This year, as restaurants experienced hardships like never before, other parts of the hospitality industry discovered that they face different challenges. Food trucks, usually reliant on foot traffic to get by, are pivoting online. Since they never offered sit-down service, they haven’t lost out on that operational cost. The ability to work like a ghost kitchen has allowed takeout to flourish—provided the food truck owners optimize their business.
Food trucks need to find a way to reach customers in their homes. With customers spending more and more time inside and online, you’ll need to set up a website to centralize your new marketing endeavors.
7 Things Food Truck Websites Need
For many customers, the website is their first impression. Many customers order on-the-go or from their smartphones, so it should be usable on mobile if you want to stay connected with modern consumers.
Your website should be the marketing hub of your food truck, a place for customers to connect with your brand and learn everything they need to know about the business before they visit. The most successful websites link to your social media, and your social media and ad campaigns should all connect back to the website. Then you can track traffic to see where your customers are finding you, what ad campaigns are working and whether adjustments need to be made to continue exponential growth. Are they coming from your Facebook? Google? Somewhere else? This informs future marketing efforts because you can focus on the channels that work.
A successful food truck website also includes:
Contact information including your location, especially if your truck moves around on different days of the week.
A menu that’s also been optimized for mobile use, including simple but enticing descriptions and mouthwatering photographs of your food.
Landing pages that tell your story. From a mission statement to your humble origins to big plans to scale the business, a human touch will deepen your customer relationships, increase loyalty and improve guest retention.
SEO optimization to reach a wider audience. Services like Google My Business guarantee you end up in applicable searches made by locals.
As your business grows, your reputation will grow with it. Build credibility by focusing on customer service and then showcasing positive reviews. A lot of people look up a new business before they try it, so displaying good feedback can beget more of them by enticing people to you over a nearby competitor.
Food Trucks and the Future
Modern consumer trends indicate that online ordering will continue to play a significant role in the hospitality industry landscape, evolving alongside guest preferences. Takeout and call-ahead options are important to people on-the-go, especially since you likely can’t offer delivery without paying hefty third party commission fees. Optimize those alternative revenue streams now so you’re ready to meet whatever comes next, as soon as it comes.
Streamline your food truck business to be faster, contact-free and more efficient. Schedule a demo with eatOS to learn how we’re ushering in the future of food service, today.
