When Should a Food Truck Owner Hire a Marketing Team?

witty food truck names on a food fair

When you run a business, no matter what industry it’s in, it’s natural to try and keep costs as low as possible for some time, at least until you’re sure you’re doing more than breaking even. As you likely already know, each business is different, so they’ll also have different needs. We’re not just talking about who you’d need to hire and what kind of supplies you need to purchase. Even digital marketing strategies and needs will be different. 

To illustrate that point better, you already know that if you run a crepe food truck, you’ll invest in crepe-making equipment, crepe mix and various fillings more than someone who runs, say, a sandwich or burger food truck. Now at first glance, your marketing strategies may be the same; if you look closer, though, they may have started trying to reach a larger audience, or they’re relying more on word of mouth than any other form of marketing. That said, if you hire a marketing team at some point, when should you do it? Here are some signs to look out for.

You Don’t Have the Time to Post On Social Media


Maybe you’re too busy working out how to successfully expand the business, or you’re the more hands-on type of business owner and you want to help in the kitchen whenever possible. Regardless of the reason, you have a long or comprehensive to-do list each day and any kind of marketing gets the least amount of attention. 

While it’s true that there are social media management platforms you can use to schedule posts in advance, you still need to interact with your audience. You can’t do that if you’re not online, but constantly checking your social media accounts will mean cutting down on the time you devote to your food truck. Trying to find a compromise so you can handle both will take time, and trying to do so just to keep costs low may even lead to burnout. 

If you find yourself in such a situation, that means it’s time to hire a marketing team. If you’re worried about the authenticity of interactions with your audience, you can work things out with the team so they’ll inform you of posts or comments that call for your reply or reaction. Other than that, a marketing team will help ensure that your online presence won’t die away. 

You’re Having Difficulty Coming Up with Content


Whether it’s a Facebook post, a short video, or an Instagram story, it still counts as content. Creating content can be easy when you’re first starting out and you know just what to say to grab people’s attention so you can grow your audience. But once your business is up and running and you want to attract more potential customers, you need to be careful that you don’t just parrot the same things from your old content. 

Perhaps you might even be thinking of trying a different feature such as Facebook ads to increase brand awareness. But how do you make sure these new ads and posts can help call attention to your food truck in the right way? A marketing expert can assist in putting together content, so you can hire just the one. But if you really want to put out professional and eye-catching posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, hiring even a small marketing team will help you do just that.

You Need New Marketing Strategies


Many business owners are likely to know at least the basics when it comes to marketing strategies, and there’s nothing wrong with using those, particularly when you’ve just started running your food truck. But the basics may not be enough to bring about certain results, and you could find that you don’t have enough time to learn new strategies and implement them because of everything else you need to do. 

This is where a marketing team comes in. They can look at the strategies you’ve been using so far, identify which ones worked very well and which ones flopped. From there, a marketing team can determine which strategies should come into play next, and how successful those are likely to be. A marketing team will also be able to suggest strategies you may not have thought of. 

Just remember that you and the team you hire need to work together to get your food truck’s marketing where you want or need it to be, no matter what reasons you had in the first place for hiring the team. They bring their expertise to the proverbial table, while you and your business provide the necessary context and framework. Simply put, they know what to do and how to do it, but they won’t know what to say. That’s where you – and perhaps even your staff – will come in. 

That’s why, after first making sure that you hire the right team for your food truck, you won’t have to worry about passing off marketing tasks to them, as long as you give them enough information to understand your business. That way, you can focus on different areas of your food truck, whether it’s better food handling or potential menu additions, while the marketing team handles your online presence.