The pandemic has led to a significant boom in the food delivery market. The world is witnessing a lifestyle change as food delivery apps have become the ultimate business savior for restaurants and a delicious source for foodies. According to Statista, 53.9 million people in the U.S. will use online food delivery apps to order their favorite foods anytime, anywhere by 2023.

Food delivery apps have become a target for all startups and entrepreneurs who want to stand out in this digital world. This is because you can generate huge revenues in your online food delivery app business. As using mobile apps for food delivery becomes an increasingly common part of our daily lives, app marketers must understand how to find their audience. In this guide, we'll outline marketing strategies for food delivery apps.

Food delivery industry trends for 2022

Top food delivery trends to expect in 2022:

● Increased third party delivery
● In-house restaurant delivery fleets
● Prioritizing delivery data tracking
● Tech giants moving in on food delivery
● Rapid online grocery growth
● A rise in food delivery subscriptions

It's never been easier for food companies to reach their customers. Restaurant delivery has grown 20% in the last five years; although estimates vary, online food delivery sales are expected to grow by as much as $230 billion by 2023, accounting for 40% of total restaurant sales. As for 0nline groceries, Deutsche Bank estimates that the $24 billion online grocery market will soar to $120 billion by 2025.

What's the niche market for food delivery apps?

What's in a name? In the case of meal delivery apps, a lot. While the name may sound self-explanatory, the truth is that there are many different services offered under the umbrella of food delivery apps.

Restaurant to consumer

Many restaurants, including pizza chains known for their fast delivery, such as Delta and Pizza Hut, have invested in their own direct-to-consumer apps. This model makes sense for restaurants that have already invested heavily in delivery and have a network of drivers at their disposal. The restaurant-to-consumer model effectively cuts out the middleman and allows restaurants to keep all of their profits.

Platform to consumer

The platform-to-consumer app model works for restaurants that don't have their own fleet of drivers. apps like DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates and UberEats aggregate menus from a variety of restaurants, allowing users to choose cuisine and meal types, from breakfast to dinner and everything in between. Delivery drivers are hired by these apps, not restaurants. These apps profit by taking a percentage of each order in exchange for marketing and providing food to restaurants.

Grocery delivery

While takeout may be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of food delivery, this vertical has expanded to include grocery delivery apps, which are booming in 2021. apps like Instacart make it easy for people to get everything they need to make dinner or quickly buy things that can usually be bought at a grocery store and delivered to their doorstep in as little as 10 minutes in the window.

Meal delivery packages

Finally there are package delivery apps like HelloFresh and Blue Apron that allow users to choose packages they can prepare at home. Whether it's ingredients and recipes that users cook and assemble themselves, or meals that are heated and ready to eat, these kits make home cooking easy.

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How to start the marketing campaign for food delivery app?

1. Define your target audience

To build a successful mobile app marketing strategy, you should first understand exactly who your target audience is. This means you need to know who your product is for. This may sound obvious, but it's critical.

To find the best way to promote your app, you may need information about your potential customers, including demographics, location, their interests and lifestyles. This information will help you create buyer personas, which are pictures of the target customers you want to reach.

A deeper understanding of buyer personas will help you to:

• Create your message
• Choose communication channels
• Develop a content marketing strategy

As you can see, carefully creating and researching buyer personas is critical before deciding which app marketing strategy to choose for your meal delivery service. But today, it's also important to find a niche for your product that competes with the big food delivery companies. Gesoo, for example, provides delivery only from Asian restaurants and targets the Asian population in the United States.

Many food delivery startups target customers who are too busy to cook. But to narrow it down, you can target specific market segments, such as people who like healthy food or high-end restaurant food.

2. What's your unique selling proposition（USP）?

Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can create a unique selling proposition (USP). A strong USP can differentiate your food delivery app from your competitors.

About 60 percent of consumers cite speed of delivery as a key factor in ordering food online. But there are already many food delivery apps that promise fast delivery. That's why you may need to offer other advantages to stand out.

Creating a USP is an important part of any app marketing strategy. When creating a USP, consider the needs and pain points of your target audience. With the help of a USP, you'll be able to tell your prospects what problems your meal delivery app can solve.

Let's look at two of the top meal delivery services, Uber Eats and Caviar, and compare their USPs and target audiences Uber Eats is now the fastest growing meal delivery service in the U.S., targeting busy 24- to 35-year-olds who see speed as a top priority. To meet their needs, Uber Eats offers local food as well as fast food from large chains. The company emphasizes fast delivery, with the slogan "Your favorite restaurant, delivered fast". At the same time, Caviar targets customers with higher average incomes who want quality food from restaurants rather than fast food. That's why Caviar's USP is for delivery from high-end restaurants.

Tell your potential customers what makes your product unique and how they can benefit from it. Your USP should let people know how your food delivery app is different from other apps. You should always keep your USP in mind when creating your app marketing strategy.

The marketing funnel for food delivery app

Start App Store Optimization (ASO)

App Store Optimization can make your app rank higher in search results and convert at a higher rate. Over 65% of apps are found directly through searches on the App Store. Once your app ranks high for a keyword search, it will continue to rank for months afterward.

A catching title to keep users hooked

A good title is your chance to attract users and get them to click on your app to discover more. Include keywords in the title to get the best results. Conduct keyword research and create a set of long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords.

Keyword research is probably the most critical part of ASO. Both Apple Store and Play Store use an algorithm that uses keywords from the app title to rank apps for specific search queries. The algorithm takes into account other elements such as reviews and ratings, installs, conversions, etc. in order to rank apps appropriately for the same app store keywords.

Add screenshots and videos

Both iOS and Google Play allow short video previews of your app. This is a great opportunity to showcase gameplay and demonstrate features to convince users to try them out. Include HD screenshots of the page to immediately grab the user's attention in short and exciting language.

Choose the right app category

Using primary and secondary app categories is a field you must enter to make your app searchable vertically. Choosing your app category is another important step to ensure that your app can be found to increase natural installs. Including your app in a secondary category will increase the number of ways users can find your app organically.

A/B test your app page

A/B testing your app pages is a great way to improve their conversion rate. Test your icons, screenshots, app videos, and descriptions by deploying different test cases to improve conversions.

Localize your app

If you don't localize your app, you could end up missing out on great opportunities. There are many people who may like to use your app, but not because it is not in their language. Therefore, you will benefit a lot by localizing your app and including local options in the search.

Social media marketing

Food delivery apps can also use social media marketing as a way to connect with your audience, provide great service and raise awareness of promotions. 90% of social media users already use social media to communicate with brands and businesses, and 63% of customers expect brands to offer their services through social media. Here are three ways in which social media should be used to your advantage

Influencer marketing: Influencer marketing is the practice of partnering with influential social media personalities that can connect you with relevant audiences and is now worth between $500-$10 billion globally. Food delivery apps can work with everyone from celebrity chefs on Twitter to influential foodies on Instagram. It's an increasingly popular way to advertise apps, with 17% of companies spending more than half of their marketing budget on influencers. Once you've determined which influencers are relevant to your target audience, you can work with them in several different ways. For example, you can offer free services, provided your app will get coverage on their social media channels. You can also pay for product display by agreeing to a certain number of posts featuring your app's services.

Customer service: Social media has become part of our daily lives: 38.4% of Americans now use Facebook Messenger and Instagram users spend an average of 53 minutes a day on the app. As a result, many users now prefer to contact customer service via social media when they have questions or concerns. Connecting with your users through social media channels allows you to offer your services in a way that best suits their Internet usage habits.


Promotional offers and contests: Using social media as part of your overall strategy also allows you to easily share promotional offers and contests. As your competitors try to drive traffic to their apps, you'll see this on every social media channel of your food delivery app.

When it comes to developing a social media content strategy, delivery apps have a significant advantage: when done right, the food is visually appealing and very compelling. As a result, people like to see great food on their social media channels. For example, the #food hashtag page on Instagram currently has nearly 400 million followers, and #foodie has over 150 million followers.

Invest in paid users

If you have the budget to invest in paid media marketing, using Google Ads and Facebook Ads will allow you to reach more people who may be interested in your services. This is one of the best ways to do this because it gives businesses like yours the opportunity to appear at the top of search engine results pages for relevant searches!

Not only will this build brand awareness, but it will help your company exponentially increase the number of followers!