolina

Food Truck Email Marketing and Loyalty Apps

With Instagram and Facebook, why do I need email? When social media apps are used to find and attract new customers, email should be used to engage with your loyal, returning customers. When customers sign up for your email list, they trust that they will be the first to know about news and updates, such as off-menu items, new merchandise, and exclusive discounts. 

Your loyal, returning customers are the ones that will help you build hype for your food truck, by influencing others to go out of their way to find you. Email is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolbox, because in the long-term, your most passionate customer base will do a lot of the marketing for you! 

Toast has an exclusive online package that includes email marketing and loyalty, geared towards smaller restaurants and food trucks. You may not have the budget to use more advanced tools like MailChimp or ConstantContact, so our online Starter Kit ‘Growth Plan’ package is designed to help you get started. 

Related Food Truck Resources

• How Much Does it Cost to Start a Food Truck
• How to Start a Food Truck Business
• Best Food Truck Ideas
• Food Truck POS System
• Food Truck Name Ideas
• Food Truck Equipment
• Food Truck Design Ideas
• Food Truck Websites
• Food Truck Marketing Ideas
• Food Truck Menu Ideas
• How Much Do Food Trucks Make
• How to Do Food Truck Branding
• Food Truck Business Plan Template
• Food Truck Design Ideas
• Food Truck Licenses and Permits
• Food Truck POS Comparison Tool
• Best Food Truck POS Systems
• Food Truck Supplies