Are you planning to dip your toes in the food industry by starting a food truck? Or maybe expanding your restaurant with a mobile food station? If you want your efforts to translate into a successful long-term business, you must first tackle food truck branding.
By branding your food truck, you create a unitary image across all platforms that clients will soon grow to recognize and appreciate. It will also help you differentiate your business from your competitors, persuading potential customers to choose your food truck over other options.
Why You Must Brand Your Food Truck
Branding is a process that should be done immediately after you decide to open a business, before investing in ingredients and equipment. Here is what you will achieve with food truck branding:
- Consistency in communication: a consistent tone of voice on all channels signals to people you are a professional business, that puts a lot of effort into increasing the customer experience;
- A recognizable brand image: ideally, you want to brand your food truck so people instantly think about you when they see certain colors or a specific tagline;
- Increased brand loyalty: branding helps you communicate better with your clients and create a connection that will persuade them to come back time and time again;
- An edge over your competitors: food trucks that ignore branding blend in with the rest and don’t get noticed by customers. Create an advantage for you by investing time and money in branding.
Read more: 12 Restaurant Branding Ideas to Build a Memorable Presence
5 Simple Steps for Food Truck Branding
Food truck branding may seem complicated at first, but it is all about better defining your business and your goals. We’ll guide you along the process so you can succeed in no time:
1. Create a mission statement for your food truck
This is probably the hardest part of food truck branding, but also the most important because it will help you create a Unique Selling Proposition that you can use to stand out.
A mission statement should tell your target market who you are, what you are doing, and what your values are. Here are a few questions that will help you get started:
- Why did you open a food truck?
- What are you hoping to achieve with your business?
- What makes your food truck unique?
- How are you going to accomplish your goals?
Check out these examples for inspiration:
- “We are Green on Wheels, a food truck serving healthy dishes to busy workers. Our meals give you the nutrition you need for an active day. Find us near your office where we guarantee speedy preparation.”
- “Sweetooth is your go-to food truck for when you are craving something sweet, but don’t want to feel guilty about it. All our menu items are sugar-free and low calorie, so you can indulge with a tasty treat whenever you want.”
Read more: Restaurant Target Market: How to Identify It and Why It Is Important for Your Business
2. Position your business on the market
You may be passionate about tacos, but if there are already countless other taco food trucks in your area, you may have a hard time getting your business noticed.
That’s why it is important to do some market research and find a niche that people are interested in and where there is not much competition.
Read more: Market Research for Restaurants 101: Guide to Long-Term Success
After you find out more about the food market in your area, it is time to establish:
- Place: where will you be located? Your restaurant has the advantage of being on wheels, so you can select multiple locations. Choose ones where there will be a lot of foot traffic, while not very close to other food businesses. Furthermore, check out what permits you need to place your food truck in certain spots;
- Products: what menu items will you sell? Having a small kitchen, we recommend you stick to a small food truck menu that will also make it easier for clients to choose what to eat. Moreover, take into account that you should be able to prepare your menu items fast to not keep people waiting very long. To further increase service speed, consider using a food truck POS system that will help you better manage orders and payment;
- Price: it is important to price your menu items so you can remain a profitable business while also providing good value for money for your clients;
- Promotion: how to market a food truck? Create a marketing plan and establish a marketing budget to make your launch as seamless as possible.
- Service: are you planning to only serve people at your location? Or do you want to increase sales by allowing people to place takeaway and delivery orders? An online ordering system will make it easy for you to manage online orders.
Read more: How to Create a Marketing Budget Plan for Restaurant Success in 4 Easy Steps
3. Decide on your food truck’s tone of voice
Developing a tone of voice as part of your food truck branding will give your business more personality. It will also help keep you consistent when you communicate with clients on your website, social media, and review platforms.
To decide on the tone of voice, think about your food truck as a person. How would you like it to be? Maybe fun, always joking, and available to talk to your customers? Or maybe serious, more reserved, and focused on providing quality food and service?
4. Develop a food truck brand book
A brand book will contain all the elements of your branding and make it easier for you to maintain a unitary image. While we’ve already covered most of the branding items in the first steps, you still need to create the design elements.
Ideally, you should work with a professional who can help you with a logo and other design items you may need for your food truck’s décor that are in line with your business’s persona.
In the end, your brand book must have:
- Brand name
- Unique Selling Proposition
- Mission Statement
- Position on the Market
- Tone of voice
- Logo
- Brand colors
- Brand fonts
- Design elements
Read more: 7 Restaurant Logo Design Ideas to Craft a Highly Appealing Brand
5. Make your branding obvious online and offline
Now that you’ve done the work on food truck branding, you must let the world know. Therefore, the last step will be an ongoing one because you will be doing brand awareness for as long as you are open.
Here is where your branding should be visible offline:
- On your food truck: invest in a great design for your food truck because it will be the first thing clients notice. You will also use the photo of your truck to promote your business online, so it must be striking. Hire a painter to translate your branding into an impressive work of art on your food truck;
- Signage: you may want to place signs a few meters away from your truck guiding people to your location;
- Menu: on top of the written menu at the location, you can also share a QR code to make it easier for your clients to browse the menu. This will be very helpful when there is a line and not everyone can get close enough to read it;
- Flyers: you can use them to get the word out about your business in the locations where you settle.
Read more: 10 Food Truck Marketing Ideas That Are Guaranteed to Work
Don’t forget to stick to your branding online as well:
- On your website: your food truck may only be open a few hours a day, but your website will be available non-stop. Use an intuitive restaurant website builder to get a sales and SEO-optimized food truck website that will reach your audience and persuade them to order;
- Social media: it is no secret social media marketing is a must for food trucks. It is where you can find your clients, communicate with them, and tempt them with your delicious menu items;
- Online reviews: you must reply to every review, be it bad or good. And when you do so, use the established tone of voice to ensure a unitary image across platforms;
- Online paid ads: if you decide to invest in marketing, don’t forget to use the colors in the brand book, the design elements, and the tone of voice.
Read more: How to use digital marketing for restaurants to boost brand recognition
Final Words
Now that you know how to do food truck branding, it is time to turn the knowledge into action. Don’t forget to pair your branding with efficient technology, like our online ordering system, to create an excellent customer experience.
