The Importance of Food Truck Wraps

JULY 14, 2020| SpeedPro Greenville

Greenville’s food truck industry continues to grow despite a slight growth setback due to a new 2020 fire code regulation. As the industry grows and more and more food trucks hit the streets, stand out by wrapping your truck with eye-catching graphics from SpeedPro.

Simply decorating your truck with your business name and social media tags in Times New Roman font won’t do the trick. Paul Somerhausen, a food truck broker in California and CEO of SactoMoFo, writes in an article for 3M that vehicle wraps are majorly important to the food truck industry for both brand awareness and return on investment.

Why Food Truck Wraps?

Picture a city event where multiple food trucks align end to end. Your truck has roughly five seconds to catch the eye of a prospective customer. How will your truck stand out amidst the crowd?

Somerhausen writes he has seen a large difference between the income of wrapped trucks to those without wraps:

“When I look at the average impact over the years, here’s what I’ve found:

• A truck with a plain wrap should sell 10% more food than a truck without a wrap.
• A truck with a good wrap should sell 10% more food than a truck with a plain wrap.
• A truck with a good wrap should sell 20% more food than a truck without a wrap.”

A good first impression goes a long way, and with attractive graphics and well placed branding, your food truck wrap can give you just that.

Design Your Food Truck Wrap Right

A key factor in successful food truck wraps is the design. Focus your design on art that markets and brands your business rather than solely focusing on graphic art. A great looking truck will help draw attention, but without the correct branding, no one will remember who you are.

1. Make your products obvious.

Anyone looking at your truck should automatically know what you sell. If you sell hot dogs, it should be obvious within the first few seconds of seeing the truck. If you sell coffee, your graphics should reflect as such.

Easy ways to do this are to:

• Trim the top of your truck with a line of products.
• List products on the back door of the truck.
• List products beside your service window.
• Write products on a hanging whiteboard.

Most people won’t stop by to ask what you sell, so tell potential customers what they need to know before they know they need to know it.

2. Graphic placement is key.

As you create your designs, think about where to place your information. Your entire truck is prime real estate for branding.

Think about driving between locations. Bright colors, large text and large graphics catch the eyes of your fellow drivers. Anyone behind you could be reading your business name, services and contact information on the rear of your truck. Those passing will see the branding on the truck’s sides.

Think about when you’re serving. The first trick is to draw attention to your truck. Then, as customers crowd in front of your truck, eye-level graphics could be blocked from potential customers’ sight. Don’t be afraid to go high with your designs to allow those farther away to still see your products and branding.

Don’t forget most food trucks only serve from one side of the vehicle, leaving a full panel available for design that isn’t broken up by a service window.

3. Invest in quality wraps.

The cost of a truck wrap will vary depending on the size of the truck and the wrap. You can do full wraps, partial wraps and spot graphics for your truck. At SpeedPro, the price for an average sized food truck full wrap averages around $3,500.

Although the price of good quality wraps and installation may seem steep, the investment will pay off in the end. It’s always better to pay a little extra than to lose time and money to get a graphic re-installed multiple times or to realize a spot graphic just isn’t cutting it. Exposed to the elements, a good wrap should last up to five years on your vertical surfaces and two to three years on the horizontal surfaces.

So, Basically…

Bright, flashy truck wraps work wonders for pulling in customers and the ROI of a wrapped truck supersedes that of a non-wrapped truck.

A good design, and therefore a good first impression, is also crucial to drawing in customers and setting your truck apart from others.

SpeedPro Greenville would be delighted to help you wrap your truck and increase your brand awareness. We produce high quality prints printed with UV resistant inks, and are available for design advice as well. Give us a call today for a quote on your new food truck wrap. We’ll talk through the production steps and as soon as you have finalized and approved your design, we’ll start printing.