A Great Marketing Strategy For a Food Truck

In today's episode we talk about three marketing strategies for food truck owners which included:

-  The purple cow phenomenon

-  How you can leverage Instagram stories to grow

-  Why building your brand around a cause is impactful on so many levels

Aaron: [00:00:17] Hey,guys. Thanks for tuning into episode 6 of the Marketing Natives. Today we'retalking about three great marketing strategies for food trucks. What we'regoing to talk about today is purple cows, finding a cause to support, andsocial media, but we're going to take a deep dive into Instagram.

Christian: [00:00:35] Ilike it.

Franklin: [00:00:37] Ifeel like I'm very prepared for this episode.

Christian: [00:00:39] Sothat's good.

Franklin: [00:00:41] Iread a book like four times, and I didn't know that- I would be able to use theknowledge that I gained, but I can use it right now.

Christian: [00:00:50] Cool.So. OK. Go ahead. Dive right in.

Franklin: [00:00:52] I'lldive right into it and say that the number one thing that I feel like youshould do and I've learned today from you guys that it's creating a purple cow,right? Now, I'm going to let Aaron explain what exactly a purple cow is, butdiving right into, it's really what I think is creating a conversation piece toget people actually talking about this food truck. And I'm just going to givetwo examples that were in the book. The name of the book is called"Contagious," and there's a restaurant in Philadelphia called BarclayPrime. They created a 100 dollar cheesesteak.

Christian: [00:01:33] What?

Franklin: [00:01:34] Onehundred dollars. 1-0-0 with a dollar sign in the front.

Aaron: [00:01:38] Thisthing better be huge, like a foot long or.

Franklin: [00:01:40] It'snot.

Aaron: [00:01:40] Imean, I don't know. Like, ten feet long.

Franklin: [00:01:44] It'sa normal size cheesecake- cheesesteak, guys, and it's really good. All theingredients in it are, like, some of the prime cuts and all that differentstuff that makes.

Christian: [00:01:55] Goldflakes. Yeah.

Franklin: [00:01:57] Exactly.It's a really expensive cheesesteak, but they created it and put it on theirmenu so that people can come in and find a way to pay for this cheesesteak sothat they can eat it.

Christian: [00:02:07] Andabout 16 friends come join me.

Franklin: [00:02:10] Exactly.

Aaron: [00:02:10] Everyonegets a bite.

Franklin: [00:02:12] Exactly,and it looks like a sample plate from Subway whenever you get finished cuttingit up, but it gives them the opportunity to purchase this cheesesteak and beable to go around town telling everybody that they actually have been able toeat this cheesesteak and get people in the door. Then also another example isthere's another a bar, it's a secret bar, in upstate New York. Or is it. No.East Village New York called Please Don't Tell. It's in the back of a regularhotdog shop where you go into this phone booth and you pick up the phone andsomeone on the other side says, hey, do you need a reservation? And you tellhow many people you're bringing in with them. And it's more or less one ofthose things that creates what the book called social currency where peoplehave the opportunity and go out and tell people about it. It's like buildingword of mouth. Like, like, like on steroids.

Christian: [00:03:05] SoAaron, what would you- You've read the book "Purple Cow," and that'swhat we're referring to.

Aaron: [00:03:10] SethGodin, we need to give credit to.

Christian: [00:03:11] Soyeah, Seth Godin, obviously. So according to the book, what is a purple cow?

Aaron: [00:03:17] Right.So I will tell you- I'll answer that question and then give an example thatthey put in the book which is a purple cow is a destination that people want togo to and then they're going to talk about. Exactly what Franklin said. It'sgoing to be something that is 40 miles away, but you don't care. You're goingto go there because you want to go there for that experience, and think aboutit this way, if you're driving down on the side of the road, me, Christian, andFranklin. Guys, imagine this going down Highway 75 in Allen, and we look overon the side of the road. We live in Texas. We see a cow. Probably not a bigdeal. But if we get down to, you know, say, Dallas area and we're going on 75and we look over on the right hand side, and you guys can see it over there.And there's a huge five foot tall, purple cow. We're going to stop, pull overon the side of the road, and take a picture of it. A cow is just something thatwe see all the time. It's just like banner blindness. So for example, if yousee the same gas station, you see the same quick trips, whatever else, like,OK. I know there's a gas station, but if you know that, for example, Bucky'sthat's a purple cow. People stop at Bucky's, go out of the way to go to Bucky'sbecause it's huge. And that is a purple cow. The example that the book gives isthe difference between Maxwell House and Starbucks. Before Starbucks there wasMaxwell House, and Maxwell House was a coffee shop or didn't have a coffeeshop. It was just coffee bought from the store and people just drink coffee todrink. Starbucks came in and said no, we want to make this a luxury. Starbucksis about an experience, and it's about a- basically it's foofoo. Whatever. I'mnot going to get into that, but it's about the gourmet style of Starbucks. Andthey could charge a hundred percent more than Maxwell House. I mean, we'rerecording this in July of 2017 and probably not very many people think ofMaxwell House as a name brand, but they killed it in the coffee industry untilStarbucks stepped over and made themselves a purple cow.

Christian: [00:05:15] Sohow does this apply to a food truck, you know? Do you guys think that'sstrictly creating a unique menu item that will get people there? Or what areother ways that a food truck could implement a purple cow?

Aaron: [00:05:31] Right.Since it's a food truck, I'd probably go with the food item.

Franklin: [00:05:34] Yeah.

Aaron: [00:05:35] Orsomething really, really cool to take a picture of on the side of the road. OrI mean on the side of the truck. If it was like a big, big portrait orsomething. It's famous, but it's really easy to do something with the foodsince you are a food truck.

Franklin: [00:05:49] Yes.

Christian: [00:05:51] Iwould say the only barrier that comes with that would be other people copyingyou.

Franklin: [00:05:57] Yes.

Christian: [00:05:58] Youknow? Because it would be so easy for someone to determine, oh, yeah, you'reusing Mayo on this tortilla and that's how you're making it taste so good.

Franklin: [00:06:06] Right.Or you can do something like Aaron said, doing something to your truck. Like,here in Dallas what we do, like, I don't know if you've guys seen it. You seethe big B and the Big G. Like it gives people the ability to stop right thereand actually take a picture in the middle of it to make the word big. Yes. Sogiving your- giving people something that they can stop and stand on the sideof your truck and take a photo, that gives them the ability to share that image,and people get asked, hey, where is that food truck and what did they serve? OrI just want to take a picture of it.

Christian: [00:06:38] Right.Yeah, so make it a destination.

Aaron: [00:06:41] Right,and whatever that is for you guys, just think creatively, but think aboutsomething and be objective. Ask yourself would you go and would you experiencethat? Would you want to experience? Because if you're passionate about it,people will know about it, and our next strategies will help out a lot moretoo.

Christian: [00:06:56] Yes.And I think moving on to the second one, it's finding a cause to support. Wefeel like a lot of ways or a lot of complaints is that food trucks, they comein from who knows where, and they swoop in, and they get the business from therestaurants around that area.

Franklin: [00:07:13] Right.

Christian: [00:07:13] Whichis not a good look, but in order to sort of cushion that blow, you can supporta cause. Something local, and I mean, that will make your food truck grow inbusiness, but at the same time, will develop a stronger tie with itssurrounding community which will be a huge, huge marketing opportunity rightthere. And this is something that, I mean. Yeah, I haven't thought of. Like, wewrote this specifically for this episode, and it's something like really notjust food trucks can do. Like, other people can implement this in theirmarketing strategies.

Franklin: [00:07:52] Right.You know, a perfect example that I can think of is that if, like, you guys havegiven blood, right? You guys have given blood before, and you see the bloodtruck go around all the time. So what if the blood truck and a food truck,like, work together, and they say, hey, instead of us giving you this coke andthis cookie after you give blood to get your levels back up, hey, go and checkout this food truck. Here's a coupon from them after you give blood, and youcan go here and eat with them. That's something that you can support. Supportand giving blood, or anything else that would involve something that isremotely or mobile that is just as mobile. I can't get my words out. As yourfood truck.

Aaron: [00:08:35] Right.We just had somebody on our Tip for Tip show that does a mobile bike service.That'd be pretty cool to go get free food from that food truck as your bike'sget worked on. Just saying.

Franklin: [00:08:44] Exactly.

Christian: [00:08:45] Yeah,technically it's not a support that you or a cause that you support, but that'smore of a partnership at that point. But yeah again, this is just a strategythat we think that it would be awesome, and it would be great for your foodtruck to find a cause, support it, you know, and get involved in communityreally.

Franklin: [00:09:07] Right.

Christian: [00:09:09] Andthe last thing we have here on the list is this great Instagram social mediastrategy, and to be honest, like, and I told the guys here earlier that Ifollow Torchy's Tacos. If you guys don't know what Torchy's is, it's just anawesome taco place here in Texas. I don't know. Are they anywhere else besidesTexas?

Aaron: [00:09:32] Idon't think they're anywhere else. There's very few of them anyway. Luckily wehave one probably a few miles away from the office.

Franklin: [00:09:38] It'sonly just, like, a mile and a half.

Christian: [00:09:42] Weliterally walk down the road and go to Torchy's. Anyways, Torchy's is justamazing, and they have great tacos. Sort of the street tacos. They have chipsand salsa, chips and queso. Anyways, I followed them on Instagram, and I thinkthey're doing a great job on Instagram. But they're not capitalizing on video,nd that's where I think food trucks could, you know, just be awesome onInstagram is using videos and taking advantage of stories inside of Instagram.More specifically the location tag on Instagram. We've experienced thisfirsthand with our BitBranding account on Instagram, and when we tag a locationon our story, we get how many more views?

Aaron: [00:10:27] Wedid one up in McKinney last week that normally we get about 40, 50, and we haveclose to five or six hundred.

Franklin: [00:10:33] Exactly.

Christian: [00:10:34] Sothat's just insane, but basically, yeah, you can expand your reach forabsolutely no money whatsoever by just using Instagram stories and adding thatlocation tag which allows you to be visible to hundreds of thousands of peoplearound the community who are using Instagram.

Franklin: [00:10:52] Andnot- And y'all correct me if I'm wrong, but not a lot of people are actuallyutilizing that right now, right?

Christian: [00:10:58] No.

Aaron: [00:10:58] No.It's a small percentage. A lot of people- I mean, there's a small percentagewho are actually using stories. It may be skewed to the people who we follow,but a small percentage of people are actually using stories and an even smalleramount recognize that you can do the location services or that you can do thehash tag service- hash tag ability on the stories as well.

Franklin: [00:11:17] Sothat means that it's safe to say that the sooner that people actually, thebusinesses and small business owners, get on this location tag, the faster thattheir channels and their social accounts will grow using- I mean, theirInstagram account will grow with using their location tag. More people in theirarea will know who they are.

Christian: [00:11:39] Absolutely.Now, right now I'm guessing the algorithm that adds, you know, your personalstory to a location story, and that's why it gets seen a lot more. And I feellike almost every time you tag a location, it automatically gets added to thatlocation story, but now that you're saying, like, oh, if you get morebusinesses in here or more people doing this, I'm guessing the algorithm isgoing to change a little bit.

Aaron: [00:12:04] Itabsolutely will change. It's kind of like what Instagram did with the verybeginning. You're going to see everybody's post, and then now you only seewho's most popular. So, it has to go to that, but there's nobody using it, sojump on it while you can.

Franklin: [00:12:16] Exactly.

Christian: [00:12:17] Andjust make it interesting. I mean once that change in the algorithm hits andyou've already been doing it for so long and now you've creating sort of aformula or creat a formula to get really cool stories in there, then I meanyou're ahead of the game right there.

Franklin: [00:12:32] Right.It's like running a- it's like running a sprinting race that you won't ever gettired of it or ever get tired in. You're ahead, and no one will ever be able tocatch up with you.

Christian: [00:12:43] Yeah.Anyway so, this Instagram stories is, I mean, the main huge point right hereand engaging people with I would say 90 percent of your content to be video. Iknow we're talking about, you know, the stories, but also build a followingwith you actual Instagram account.

Aaron: [00:13:01] Right,and come up with a hash tag for it as well. Like I said, you can use hashtagsinside of the stories and on top of the actual post as well. So come up with ahash tag that's clever. You can do contests with that as well. There's a lot ofcool stuff that we won't be able to get into with this, but definitely exploreInstagram because it's your main platform especially for food.

Christian: [00:13:19] Yeah,exactly. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. Instagram is just a great platformfor food, food trucks, anything food related because, I mean, I personallyfollow a lot of Instagram.

Aaron: [00:13:29] Christianstays hungry.

Christian: [00:13:31] Yes.All day, everyday.

Franklin: [00:13:34] Ohmy god, you're making me hungry.

Aaron: [00:13:36] Allright. I think that is everything we have unless you guys got in the lasttidbits on here.

Christian: [00:13:41] Ido not.

Franklin: [00:13:42] Nope.

Aaron: [00:13:42] Nolast P.S. nuggets or anything?

Christian: [00:13:43] Nope,no nuggests.

Aaron: [00:13:44] Allright. So thank you guys for subscribing because I'm kind of already speakingthis into fruition, but anyway, two things here. Go ahead and subscribe. Wetruly appreciate that. Whether you're on Google Play, Apple iTunes, wheneveryou're at just subscribe and then please leave an honest review. And then downat the bottom right hand corner, you'll see three dots. Going to continue topush this out to you guys. If you click that, don't do while you're driving,you have an option to share that. Go ahead and share this with a friend. Sharewith a restaurant owner. I think they get a lot out of this as well. And if youhave a food truck friend, that's absolutely who you should share this with.