How to Promote Your Home Food Business Online?

With more time at home to sit around and crave sweets and delicious home-cooked meals, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more people into starting home food businesses than ever before. According to the Department of Agriculture and Markets, home food business applications were up almost 40% in 2020 compared to 2019.

If you’ve decided to start your own home food business, it’s important to know cooking is only one part of the equation for success. You might have a great idea and some killer recipes to share with the world, but a batch of “to die for” cookies isn’t enough. You also need to attract customers with marketing strategies! Here are a few tips to promote your home food business online.

Build a website

Your home might be your “homebase” for your food business, but the internet is almost a world of its own. You also need a digital homebase for your home food business. That’s where a website comes in.

The key to any successful online marketing efforts is a website. It’s where potential customers can go to learn about your business, see all the delicious food you offer, and even place orders. It’s a one-stop shop for all the information someone would need to place an order.

Whether you decide to build the website yourself using a builder like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress or choose to hire a professional, your home food business website should include at least the following sections:

• Homepage – This is like the “menu” for your site. Make it easy for customers to navigate and find the information they’re looking for.
• Menu – A list of your delicious offerings. Be sure to include high-quality pictures and mouth-watering product descriptions. If you’re not a designer, menu templates can help you create a professional-looking menu without needing professional skills.
• About – Tell customers a little about yourself, your company, and background.
• FAQ – Answer popular questions about your products like allergy or dietary considerations, suppliers, ingredients, etc.
• Certificates and accreditation – Show that you take food safety seriously.
• Blog – For content marketing and SEO purposes (we’ll get to that).
• Lead generation – Specific marketing landing pages that encourage people to order or join your email mailing list.

Once your website goes live, you’re ready to start promoting your home food business online. Be sure to include a link or URL to your website on every piece of marketing material (digital or physical) you create! Think of it just like inviting people to visit your shop—except you don’t have to clean the house first.

Push for SEO and local search

Search engines are a great way to drive traffic to your website and earn your home food business more customers. 97% of search engine users have searched for information on local businesses, and 47% of all Google searches are looking for local information! That’s millions of people out there potentially looking for you!

However, search engines aren’t going to know your business exists unless you tell them. Telling Google your business exists isn’t as easy as sending them a polite letter in the mail. You have to optimize your website to make it more discoverable.

The best way to boost your local search engine optimization (SEO) is to include plenty of local keywords (but not so many that it sounds unnatural) all throughout your website. Mention your city, street, state, local landmarks, etc. This will tell search engines where you’re located and cause your website to pop up when someone searches for terms like “best home food business in [your area].”

In addition to using local keywords, it’s also a good idea to start a blog on your website. Blogs are great for SEO because you can provide in-depth answers to your customers’ most burning questions; you know, the ones they search for online.

For example, if customers keep asking you how you make your cookies so light and fluffy, write a blog about your measuring techniques, quality of ingredients, and (if you feel like it) that special trick your grandma taught you.

Then, when someone searches “how to make the best cookies,” your blog could pop right up in the search results. Not only will they read your blog, but they’ll also check out your website, see your delicious food, and maybe order something!

Social media loves food

It’s almost like social media was made for food! It’s full of hungry people just scrolling through their feeds waiting for something to happen. Why not post some mouth-watering pictures of your food to make them want to place an order? Maybe that’s why they’re called “feeds!?”

There are several social media platforms you can promote your home food business on, but the best ones for food-based businesses are the platforms that allow pictures. Nobody can resist a delicious food picture!

• Pinterest – Post delicious pictures to Pinterest and link them to your website. Then, when people pin your photos, it’ll help you get the word out about your business.
• Instagram – Instagram is built for food. Post high-quality pictures that’ll get peoples’ mouths watering and use plenty of hashtags to widen your marketing reach.
• Facebook – Facebook is good for all-around marketing efforts. You can post photos, food delivery posters, and menus. You can also write longer descriptions about your business or offerings. Make sure to link everything back to your website!

The key to a successful social media marketing campaign is to use only high-quality photos. You have to make your food stand out, so put some effort and creativity into it.

Promotional Gifts

One of the best ways to promote your food business quickly is by offering your customers a lovely giveaway. Promotional products are branded items with a logo, slogan, or motto, which can be used in marketing and sales. And nothing gets people posting on social media quicker than awesome custom stickers and custom pins. Throw in some unique stickers and pins for people to display on the back of their vehicles, and wear on their clothes, hats, bags, or jeans.

Custom Lapel Pins are an effective method as a promotional gift for identifying and promoting businesses, teams, Corporations, and agencies.

These are all techniques some of the biggest business companies use to build their brands. So why not take advantage of this for your own business? GS-JJ is the best-priced option available with no minimum order and a low price!

Allow online ordering

Promoting your home food business online is just the first step. But if you get millions of people to visit your website and look at your social posts without getting any orders, was the campaign really successful?

The easier something is, the more likely people will do it. So, the best way to ensure a successful online marketing campaign is letting people go through the entire process of discovering your business, learning about your offerings, and placing an order without ever having to leave their device!

Allowing online ordering is a great way to ensure the people who see your advertisements and posts online actually follow through with placing an order. Just imagine, some hungry person could be scrolling through their Instagram feed, see a picture of your delicious food, and simply click the “order now” button. The whole process is instantaneous and, most importantly, easy.

Online ordering is the perfect compliment to any online marketing campaign. It helps transition people from the “seeing your content” stage to actually purchasing and enjoying your food—and that’s really what online marketing campaigns are all about.

You can even promote your online ordering, takeout, or delivery services independently for even more promotional power. Creating little pop-up ads that say “order now” or using food delivery posters in your neighborhood are great ways to spread the word about your services.

Work with influencers

It’s not easy building a social media following. You’re too busy building your business and cooking delicious meals to worry about growing your online following, so why not borrow someone else’s?

Influencers are a powerful way to extend your online reach. They already have thousands, if not millions, of online followers. If you can get one of them to promote your home food business, you’ll be front and center to all those people!

The most common way to work with influencers is to pay them a fee in exchange for online exposure. Typically, the larger their following, the more they charge.

If you see someone who has a large following and fits your niche, you can also send them a message, ship them a free sample of your food, and ask them to promote it on their page. If they like your food (and you know they will), they’ll sing your praises to all their followers!

Influencers are a quick and easy way to maximize your reach and get your business and food in front of more people online.

Get your home food business the attention it deserves

You already know your food is great. It’s time for everyone else to realize it, too! Promoting your home food business online might seem like a daunting task, but by following these online promotional tips, you’ll be well on your way to more orders than you know what to do with.

Karan Jain

Born in the family of entrepreneurs and have inherited the same. Started building applications in order to pay for my tuition. Later founded a tech company, marketing agency, and media outlets.