Why Food Trucks Need Email Marketing

In Atlanta, Georgia, which is where I live, the food truck phenomenon is taking the streets by storm. Not a day goes by when I don’t get a Tweet or Facebook update on the location of one or more of these trucks. Each time, my stomach starts to grumble, and sometimes I even abandon my original plans to partake in their food.

Food trucks have entered the market at the height of social media. Of the trucks I follow in Atlanta, Yumbii, the King of Pops, Tex’s Tacos and Westside Creamery, none use email to market themselves.  Playing devil’s advocate, they could say, “Why should we? We’re selling out our inventory as it is using Twitter and Facebook. That’s enough marketing for us.”

But is it?  Here are my arguments for why food trucks need email marketing*:

1. Not everyone is on Twitter or Facebook. According to a December 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, 77% of American adults use the internet. 92% of those adults use email, while only 61% use an online social networking site. While Facebook may have 500 million active users, 50% of which log on in any given day, if you’re not following your favorite truck, you’re likely to miss out on their location or schedule.  Same for Twitter. Even though the service is adding 500,000 accounts daily, according to this report from May 2011, only 8% of Americans over the age of 12 are using it. Using Census figures, that’s ~20 million people. Awareness of Twitter is at 92% of Americans of the same age (12 or older), but adoption is clearly lagging.
2. Email is shareable. Yes, I know Facebook has its “share” button, which is intended to make it easier to spread items among your network on the site. But the trucks I follow post their daily locations as status updates, which aren’t shareable (i.e. no “share” button for that feature). And when was the last time you forwarded a Tweet? I suppose you could re-tweet the tweet of your favorite truck and cc your Twitter friend as if to say, “Want to go?” But what if the friend you want to make plans with isn’t on Twitter? Or you can’t immediately recall their user name? If you’re using Twitter on an iPad, you can mail a tweet. But wouldn’t it be nicer if the information were already in your inbox? I just know that if I were emailed a truck’s schedule for the week, there’s high probability that I’d forward it to a friend to make plans for a meal.  It’s hard to do that with a Facebook status update or Tweet.
3. Space limitations. Tweets are restricted to 140 characters and Facebook status updates are generally fairly short. Perhaps this is why posts are done on a daily basis – there’s not enough room to convey an entire week’s schedule in one place. (Though some do say something to the effect of “Our weekly schedule is up – check the website” with a link to the applicable page on their website.)  But they’re missing the opportunity to share more information about themselves that an email affords. An email, in addition to informing the recipient of the week’s schedule, would also allow the truck’s owner to highlight their menu or feature a particular item. In an email message, one food truck owner could even feature another food truck that offers a complimentary menu item (dessert feature in an entrée food truck email, or vice versa). No harm in some co-promotion among food truck friends, I don’t think.
4. Segmentation. Email allows you to get to know your audience in a way that Twitter and Facebook cannot. As part of the email sign-up process, a food truck could ask for the person’s home and work zip codes. This would allow food truck owners to send subscribers special notices when the truck is going to be in their area. Twitter doesn’t allow food trucks the luxury of targeting, and neither does Facebook (unless you count paid advertising, which I’m not in this case).
5. Email can be distributed via social media. It’s possible to “tweet” an email and broadcast its contents to your followers or “share” an email on Facebook. However, it is possible to share the content within an email via a “tweet this” button, Google’s +1 or a Facebook share button so a particular piece of information, photo or video to be shared via a social network. Similarly, many email software providers offer functionality that will allow for web-hosted versions of the entire email to be distributed via Twitter and/or Facebook when the message is sent. In some cases, these web-hosted versions have a toolbar at the top that includes a button for Tweeting or sharing on Facebook, so even if someone wasn’t on the email’s original distribution list, they can still pass along the email via social media. Also, when an email is posted to Facebook as the campaign is sent, it’ll likely be as a news item with the “share” option included. As I’ve said earlier, Facebook status updates don’t include that option.
6. Email can go viral: Thanks to the forward button, an email recipient can send an email to as many friends as they’d like. If you can’t share a Facebook status update or forward a Tweet, a food truck owner is banking on someone to remember to have an offline conversation about their truck. Given the trucks’ success, it’s happening. Tweets can be retweeted, thus they can be shared many times over beyond the food truck’s network, but it’s worth mentioning that an email has the same ability to go far beyond its original distribution list, even without ever being posted to a social network.

* This was not intended to be a “why email is better than social media” post. Rather, I’m aiming to highlight the food trucks’ missed opportunities by limiting their marketing plan to Facebook and Twitter. I’ll admit that social media is better for last-minute change of plans. Food trucks have the benefit of picking up and moving to a new location when sales are slow or the weather doesn’t cooperate. But since their customers use more than one channel to get information, in my biased opinion, I think food trucks should also diversify their marketing efforts beyond social to expand their reach via an email marketing program. A few additional fans wouldn’t hurt should they ever decide to add a second (or third) truck to their fleet.

Facebook and Email: Part 1 of 2

For the sake of discussion, I’m going to assume you’ve heard of Facebook. But just so we’re all clear, it’s a “social networking service and website” (to quote Wikipedia) that connects people to their friends, family members, co-workers, etc. for the purposes of sharing information about their daily lives.

But can it really help your email marketing program? Of course! Here are a couple of tactics for using Facebook to enhance your email marketing program – and vice versa. This post is part 1 of 2. More tactics will be posted this time next week.

Email sign-up forms in your business’s page
This is low-hanging fruit. If you have a Facebook page for your business, incorporate a sign-up form for your email marketing program into the page. Some email software providers (ESPs) have a means for users to build the form directly into your page. Otherwise, link to it from your welcome tab.

By doing this, you’ve converted a Facebook fan into an email subscriber and have an additional channel by which to communicate with them.

Make your email messages shareable
You’ve created a fantastic email campaign and want to enable your recipients to share this message on Facebook. (You’ll first need to create content that your recipients will want to share. What’s considered shareworthy will vary from sender to sender, and even recipient to recipient. That’s an entirely separate posting, but here’s a link with concepts for sharing B-to-B content. Some of the ideas could apply to B-to-C as well.)

To be able to share your content or message on Facebook, you need to use the share URL that Facebook has created. By doing this, it will create a preview of your content, which can then be posted to a Facebook profile or sent as a direct message.
The simplest way to give a subscriber the option to share your link is to add this code into your email:

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=URL

Just replace URL with the link you want to share. In the case of an email message, it would be the URL to view your message online. Don’t forget to include a call to action to “share this message”, preferably using a Facebook icon or linked text.

For example here is the link for the blog post of this message arranged so you can share it on Facebook.

Share this post on Facebook

When you create a link such as that, a preview window will open with optional image selections from the page URL provided. There will also be a place for your email recipient to include their thoughts as to why this link is worth viewing. Once they hit the “share” button in that window, the link is posted to their Facebook profile profile, their wall is updated and the URL will appear in the news feed of their friends with your recipients’ endorsement. Your message now has a personal referral to your recipient’s Facebook network!

Showing up in multiple news feeds is when you start to leverage your recipients’ entire friend list. This process has the potential to move virally as people leave comments or share the item with their friends and family – and so on and so on.

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Got another idea (or two) for blending Facebook with your email marketing program? Leave a comment or post to my Facebook wall. Otherwise, stayed tuned next week for a couple more ways Facebook can enhance your email marketing program.

Email Marketing for a Journalist

I recently attended SoCon, a social media and social networking conference at Kennesaw State University, which is just north of Atlanta, Georgia. In the event’s opening panel discussion, one of the participants made a comment that set the tone for how email would be covered for the rest of the event – it was ignored. Here’s what panel participant Victor Hernandez, title of CNN, had to say:

“I hope that social media will forge a way to lessen people’s anchor to their inbox.”

To put that comment in context, he thinks people will soon rely less on email and more on other channels to get their news. Is this foreshadowing for the end of email? Not necessarily, since according to this blog post from the DMA, email’s growth rate was greater than that of Facebook and Twitter in 2010. But to Hernandez’s point that there are multiple news sources consumers can use to get information and email is just one of them.

Since we’re in the email business, let’s talk about how we can apply the rules of Journalism to email marketing:

Know your audience: What are they expecting to hear from you? Stick to the promise made on your sign-up form in terms of frequency of communication and the content of the messages.

Don’t bury the lead: Just as a news story opens with the main point, an email should quickly make its purpose known. Don’t bury your call to action in the fine print.

A newspaper’s headline is akin to an email’s subject line: The same way a headline tells what’s to be expected of the story below, a subject line should do the same for an email’s contents. In just a few words, address what’s to be expected of the message being shared.

Tailor your writing for the medium: A TV reporter doesn’t write the copy for their story the same way a newspaper reporter would write theirs. Modify your content for the parameters of an email message. Not sure how to do that? Less is usually more.

(A disclaimer – all of these points could be expanded into blog/newsletter posts as individual topics, which may happen in the future.)

But, to go back to Hernandez’s comment, if people are relying less on their inbox as a source of information, how can you get the most out of your email program? We’re vested in our email program and want to get the most of this channel.

Improve relevancy: This chart shows some tactics to improve relevancy and the percentage of companies that responded to the survey who use them.

Think of email as the hub of your communications efforts: Use Twitter, Facebook and SEO in conjunction with your email campaigns. Toss out the idea that the channels are silos.

Your mailing list has (presumably) volunteered to receive email from you. Make the most of this consent by keeping these points in mind and your email program should continue to flourish. Feel free to comment on this post or send me an email if you want to add to or continue this dialogue.

Brag beyond email

Newsletters give you the opportunity to share your company’s good news and do a little bragging at the same time – new products, new employees or new locations.  But if you’re going to go to the effort to develop an e-newsletter to share your company’s highlights, why limit the sharing to just an email?

There are a few ways to repurpose your newsletter’s content and disseminate this information via social media.  Here are some options:

Create Your Newsletter From Your Blog Posts – Instead of creating new articles for use only in your newsletter, post the content for your blog and have it feed into your newsletter automatically. (MailChimp’s RSS-to-email is one option). Or, include a summary of a few of your most recent blog posts in your newsletter and link back to the original post for the full article. 

Tweet every Newsletter – It’s a best practice to include a link at the top of every newsletter to view it as a web page. You should also include your address on the distribution list for every newsletter you send (one reason being that you experience getting a newsletter just like your contacts do).  Create an account with bit.ly and paste in the link at the top of the newsletter to shorten it and share it via Twitter.  Bit.ly allows you to see how many clicks your link received, as well as the source (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).

Share on Social Networking Sites – Facebook and LinkedIn allow users to post short messages either as a status update or a network update. Paste the subject line of your newsletter and bit.ly link into this box.

These options allow you to cover all of your bases to spread your company’s good news.  Email is a universal channel. The other networks mentioned above will help you reach those not on your email list with the ultimate goal of converting them to newsletter subscribers.  Don’t limit your bragging to the people who are already believers – reach out beyond your core audience!

Quantifying the clutter

When I created this blog, I had information such as this in mind:

“As consumers, we see over 3,156 images a day. We’re just not conscious of them,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the consumer research firm NPD Group. “Our subconscious records maybe 150, and only 30 or so reach our conscious behavior. If I have a celebrity as part of that message, I just accelerated the potential for my product to reach the conscious of the consumer.”

That quote is found in a NY Times article about the power of celebrity and how some brands can enhance their message’s relevancy by using celebrities to hawk their products.

It illustrates the competition marketers have for consumers’ attention and the importance of using smart methods to cut through the clutter.  But “smart” doesn’t always have to mean using a celebrity.  It just happened to have helped in the cases cited in that article.

News flash: I bought shoes!

Last night I was stunned to find out that a shoe purchase I made on Zappos.com turned into a newsfeed item in my Facebook profile.

I discovered this by looking at my profile and my first thought was, “Holy shiitake! How did that get there?” I was horrified and my knee-jerk reaction was to delete it from my mini-feed so that no one could see it when they viewed my profile. But it was too late for that secret. I IM’d with my friend Lauren about my discovery and she said something like, “Oh yeah. I saw that. They’re cute.” So you mean everyone of my friends knows about my shoe purchase?! Sure enough, this was in every friend’s feed:

Anybody who can view my profile (which only people I’ve granted access to can do) could click on through to look at a picture of the shoes I bought. Thankfully my shoe size wasn’t a part of the feed. At least something was considered sacred.

I can’t figure out how my shoe purchase found its way into Facebook. I may have had Facebook open in one tab while making the purchase on Zappos.com in another tab, but that’s too simple of an explanation. To borrow the term Dave Coustan used when I Twittered about this: creepy. At this point, I have more questions than answers:

1. What does Zappos or Facebook think there is to gain by sharing my purchase with the masses?
2. What does that icon to the left of my name mean? (I can’t click on it anymore since I deleted it from my feed.)
3. How the heck did it get there?

I’m not ashamed of my shoe purchase. It just isn’t something I consider newsworthy. I’ve never bought anything from Zappos, but have read great things about them and I thought this would be a good opportunity to give them a try. I’ll be curious as to what kind of feedback I get from either group.

In the meantime, I think my shoes are supposed to arrive today. Then what? Do I upload a photo of them and create a Facebook album to show them off?

One Year Later

I recently passed the one-year anniversary of my first blog post. I had every intention of posting something on the very day of my anniversary (which will go unmentioned here so as to avoid calling attention to exactly how overdue I am). But before I knew it, the day passed, and so did a week or two before I was able to begin this entry.

I started this blog with the intention of calling out marketing campaigns or practices for their successful (or unsuccessful) attempts at cutting through the marketplace clutter. But part of the reason for my falling behind in marking my anniversary may be that I became a victim of the very clutter I intended to take aim at – everyday life and an overload of information that I am trying to process.

In my first post I mentioned a conversation that I had with a friend about Barack Obama. This was way before he launched his presidential campaign and Obama Girl became a YouTube sensation. (That video cracks me up.)

So, I checked back with her to see if she had a better idea of who Obama is on year later. Here’s what she had to say (syntax is all hers):

barack obama is a democratic presidential hopeful and is a senator from chicago. (i think) he wants to pay teachers more, so he’s peaked my interest!! i still get most of my news from the internet on my yahoo page, and will scan ajc.com/usatoday.com on occasion. i am a people magazine junkie, but that doesn’t really qualify as news. other than that, i’ll hear important things by word of mouth.

I’ll continue to post my thoughts on the marketplace, so long as my personal clutter doesn’t get in the way. But, I am not going to limit myself to just what marketers do – I plan to address all the different channel consumers use.

Facebook’s recent announcement has me thinking. Another post for another day, I suppose.

Heineken A Winner at the U.S. Open

I found this article in Forbes and wanted to talk about it before it was too late.  Sports marketing is a personal interest of mine and this piece does a great job of showing how sponsors of the U.S. Open do more than just plaster their logos around the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.

Tennis, like golf, attracts a high net worth fan.  While most companies leverage their sponsorship of a sports event or team through venue signage, the U.S. Open is an event that warrants a more interactive approach.

“Marketing is getting more experimental, more aggressive and more direct,” says Andy Glaser, brand director at Heineken USA, who adds that the four annual tracking studies the company performs show that its U.S. Open sponsorship improves its recall with customers. In addition to its Red Star Cafe sampling site, the company is unleashing vendors with funky-looking space age backpacks to dispense Heineken beer to fans in the seats.

I like this tactic – why not be proactive in getting your product into the hands of potential customers? Especially when a high concentration of your target market is in a setting that fits well with the brand attributes you want to highlight. 

I hope more sports sponsors take this interactive approach.  The Fan Fests are nice, but let’s see more experiential attempts that allow consumers with a more enriching experience.

Critiquing J.C. Penney's Plan

J.C. Penney’s CMO calls out the dilemma of marketing clutter in his quote announcing the company’s “2007 Back-to-School” campaign:

“While traditional marketing remains an important part of our approach, we are focused on incorporating new components into this year’s Back-to-School campaign that will truly reach youth in an authentic way,” said Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer for JCPenney. “Using this unique approach, we’re able to break through the marketing clutter and sameness to attract kids and teens – whether it’s at the movies, in the mall, on the phone or on the Web.”

But for all the channels J.C. Penney is working in this campaign, there’s no social media! 

There’s a lot of one-way information going on here.  I think the clothing retailer could really cut through the clutter by adding two-way dialogues with the teens and youths they’re targeting.

Using Buzz Cola to Garner Movie Buzz

The post I wrote about select 7-Eleven stores being converted to Kwik-E-Marts is one of the most viewed pages on this blog. The magical conversion took place this weekend. Actually, only a dozen of the 6,000 7-Eleven stores have been made over to look like the fictional convenience stores of “The Simpsons” fame. But the rest will be selling Buzz Cola, KrustyO’s cereal and Squishees, the slushy drink knock-off of Slurpees.

If you Google “Buzz Cola,” my post is the seventh link that comes back in the results. There are more Simpsons fans out there than I had imagined.

All of this hoopla is part of the July 27 premiere of “The Simpsons Movie.” It’s a cheap stunt for Fox since 7-Eleven is paying for the whole thing (which is estimated at costing in the “single millions“).

So why do this? It seems like a pretty cheap way for 7-Eleven to stand-out in the generic convenience mart category. It gets them some good buzz (pun intended) in the press and may even bring in Simpsons fans looking to buy the limited-edition theme foods. But I don’t know if it’s really going to attract much more attention from Slurpee/Squishee loyalists.

This is why Fox participated:

“We wanted to make sure the movie stands out as a true cultural event this summer,” said Lisa Licht, a marketing vice president at Fox. “It has to stand out from other summer movies and TV shows.”

Hmmm…. separating the film from the cluttered summer movie scene, eh? I’ll go with it.

7-Eleven stores that have been transformed into a Kwik-E-Mart are located in New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Burbank, Calif., Los Angeles, Henderson, Nev., Orlando, Fla., Mountain View, Calif., Seattle and Bladensburg, Md. (UPDATE — here are their addresses.)

Have you visited one of these stores? Did you go there because it was a “Kwik-E-Mart” or because it was just plain convenient? Please share your stories and opinions in the comments.

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