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The top 6 strategies for growing your food business online

The food industry is one of the fastest-rising ones right now. After all, they serve a basic need, with restaurants and bars at every corner and food delivery services are thriving. If you’ve been thinking about turning your passion into your next business, now it’s a good time to try. 

According to the National Statistics Association, the restaurant industry generated 659 billion dollars in 2020. While that’s less than expected, restaurant owners managed to find ways to keep their businesses alive despite the ongoing pandemic. That’s because their online presence helped them stay afloat. 

Tips for growing your food business online

Creating online courses, hosting live streams, and making videos are the basic tools for finding and engaging your audience, but they also require consistency.

So, let’s have a look at some of the strategies to help grow your food business online: 

  1. Create appealing content 

    It’s not enough to be a skilled cook and know the best tricks for your recipes if you can’t present that information nicely. When creating online courses in a learning management system (LMS), you should include different media types. 

    For example, when presenting a recipe on how to make the perfect quiche, you could structure it as follows:

    • Ingredients 
    • Instructions 
    • Short video 
    • Tips and tricks 

    Time is a limited resource even when cooking. You could make the most of this information and present your courses in different categories. Some examples include: recipes for lazy days, gourmet food for connoisseurs and sweet tooth delights. 

  2. Host live sessions regularly 

    Webinars are the best way to share your expertise with your audience. Once you get into the habit of scheduling live sessions each week, people will come back for more. Even a short 30-minute session is enough to interact with your viewers, present exciting content, answer their questions and generally understand what interests them. 

    You don’t need professional equipment for that. You can look good on video when facilitating live online courses, even when using a phone camera. 

    Since meeting in-person is not always possible, this is an effective way to reach the right audience and build a relationship with them. 


    Read more: 5 Webinar tips to boost your online course sales


  3. Join the club 

    When it comes to being noticed, social media is your friend. Although it might be tempting to join all channels at once, it’s good to take your time and understand the algorithm behind them so you can elaborate a strategy that works best for your brand. 

    Instagram is probably a top leader in the food industry. This social channel is all about imagery. A good idea is to post behind-the-scenes photos and engaging visuals on how you create your food-related courses to make your audience repost your content. 

    You can also tap into Instagram Reels to spark people’s interest.

  4. Listen to customer feedback

    Another great way of growing your food business involves customer feedback. While positive comments are great for your motivation, you shouldn’t discard critical opinions.

    There are a few ways to gather feedback. You can either check out the reviews that you get on your courses in the learning platform or ask your audience directly how they feel about your food business. Surveys also allow customers to provide feedback anonymously if they’d rather do that. 

    The voice of the customer plays a big part in the success of your business, so it’s worth making a bit of effort to collect these bits of information. 


    Read more: 10 Digital tools for e-learning entrepreneurs to collect and analyze customer feedback 


  5. Become a storyteller 

    Business storytelling is a great way to inspire trust among your audience and future customers. People appreciate honest stories, even if they might not feel that inspiring for you. They want to be able to relate to your narratives and empathize with you Therefore, you need to be authentic and consistent with your storytelling techniques

    Writing blog articles and publishing them on your LMS helps establish a connection with your audience. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy story, but it’s essential to keep your excitement high and address what truly matters to your learners. 


    Read more: 6 Practical tips on how to write a blog post series for your online course


  6. Be mobile-friendly 

    Around 54% of users browse the internet directly from their mobile. Since you want to accommodate everyone and create a seamless user experience, you need to ensure that your website and course information look nice on all devices. 

    You don’t need to redesign your whole course. You just need to include a few micro courses and bite-sized materials that people can access in their own time. For example, you could create a five-minute video that presents a tasty sandwich recipe or a quick podcast discussing essential kitchen tools for beginner cooks. 

Closing thoughts 

If you’ve got a passion for cooking, it would be a shame not to start a business only because the saturated online food market scares you away. Growing your small business might require a bit of time, but now it’s simpler than ever to reach broad audiences because more and more people are looking for new recipes and to learn new skills online. 

While creating catchy videos, posting on social media, and using stories to talk about your brand are good ways to expand your presence, remember that consistency is vital. 

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