Creating a digital menu for a food truck is a savvy business move, offering a dynamic, cost-effective, and engaging way to present your offerings to customers.
This article will guide you through the steps to create a digital menu, highlight the most economical and efficient setup, and discuss the benefits compared to traditional printed menus.
The most affordable way possible to make a digital menu for your food truck is to make it by yourself. For this, you will need some basic Microsoft PowerPoint skills and a USB drive. After you have created your menu, simply plug the USB into a digital display and it is ready to go.
Steps to Create a Digital Menu for a Food Truck
1. Define Your Menu Items: Start by listing all the items you plan to offer, including descriptions, prices, and any variations (like size or spice levels).
2. Choose a Digital Platform: Select a digital menu platform. The cheapest to use is a program such as Microsoft Powerpoint where you can set and forget. However, if you want to pay a designer to do this for you, other options include website-based menus, apps, or digital signage software.
If you’re not using a professional designer, look for user-friendly, customizable, and mobile-responsive platforms as these will be the easiest to change in the future.
3. Design Your Menu: Design your digital menu. Ensure it reflects your food truck’s theme and is easy to read. Use high-quality images and clear typography. For example, if you have a Mexican food truck you will likely want to use a red, white, and/or green theme and avoid pink and blue.
Online tools like Canva offer templates specifically for menus.
4. Update Your Menu Regularly: One of the advantages of a digital menu is the ease of updating. Change your offerings based on availability, season, or customer preference. Compared to a printed menu, this is a process that takes at the most 15 minutes and costs literally nothing.
5. Integrate with Online Ordering (Optional): If feasible, integrate your digital menu with an online ordering system. This can streamline the ordering process and reduce wait times.
Even if this is not possible, digital menus can still be easily uploaded to the internet to increase visibility.
6. Ensure Mobile Accessibility: Ensure that your digital menu is accessible on mobile devices, as many customers will view it on their smartphones if they are not currently in front of your LCD display.
7. Display the Menu: Use a tablet or a digital display screen to showcase your menu at your food truck. Ensure the screen is large enough to be easily readable.
Economical and Efficient Setup
The most cost-effective setup for a digital menu in a food truck is using a tablet or an affordable digital display.
A tablet, especially, offers a budget-friendly solution, with the added benefit of being portable and easy to update.
Mount the tablet in a visible location or hand it to customers for browsing. If you want a truly hands-off approach, you can use cloud-based menu software, which often comes with a low monthly subscription fee, to update the menu in real-time.
Benefits of Using a Digital Menu
- Cost-Effective: Digital menus eliminate the need for frequent reprinting. Update your menu instantly without additional costs.
- Dynamic and Engaging: Digital menus can include images and videos, making them more engaging than printed menus. Moving effects can also be added to attract customers’ attention.
- Eco-Friendly: Reducing paper usage is environmentally friendly, an aspect increasingly important to many customers. No paper menus mean 0 waste.
- Easy to Update: Quickly adjust prices, add or remove items, or highlight specials without waiting for new prints.
- Better Customer Experience: Digital menus can be integrated with online ordering systems, enhancing customer convenience and reducing wait times.
- Analytics Insight: Some digital menu platforms offer analytics, providing insights into popular items and customer preferences. By taking advantage of these analytics you do not need to keep track of sold items by yourself and can produce more or less ingredients in advance by forecasting sales more accurately.
In conclusion, digital menus offer a modern, flexible, and cost-efficient solution for food trucks. They enhance customer engagement, are environmentally friendly, and can even provide valuable business insights.
If you have space for an LCD display or tablet within your food truck, then this is a much better option than getting a menu printed out every 6 months when prices and menu items change.
