Food businesses have one great advantage in advertising and one strict limit. The advantage is that good food photographs well and everybody eats. The limit is distance: nobody orders lunch from a kitchen on the other side of the city. Good food ads are built around that limit.
Advertise only as far as you can deliver hot
For a restaurant or a daily food vendor, the most important setting is the area. Aim the ad at the neighbourhoods you can really serve, and name them in the ad. A person three areas away who cannot get your food is wasted money, however good the picture.
Caterers and bakers who take orders ahead of time can cover a wider area, because the customer is planning, not hungry right now.
Show food the way it arrives
Use real photos of your own food, in good light, as the customer will receive it. Pictures borrowed from the internet bring one order and no second one. A short video of food being served or packed often does better than a still photo.
Time it to when people decide what to eat
People choose lunch in the late morning and dinner in the late afternoon. A post at midnight about tomorrow's lunch special is mostly missed. Post and advertise shortly before the meal you are selling.
For cakes, small chops and event catering, the timing is weeks rather than hours. Advertise ahead of the periods when people celebrate: festive seasons, the end of the year, and the months when weddings are common where you are.
Make ordering effortless
Hungry people do not have patience. Every extra step loses orders.
- Show the price and what is included.
- Say the delivery areas and the delivery cost.
- Say your opening hours and how long delivery takes.
- Give one way to order and answer quickly when people use it.
Bring people back
A food business lives on repeat customers. Posting your menu of the day, a weekly special or a new dish keeps you in the mind of people who have already ordered once, and costs far less than finding a stranger.