How To Increase The Average Order Value For Your Food Truck Business?

Since the pandemic, food trucks have been all the rage among restaurant-goers in most urban cities. The quarantine rules dramatically affected the restaurant business, encouraging many restaurant owners to set up food trucks. Many independent chefs or people wanting to enter the restaurant business start their food trucks as it requires a small amount of capital, which is often the biggest hurdle for people wishing to start a restaurant business.

But just buying and setting up a food truck is one thing, and running a profitable food truck business is an entirely different ballgame. In this article, we will discuss different ideas and ways concerning food truck marketing plans and pricing strategies to help owners increase their average order value.

Try To Find A Unique Identity For Your Food Truck

Understanding how to market a food truck business is as essential as serving delicious food. A successful food truck must have a unique identifier attached to it. It can be anything ranging from the food cuisines, the type of ingredients you use, or the aesthetics of your food truck. Once you find this identity, you must make this your unique selling point. 

Data suggests that food truck businesses greatly profit from word-of-mouth recommendations. A unique selling point will help customers identify with your food truck, increasing footfall and sales.

Develop A Correct Food Truck Pricing Strategy

Pricing can be somewhat tricky, but it is also one of the essential factors to consider for food truck owners. One of the best ways to get the prices for the food your serve right is to get customer feedback. 

The location of the food truck also affects the pricing significantly. For example, a food truck in a posh and well-off locality with offices and supermarkets nearby can charge more money. Food truck owners can take help from marketing research teams to help them decide on proper pricing in conjunction with customer feedback.

Create An Efficient Service Environment

Customers tend to stay and order more food at places with a streamlined service system. It is especially true for food trucks as there are no seating arrangements like restaurants or food courts, and most of your customers have to stand in line to order their food. A clogged-up or slow delivery will discourage customers from ordering more food. 

Food truck owners can invest in a sound POS system, making order billing and docking more efficient. Modern POS systems like OrderEm also offer customer analysis data, which can inform you about your best-selling items and those that are not so popular. So you can replace them and chalk out your strategies accordingly. New-age POS systems can send personalized emails to loyal customers about the food truck's whereabouts.

Invest In Effective Marketing

Unlike giant restaurant chains, food trucks do not have the resources to invest in proper traditional product marketing. Social media has somewhat leveled the playing field, and food truck owners can now fully utilize its power to cultivate an online audience. You can use social media to inform your customers about the menu and offer specific discounts, like maybe an early bird discount, to people who visit the food truck regularly. 

Another way to use social media to promote food is to add pictures and short videos of dishes on social media websites like Twitter and Instagram. You can use hashtags to create a buzz about your food truck and make it popular among collegegoers. All of this can significantly help in increasing food truck sales and general customer footfall.

Use Fresh Local Ingredients

Ultimately, a food truck must have good food, so it is up to you to ensure that the food you make in these food trucks is worth the effort and money of the customers. As a food truck owner, you can buy fresh local ingredients for your dishes or source them from a reliable vendor. It will not only help you serve healthy and nutritious food but can greatly help you in your marketing efforts.

There is more than one benefit to using local ingredients. Local ingredients are generally cheaper and fresher, so food cooked with local ingredients will be more delicious. Secondly, more local people are encouraged to buy food from your food truck as it is a matter of supporting the community.

Offer Free Delivery

Food delivery in the past few years has revolutionized the food truck business, and owners must understand how to use this service to their advantage. Generally, a food truck can be in a single place at a time, which means people located far away from the food truck will have to travel a considerable distance to reach it. That is where food delivery service comes in handy since it can deliver food to customers who are seemingly far away from the truck. 

Many surveys point out that most people prefer food from places that offer free and fast delivery. Food truck owners can tie up with several third-party delivery services or hire delivery people who can take responsibility for their own delivery service. This way, you are not only creating employment opportunities but also increases the scope of your business.

Partner With Local Establishments

Partnering with local businesses is one of the best ways to promote your food truck. Local establishments or community parks can greatly increase food truck sales as you get more orders due to positive word of mouth. Food truck owners can offer discounts or complimentary dishes to people belonging to partner establishments. 

For example, if you partner with a nearby office, most office employees will likely order lunch daily from you, provided they find your food tasty. It will help you get an idea of your expected sales, and you can make arrangements in time without any hassle. Further, it increases sales and attracts more customers.

Mix Up The Menu

Food truck owners must play around with their menu once in a while. You can offer certain unique food items made with exotic vegetables. It will encourage regular customers to add such food items to their regular food orders.

A great way to add to your average order value is to offer combo meals on your menu. Combo meals, although somewhat cheaper, are one of the best ways to get customers to spend more and upsell food trucks. Further, the variety will keep people excited and intrigued to open up your menu more often.

Take Up Catering Jobs

Although this is not a direct way to increase average order value, taking up local catering jobs is among the best ways to promote food trucks. People who attend the event will try your food, and if they like it enough, they are bound to seek out the location of your food truck.

To Conclude

Success in the food industry requires a lot of patience and perseverance from a food truck owner. You can incrementally increase food truck sales by knowing how to promote food truck and making minor tweaks to your food truck sales strategy.