 If your food business is not on Instagram, you basically don't exist. In today's video, I'm diving deep into how you can market your food business on Instagram, so then that way it shows up with your customer's Instagram. So then that way they can come and buy from you. And if that's what you want, make sure you guys keep watching. Hello friends, my name is Wilson, your friend in helping you build a thriving small business and a profitable food business. If you guys enjoyed this type of content, what do you do? You smash that like button because it shows me and Jason. This is the type of content you enjoy. So then that way we can create more of this for you. Now let's dive right in. So why do you need to take Instagram seriously? I'm not joking with you when I said that if you're not on Instagram and if you're not doing it properly, you don't exist. It doesn't matter if you're running a cloud kitchen, a home bakery, selling at farmer's market or even doing catering. You must take it seriously because Instagram allows you to have a brand awareness for whatever you're selling, your brand. Not only that, it allows you to communicate and engage with your customers. So then that way you can turn your customers into loyal fans. And lastly, Instagram also allows you to actually take in orders if and when you run it properly. And the truth is Instagram is where all your customers are hanging out. This is where they're just deciding what to eat, they're browsing, checking out what their friends are doing and just looking for things to shop. 77% of the US population is active on all the social media platform today. And Instagram alone has more than one billion active monthly users. Facebook, they found that 86% of millennials, they try a new restaurant after seeing food-related content online. And I just reflect on my own spending habits. Whenever me and Cass, my wife, try to decide where to eat, the first thing that she does, she pulls up her Instagram and she checks out the saved feeds to see where she's gonna bring us to go and eat. Guys, it is the truth. If you're not on Instagram, you basically don't exist. So you have to take this very seriously. But I know that Instagram is still quite new and difficult for a lot of people to use. Especially if you don't have experience running a business account. Guys, I'm talking about business Instagram account, not a personal account. And the reason why we created this video is because I get a lot of emails and a lot of messages asking me, how do we leverage Instagram? How do we leverage Instagram to market for my food business, Wilson? And that's the reason why I always tell them that Instagram is a goldmine. It is a goldmine waiting for you to go and pick at. And every month that you do not do that, it becomes more and more difficult because more competition is coming in. So if you're not already on it or if you're not doing it properly, then you have to take it seriously right now. And that's reason why I created something called Foodiepreneur's Finest Program. This is for the people who are confused on how to leverage Instagram to market for their food business. This is a 12 week program utilizing Instagram and helping you bring your food concept to market. So in that way, not only do you stand out, but it shows your customers that you exist. And only that we also have a student-only community called Secret Foodie Society. This is where you get to network with a lot of other students, have partnerships, collaborations, and all of us would be able to help keep you accountable. And on top of that, every two weeks, we also go on a group coaching call where I'm there to not just motivate and support you, but also share with you custom strategies that are working in today's world. Guys, this is not only an Instagram course. This is a core business fundamental group and a training really to be able to share with you how you can build a solid business. If you wanna go from just the headache, the agony, the frustration of not knowing where to start to actually being able to do something on Instagram and actually have your food concept out into the world, something you're proud of, something that you've always wanted to do, then I highly recommend you guys to check out the Foodiepreneur's Program. It is something that I pour my heart and soul into it. So then that way, basically just sharing with you what I've learned throughout my whole journey. So definitely guys, if you guys are interested, if you guys want to actually build something you're happy about and proud of, check it out in the link below. Now in this video, I'm gonna be sharing with you the framework that I use to market my food on Instagram every single time. So then that way, you too can learn from us. Now let's dive right in. First step is to understand your customer avatar. Guys, I preach this all the time and you know what? I'm not gonna stop preaching until you get it. You must understand who it is that you're trying to serve and identify them to the T before you decide to dive into any other social media platform. Whether it's Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, doesn't matter. You must know your target market. And the reason why that is the case because the whole business is built around this core customer demographic. I'm talking about the pricing, your menu item, your logistics, your packaging, your design. Everything must work around your customer avatar. If you skip this step, you are gonna be dying a very slow, painful death. I'll share a quick story with you. One of my students, I'm not gonna name his name but he has an ice cream shop at a mall location. He was suffering, so what did he do? He saw other people that were thriving within his mall. One of the place sells macaroons and they were having a lot of business. We're talking about $50,000 of macaroons every single month only having a kiosk, guys. So he was like, you know what? These guys moved out because he was about to retire, what did he do? He went and sourced macaroons and started to sell in his shop. Now when he was selling macaroons instead of selling $50,000, he was selling only $5,000. So he figured that, you know what? I need to import more goods. He saw that a cookie shop was selling a lot of cookies. He talked to the owners, owners once again was selling his shop. So instead, he went to create his own cookies, did R&D and started selling cookies as well. And once again, he was only doing a quarter of what that cookie shop was doing in revenue. The whole story is that he's just trying to throw spaghetti on the wall, trying to see what sticks. And the problem with that is because he doesn't occupy a specific mind space. He's not talking to anyone. The reason why this kiosk place is so, so successful at what they do is because they understand their customer demographic. People that walked in were trying to find goods, finding, trying to find treats to bring to their friends and family, to go to gatherings and they know exactly where they're going when they're coming into the mall. Oh, that kiosk place that sells macaroons and the whole experience caters to that specifically. And that's the reason why they are so popular. Whereas my students shop, he's selling ice cream, milkshake, bubble tea, cookies, macaroons. So really missing that niche that occupies his customer's mindset. And this is all because he doesn't know who he's serving. That's the reason why it is not working. And right now we're going to change everything around for him and I don't want you to make the same mistake. So what does this have anything to do with social media? Well, once you understand who it is that you're serving, now you can tailor the whole game plan, the whole Instagram game plan specifically to them. For example, this will allow you to figure out how much you're pricing, who you want to collaborate with, where are you going to be doing promotions, what types of promotions you are you doing, what types of menu items are you going to be offering, all of this because you have the insight on who it is that you're serving. Not only that, you get to see which channels they're hanging out in. For example, if you're targeting a 60 year old man, that's a very different demographic than a 12 year old teenager. Guys, we need to understand because the different platforms they use really dictate what type of content you push out and the purpose of them hanging out in these groups, whether it's just for entertainment or is it for information. We now know who it is that we're serving and we can cater our information and our marketing specifically to them. Just imagine for a second that you don't know who it is that you're serving but you've heard so much good things about Instagram and everyone's telling you to jump on. What you're going to do is you're going to start creating content. You're going to take pictures, you're going to write posts but you don't know who you're talking to and you've been doing that for months and no results come in. You're still at a few hundred Instagram followers and you think Instagram doesn't work. And this is the main reason why a lot of people give up on social media and that's why they give up on Instagram marketing because they don't know who it is that they're serving. Wouldn't you be surprised why they would have no traction at all if all you're doing is just creating content for the sake of creating content but not specifically talking to your specific customers? Guys, understanding your customer demographic is huge. It is critical actually for your business even if you're on Instagram, even if you're posting every single day but if you don't know who it is that you're writing for you still don't exist. People still don't notice you and that's the reason why you must be very, very intentful in identifying your customer avatar. If you don't, it's like speaking another language to them. They're not going to respond. They're not going to engage. They're not going to support you and nothing is going to work. And that's the reason why I created Foodie Printer's Finest Program. This program I created is specifically for you to understand the business fundamentals. It doesn't matter whether you're selling doughnuts. It doesn't matter if you're selling bubble tea or chicken sandwich. It doesn't matter because the business fundamental is the same and that's what I'm teaching you is the business fundamentals. You're going to be able to learn how do we profile and identify your customer avatar. You're going to be able to learn how do you sell them not just what they want but also what is it that they need. You're going to be able to learn how to communicate properly to them so then that way they can engage with you so then that way they're going to be able to buy from you. Basically I'm teaching you how to speak the right language to the right target demographic. If you're running a cloud kitchen, a home bakery, a doughnut shop, an ice cream shop, it doesn't matter at all because each one of them has a very specific customer avatar which I get to share with you how you can identify them. When you do that, you can start your business off and the right foot. Everything becomes so much easier when you know exactly who you're marketing to. If you guys are interested, then definitely I invite you guys to check it out in this 12 week program in the link below FoodiePrinner's Finest. The second step is to create a goal. What you don't measure does not get managed. Imagine you swimming in the middle of the sea. You're not going to get anywhere because you have no goal because you don't see that island that you're wanting to go to. That's the reason why you must have a goal. That's the reason why you must identify that island that you're trying to swim to in order for you to see any type of progress. This is what typically happens if you don't have a goal. You feel excited because you've watched some of my YouTube channel. You're like, you know what? Instagram is a must-do. I'm going to do it. You go and actually create content for the first week. You create your Instagram stories. You did your posts every single day of the week and you know what? You're seeing okay results, a few likes. Your friends and family support you. A few likes on your stories and then week two rows around. What's going to happen is that you know what, life takes over or you're going to encounter some type of issues or you just feel like it doesn't really work. So you know what? I'm going to take a backseat. I'm going to post because maybe once or two, three times a week. You don't feel like posting because you know what? Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't work. You know what? You don't know. Third week rows around and you're like, you know what? This stuff doesn't work. You know what? It just doesn't work because I'm not getting the attractions. People are not messaging me. I'm not getting any DMs. My likes are not going any higher and it just sucks. Fourth week rows around. You think that Instagram marketing is dead. You think that nothing works. You think that you know what? This is not for me. Or you listen to some Instagram gurus online telling you to post every single day and reels and stories, IGTV, all those good stuff and you are super dedicated. So what are you going to do? You're going to start creating content every single day. You're creating multiple reels, multiple IG stories and posts. Within a week, you're seeing some results. Some likes, some shares. And you know what? You feel excited about it. Second week rows around. You're feeling burnt out because it's like trying to catch your breath and you're not being able to come out of the water to catch your breath because you're drowning and drowning and drowning in content creation. And yet all of these likes, all of these shares are not translating into any sales. Week three rows around, you are just ready to tap out. You're like, you know what? Instagram is for the young people. It's for the people that, you know what? Have no life, no job, no nothing because it doesn't work. Instagram marketing is dead. Now these are the two very common scenarios that happen with a lot of people. And this stems from not having the right mindset and not having a goal in mind when creating content on Instagram. Why is it that you need a goal, you may ask? Well, first of all, you need a goal in order for you to see where you're going, for you to measure the progression in your business. If you're spending countless hours creating content on Instagram, trying to figure out what works, what doesn't work, engaging with your audience, leaving comments. At the end of the day, does it really work? Are you moving your business forward? Is this a good progress or a bad progress? You wouldn't know if you have no goals because you're not measuring anything. You don't have a baseline to share with you and to show you that, you know what? Is this strategy working? Or is this strategy pulling in more customers? And that's the reason why you must have a goal. Creating a goal is very, very simple. It's easy, but choosing the right goals to commit to is the difficult part because we don't know whether the goals that we set is actually gonna move our business forward or is it just distraction? Deciding on the right goal really comes back down to the objective that you set right from the beginning. Here is how I feel about Instagram. Instagram is basically the perfect gateway to creating positive touch points. Now what are touch points? Touch points are interactions that your customers have with your brand. The better and the more positive touch points that people have, the more likely they're gonna buy from you. The more likely they're gonna turn it into loyal fans. For example, with Starbucks, when you see someone holding a cup of Starbucks with a smiley face, then this gives a great touch point. Another example would be when you hear about that new flavor from your friend, tagging this new pumpkin spice latte, that's another great touch point. Or if you see a new campaign that Starbucks is doing, which is very creative, that's another great touch point. And all of these touch points, they add to the willingness of you taking out your dollars to spend with Starbucks. Just to prove my point, research from Google says that specifically in the food business, you need roughly 20 positive good touch points in order for you to actually decide to purchase from that brand. Well, now you might be thinking, you know what Wilson, you're raving about touch points, but what does this have to do with Instagram? Well, first of all, they're one of the biggest platforms out there. They have more than a billion active users and not only that, more than 500 million people are actively using their stories features every single day. And on average, Instagram users, they spend more than 30 minutes on the platform every single day in 2020. This is a perfect platform for you to build positive touch points with your audience. So what do I mean by that? If you're advertising on TV, well, you only get 20 seconds for you to establish that one touch point with the brand. And let's say if you know what, you don't have the budget for TV, you're doing email marketing. Well, every single touch point is one email. So it really depends on how many emails you send to your audience. But on Instagram, you can actually create multiple positive touch points every single day. I'll give you an example. Let's say if you own this coffee shop and you're making cookies, you can share behind the scenes with your audience of you making the cookies. This gives value because people don't get to see this every day and that's a positive touch point. Now they are on your profile. They see other people engaging with your cafe, with your cookies. They love it because they get to see that confidence. People enjoy your cookies, positive touch point again. Now you're doing a live Q and A on your Instagram. What's gonna happen is that you answer a lot of questions, you have a lot of transparency, another positive touch point interaction with your audience. This is just a quick example sharing with you how you can actually create positive touch points. There are many other ways, for example, if you are having interactions with influencers, them doing collaborations, giveaways, many more different touch points that you can create using Instagram. Now within a day, you generated four to six different positive touch points and this is how you're able to convert these window shoppers into customers and into loyal fans just by you knowing what to post on your Instagram. And finally guys, this can all be done using organic growth hacks. What do I mean by that? That means you don't need to spend any money on Instagram ads. We're talking about you saving thousands of dollars. You still can have tens of thousands of people to follow you, to like you, to share your stuff, all of this on your Instagram account. So all you have to do is to actually have to write strategies and also have the patience to do it and the consistency to actually do it on a regular basis. Mix all this up with your regular posts, with your reels, with your stories, with your IGTV, with your carousels together in order for you to create this organic growth. Be super strategical with your user-generated content. This way, you're gonna have a lot more people to talk stuff about you because at the end of the day, what other people have to say about your brand is much more powerful than what you say about your own brand. This could very well mean inviting influencers to come to try out your food or to be able to collaborate with different businesses that correspond and actually compliment your brand. This could also mean creating a branded hashtag so then that way you can share with people who support you so then that way other people can see the same thing. And when you're able to use user-generated content properly and strategically and masterfully, what's gonna happen is that you're gonna have a lot of free content for you. Not only that, these free content, you're gonna be able to repurpose it to actually drive sales for your food business. 92% of consumers, they turn to people that they know for referrals before they turn to any other type of sources. Millennials, they trust UGC user-generated content more than 50% more than what you as a brand have to say about your own stuff. A staggering 93% of consumers feel that UGC is really helpful when deciding where to eat. So guys, when you're creating your goals, you must identify your whole customer journey and create the positive touch points so then that way you can get lots of customers. I know I just went on a tangent on influencer and UGC and the reason why I did that is because I just wanna emphasize the importance of these two elements because this would really make or break your business. We see these strategies utilized in world-class companies. Case in point, McDonald's, they just did their collaboration with Travis Scott and also with BTS. So influencer marketing works like a charm and that's the reason why I'm sharing that with you. Now, I know a lot of people when it comes to influencer marketing has a lot of questions and it is very intimidating at the same time because at the end of the day, how do you reach out? Who do you reach out to? How do you identify them? What do you even say when you're reaching out? What if they reply? What type of deals are you gonna be able to set with them? And guys, I've worked with hundreds of food influencers and you know what? Part of my success is all thanks to them. And because so many people ask me and I do a lot of consultation, I basically took what I have done in my own business. Every time I work with these food influencers, I jot down what I say. I jot down what works, what doesn't work and I put it in the Foodie Printer's finest program. Now, all these templates that I'm sharing with you are proven to work. Every time we open at a new location and new city and new country, we utilize the same core messaging, the same core templates. Now, it is all available for you in Foodie Printer's finest. And if you have any questions in drafting your first influencer campaign, feel free to drop into our student-only community. And on top of that, we also have our bi-weekly coaching call, so to not wait, we can guide you through this whole process. So if you're still confused, you don't know the steps to take to leverage Instagram, to create your first influencer campaign, to create user-generated content, to create positive touch points. So then that way, you can exist in your customer's eyes. So then that way, you can actually start making sales. Then you have to check out Foodie Printer's finest program because we cover everything in there, specifically for you. So there you go, friends. I really hope you enjoyed this video. If you want to learn more about how do you build a thriving small business and leverage Instagram as a tool to actually make it, then definitely check it out in the link below Foodie Printer's Finest Program. I really hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you guys have, make sure you guys smash that like button. Otherwise, I will see you guys in next week's video.