The food delivery market in India is growing exponentially due to large-scale digitization and changes in people’s lifestyles. By 2025, the Indian online food delivery market share is forecasted to reach $12.7 Billion and the grocery delivery market to reach $24 billion.
Do you want your on-demand business to be a part of this growing ecosystem? If yes, you’re in the right place!
In today’s competitive world, launching an online grocery delivery or food delivery business is just one part of the story. With the ever-increasing competition, how you promote your online food or grocery delivery business makes all the difference. Your marketing strategy may distinguish you from ordinary to great.
With marketing, you can portray your brand voice to your potential audience, engage with them, make sales and stay ahead of the crowd.
The right set of marketing strategies will attract your target consumer and provide a satisfactory consumer journey.
So, are you ready to promote your online food or grocery delivery business with the right blend of marketing strategies?
Here are 21 PRO Marketing strategies to distinguish your business from competitors.
21 Actionable Marketing Tips For Your Online Food & Grocery Delivery Business
1) Offer Branded Reusable Delivery Bags
Do you want your customers to remember your business? If yes, don’t miss out on this step!
Delivery bags carry the brand persona in themselves.
Have you noticed how some businesses provide vibrant delivery bags? When the customer re-uses that bag, the brand image sticks into his.her mind. The brand becomes a part of his life.
This way the delivery bags serve as a reminder to the customers of a happy buying experience.
Offering good quality reusable delivery bags will also help you to boost brand awareness among the masses.
2) Create a WOW Unboxing Experience
Is there anything better than a satisfied customer for a business?
Especially in the food/grocery delivery business extra care must be taken to ensure a quality unboxing experience. Since the food and groceries are perishable goods, they must be packed in a way that preserves their freshness.
So, how would you create a WOW unboxing experience?
3) Sponsor a Local Event
Local events are the best opportunity to promote your business to a wider audience. In certain areas, food fairs and sports competitions are conducted for the local community. You can sponsor such events and increase engagement with the local people. Moreover, you can even actively participate in community festivals, matches, and more.
Sponsoring local events can be a great strategy to build brand awareness and optimize top-of-the-funnel marketing.
4) Insert Pamphlets in Newspapers
No wonder, we’re living in the digital era. However, traditional marketing still stands strong. As of 2018, traditional media had a share of 83% in the Indian advertising sector.
So, if you want to boost your business’s reach, do not underestimate the power of traditional marketing!
Pamphlets are one of the best traditional ways to reach out to the masses. Since newspapers are widely read throughout the country, sending pamphlets with them can help you reach a large segment of the potential audience.
Also, while creating pamphlets make sure it’s colorful, easy to read and without any spelling/grammatical errors. To establish a better connection with your audience, you can even print the pamphlets in the local language.
5) Collaborate with Prominent Local Restaurants
If you’re a multi-vendor food/grocery delivery platform, this marketing tip is a must-follow!
By collaborating with prominent local restaurants, you can win the hearts of the local customers and gain a reputation in the industry. The more restaurants you list on your platform, the more customers will use your app.
Customers have their favourite restaurants in their vicinity. By collaborating with prominent restaurants in a particular area, you can offer diverse choices to your consumer.
Even single vendor platforms can collaborate with a local restaurant to offer a fusion of food to their customers.
Also, you can even tie up with local cafes to boost your brand’s visibility.
Moreover, you can offer some sort of discount, festive deals and other such goodies to attract customers.
6) Share Content on Social Media
If used strategically, social media marketing can prove to be a gold mine for your food or grocery delivery business.
But, how to use social media to get hot leads for your online food delivery business?
Here’s a list of Dos and Don’ts to follow while creating your social media marketing strategy!
Don’ts
❌ Not Engaging with your audience.
❌ Posting content once in the moonlight without any proper strategy.
❌ Posting unrelated and long content.
❌ Using long paragraphs in captions.
❌ Using the same content piece on all your social handles.
❌ Not measuring your social media marketing efficiency.
Dos
✔ Creating content marketing strategies and scheduling content for your social handles.
✔ Using short and intriguing captions.
✔ Trying different types of content such as videos, carousels, infographics, reels, blogs, and more.
✔ Posting different content as per the social platform.
✔ Engaging a lot with your audience.
✔ Analysing your social media marketing strategies.
7) Collaborate with Micro-Influencers on Facebook and Instagram
The scope of social media influencing has been growing exponentially. As of 2020, more than 6.12 million brand-sponsored influencer posts were shared on Instagram. Moreover, the global Instagram influencer market size in 2020 was worth $2.3 billion.
But, how can collaborating with micro-influencers on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram help your business?
Here’s how:
- Building Brand Awareness: Social media influencers usually have a community of loyal audiences with whom they’ve forged an effective relationship over the years. When you collaborate with social influencers of your niche, you get an opportunity to boost your brand awareness among this set of the target audience.
- Helps to improve the buying decision of your customers: One of the ultimate benefits of social media influencers is, they spread your brand voice vociferously to your target audience. This helps the customer to make informed and swift buying decisions.
- Boost customer relationships: Influencers become a medium of communication to your target audience. They touch the pain points of the customers and assure them that your business can help them.
In short, influencer marketing is a win-win opportunity for both sides.
8) Join Online Communities Specific to your Geography of Business
Online communities/groups are a great place to directly engage with your customers. Through these virtual groups, you can very well know the needs of the consumer, problems they face, and also get more insights about their lifestyle.
These customer insights can help you to make changes to your business model and address the customer’s pain points. You can host an event on Meetup, participate in an event, join a social media community, and spread the word about your business.
Some of the finest niche-specific groups can be found on Facebook and Telegram.
9) Invest in Facebook Ads
As of 2020, Facebook had a whopping advertisement reach of 260 million in India. If used strategically, Facebook ads can boost your brand awareness and drive hot leads to your business.
But, why invest in Facebook ads?
Here’s why:
- Facebook ads allow you to micro-target your potential audience based on your buyer persona.
- The reach of Facebook Ads is far more extensive than organic posts.
- Remarketing is very convenient through FB Ads.
- Facebook Ads can drive huge traffic to your business (if used properly).
- Facebook ads are affordable and effective.
10) Organize Contests and Giveaways on Social Media
Social media is a place where you engage and nurture your audience. When your business actively communicates with your audience on social media, it helps to build trust and earn loyal customers.
So, how do you effectively engage with your audience without being too “sale-sy”?
One of the best ways is by organizing contests on social media. You can organize monthly contests and appreciate your audience for participating. Moreover, you can share the winner’s details and pin their candid feedback on your feed. Such giveaways can be organized across social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Giveaways are also an amazing way to attract and engage with your online audience.
11) Develop an Email and SMS Marketing Plan
Emails have an extensive user base with more than 4 million users worldwide. Moreover, it is estimated that in 2020, more than 306.4 billion emails were sent and received every day globally.
Most importantly, emails are said to generate $38 for every $1 spent on email marketing!
From the above stats, you might have understood the power of email marketing.
If you want to drive conversions, engage with customers and drive inbound leads to your business, pay extra attention to your email marketing strategies!
Furthermore, SMS marketing is an immediate channel to inform and attract your customers. Through SMS marketing, you can inform your audience about new deals and increase engagement. Moreover, SMS analytics can help you to monitor your marketing efforts and improve accordingly.
Check out our blog which includes a list of top email marketing tools.
12) Encourage User Reviews on Social Media and App Store
How do you know whether your customers love your business’s services or not? Do they face any difficulty while using your online food delivery business?
All these questions can be answered through candid customer feedback!
Customer feedback is the best way to learn about your business from the customer’s point of view. You can encourage your customers to share their feedback on social media and pin your business.
Furthermore, you can even ask your customers to share their feedback and ratings on the app store. This will help your business to rank better on the app store.
13) App Store Optimization
App store optimization includes optimizing the download page of your mobile app to get a better ranking and exposure.
As the number of smartphone users is increasing, the market for apps is also expanding. There are more than 2.83 million apps listed on the Google Play Store as of 2021.
App store ranking has become highly competitive nowadays. However, with the correct blend of strategies, you can get your app to the top!
Here are a few things which you must keep in mind while doing app store optimization of your food or grocery delivery app:
- Search for the keywords that are relevant to your food and grocery delivery business. (You can use Google Keyword Planner for keyword research)
- Add the keywords in your content and on the backend of the app store. Ensure that the content is engaging to read and you do not stuff the keywords.
- Add vibrant photos and videos to increase the downloads on your app store page.
14) Build a Robust Referral Policy
Referral policies are the most unique and measurable form of marketing activity.
With a referral policy, you can encourage your existing customers to share your business app among their social circle and get rewards. The rewards can be in the form of discounts, bonus coins, freebies or anything else.
Through this, you can lower your customer acquisition costs (CAC) and get new customers easily. Overall, referrals are the easiest and the cheapest way to get new customers for your business!
15) Publish Print Ads in Local Newspapers and Magazines
Newspapers are widely read among the masses. From millennials to tricenarian or quadragenarian or even senior citizens, people across age groups begin their day with newspapers. Traditional forms of marketing like print ads in newspapers and magazines can boost your brand awareness.
To cast a spell on your readers, make sure that you select local newspapers having good readership and if needed, you can even customize your ads in local languages.
While publishing print ads in local newspapers or magazines make sure:
- Your Ad is aesthetic and devoid of any spelling or grammatical errors.
- There are specific details of your business.
- Clear CTA (Call to Action) like a phone number and information about your apps and social media pages.
16) Get featured on Third Party Platforms Relevant to your Business
Collaborating with third-party platforms relevant to your business can be a marketing boon. These third party content-based platforms have a mammoth readership. You can leverage their social media channels to promote your business.
On these platforms, you can talk about your business’s journey, services, and more. From articles to videos, you can promote thought leadership type of content on these third-party social media platforms. Inc 42, Yourstory, and LBB are some of the best examples of such platforms.
It is vital to measure the success of this collaboration. Hence, you can track metrics like traffic, CTR, and sessions on your app store page after you collaborate with these platforms.
This way you boost your brand awareness and spread a positive word about your business.
17) Start a Blog
Content is the king. You can only leverage the true power of content if you create good content. What better channel of content creation than blogs? If you wish to reach your target audience organically, do not miss out on blogging!
Blogging is the best way to generate inbound leads, educate and interact with your audience. As of 2016, blogging was the most important content form worldwide.
As a food or grocery delivery business, you can experiment with numerous blog formats such as food blogs, how-to articles, guides, and more. Make sure you create a vibrant and SEO-optimized blog to get the best results! You can also share these blogs on other social media platforms.
If you want to start a blog and skyrocket your business’s organic reach, check out our guide on How to start a blog in India!
If you’re looking to build a professional website for your business, feel free to get in touch with us. Our team can help you discover the right pages for your website, implement the web design and plan strategies to promote the website.
18) Local SEO
Local SEO makes your business visible to the local community when they search for a relevant keyword.
But, why is it important?
Since local SEO focuses on a specific geographical location, optimizing it can help you to generate traffic, leads, and conversions from your target audience.
How do you optimize your website/app for local SEO?
Here are the few things to keep in mind while optimizing your website/app for local SEO:
- Create an account on Google My Business for your business.
- Enrich the ratings of your app/website by encouraging your customers to share their candid feedback.
- Optimize your web/app for voice search too.
- Use relevant and local SEO keywords on your web/app’s meta tags, meta descriptions, and in the URL.
- Create a strong presence on Online Business Directories.
Don’t forget to check out our SEO guide for small businesses. It includes handy strategies that can help you get local traction. If you’re looking for professional SEO services for your business, you can get in touch with our sales team or drop an email at sales@eiosys.com
19) Create an Engaging Brand Tagline
Brand taglines are one of the most important elements of a business’s marketing strategy. In simple terms, brand taglines sum up the core idea of the business in a few words.
Bad brand taglines can be harmful to your business as it creates a negative impression on your customers.
So, how can you create an engaging tagline for your business?
Here are a few things to keep in mind while creating a tagline of your brand:
– Keep it short and easy to read.
– Make use of simple words.
– Sum up the core idea of your business.
– Make it intriguing with simple idioms.
– Conduct A/B testing of your taglines.
– Do not restrict your brand tagline to a single language. Feel free to think out-of-the-box and make it a bit more entertaining and engaging.
20) Host Virtual LIVE Events on Social Media like Live Sessions
Virtual Live Events/Live sessions on social media are one of the best ways to engage with your audience.
You can either conduct live sessions on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook or create a webinar/meetup. On Live events, you can conduct polls, interact, premier your new product, collaborate with micro-influencers to make it vibrant and intriguing.
Moreover, you can also have giveaway contests at your LIVE events.
21) Set up Canopy Tents in Residential Complexes or Club Houses
Last but not least, let’s include another traditional marketing technique in our marketing strategy. Canopy tents in residential areas and clubhouses can help you boost awareness and engage with the local audience. You can conduct games, quizzes, and many such leisure activities and engage with your customer in a fun and frolic way.
Moreover, you can even use this opportunity to create awareness about social and environmental problems and gather local volunteers to support your efforts.
Bottom Line
With the surge in the number of mobile apps in today’s internet-driven era, it is becoming difficult for online businesses to mark their place in the industry. However, with a correct blend of marketing strategies, your food or grocery delivery business can climb the ladder of success.
To bring the best results out of your marketing strategies, it is crucial to create an equilibrium between traditional and digital methods of marketing. Follow the 22 highly actionable tips mentioned in this blog and skyrocket the sales of your food or grocery delivery business. Apart from these strategies, you can also have a look at the other app marketing strategies for your food delivery or grocery app.
