5 Food app marketing strategies to drive ROI & business growth

Food delivery services have gained immense popularity over the last couple of years. What started as a necessity during the COVID pandemic has become a popular trend because consumers are now accustomed to the convenience of food delivery apps. 

Statistics also indicate that the industry is poised for sustained growth, painting a promising picture for businesses operating in this space. According to Market.us, the global online food delivery business is projected to grow at a CAGR of 12% and reach a market value of $483.9 billion in 2032, up from $179.5 billion. 

While the demand for food delivery services is evident and projected to increase in the coming years, the success of your food delivery app is not guaranteed if you don’t adopt a strategic approach. 

In this article, we will share the food app marketing strategies you can implement to gain an edge in the competitive food delivery market. 

Top 5 food app marketing strategies for sustained growth

Here are the most practical food app marketing strategies you should follow to enhance the performance of your food app. 

1. Promote on social media

Social media marketing is essential for businesses that want to succeed online. Most of your customers are active on social media platforms to connect with their family and friends and engage with their favorite brands. 

For food app marketers, a robust social media strategy presents the perfect opportunity to offer exclusive deals to customers and drive downloads.

What’s more, you can showcase the different menu items and cuisines customers can order through your food app to entice them. 

Given the inherently visual nature of food-related content, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook would be the ideal platforms for promoting your food app. 

For instance, you can create a short video of a chef creating a sumptuous meal and share it on these platforms to give viewers a sneak peek of your app's offerings. 

While there are many ways to promote a food app on social media, running contests is particularly useful in boosting downloads. 

Social media contests are powerful because they help you generate buzz around your app and foster engagement with your audience. DoorDash used this tactic effectively on Father's Day by encouraging users to download the app for a last-minute gift for their pops. 

2. Run referral programs

Referral marketing is one of the most effective food app marketing strategies to drive business growth and ROI. These programs tap into the influential network of your existing customer base and incentivize them to promote your food app to their friends and family. 

This creates a win-win situation for all parties because the customer gets rewarded for successfully referring a customer, and the food app business lands a new customer. 

To drive app downloads through referral marketing, consider offering incentives such as:

• Free meals 

• Reward points 

• Discounts

Such incentives will help you acquire new customers and motivate your current ones to keep using the app. 

Pop Meals, a Malaysian food delivery business that offers on-demand delivery, uses this strategy to drive app downloads by offering existing users the equivalent of $5 worth of free food to invite their friends. 

To run your referral marketing campaigns effectively, consider using referral software to monitor your referrals and rewards. Here’s a detailed Attrock curated list of the top referral marketing software you can use to promote your food app. 

3. Optimize your app store listing

How do smartphone users find apps? 

Mostly by performing a search on the app store. A simple search on the app store will list the relevant apps that match the query. To attract more downloads, your goal should be to optimize your app store listing to rank higher on the app store search results. 

This process is known as app store optimization, and its main goal is to give you maximum visibility in crowded app stores. 

Some of the initiatives you can implement to optimize your app store listing include:

• Incorporating the popular terms your audience uses in the title

• Integrate AI chatbots within the app to provide instant support and answer user questions directly, improving user experience.

• Writing a captivating description that highlights your app’s unique features

• Adding high-quality visuals, such as screenshots of your app, to create a visually appealing representation of your food app

• Publishing customer reviews to display your customer satisfaction rate

GrubHub has done a great job of optimizing its app store listing, as you can see in the example below. They have used the keyword "food delivery" in the title, shared user reviews, published captivating visuals, and written a compelling app description. 

4. Partner with influencers

Influencer marketing stands out as an effective strategy for brands to connect with their target audience. Influencers have a close connection with their followers and can convince them to download your food app.

However, note that you can only succeed with brand ambassador marketing when you work with influencers relevant to your brand and product. For instance, partnering with a technology influencer to promote your food app makes no sense. 

That’s why it’s advisable to work with a full-service marketing agency to find relevant influencers to work with. 

Uber Eats uses this strategy to encourage users to download its food app. In the example below, they collaborated with Instagram influencer Leah Ally Annah (@leahallyannah) to promote the app.

5. Focus on SEO

Lastly, pay attention to search engine optimization to get your food app in front of your target users, who are conducting online research to find the best food delivery services. 

This strategy will help you rank high on search results and drive customers to your website. From there, you can introduce them to your food delivery app and share links to your app store listing. 

The top results for the keyword “food delivery New York” are Uber Eats for Merchants, DoorDash, and GrubHub. 

These businesses have prioritized SEO, and their high search ranking helps them drive quality traffic to their website and eventually to their app store download page. 

Final thoughts

The food delivery industry is growing as consumers enjoy the convenience of food delivery apps. As the competition intensifies, you’ll need a strategic approach to get people to download your app. 

By implementing the food app marketing strategies highlighted above, you can create awareness for your app and gain an edge over the competition. Once implemented, monitor your progress over time, and make changes where necessary to ensure the success of your food app.

About the author - Reena Aggarwal

Reena is the Director of Operations and Sales at Attrock, a result-driven digital marketing company. With 10+ years of sales and operations experience in the field of e-commerce and digital marketing, she is quite an industry expert. She is a people person and considers human resources as the most valuable asset of a company. In her free time, you would find her spending quality time with her brilliant, almost teenage daughter and watching her grow in this digital, fast-paced era. Gravatar Email ID: reenaa@attrock.com