Did you see our previous blog about opening an ice cream shop? Or any type of dessert shop for that matter... If not you can check it out here.

I want to dip our toes into the water of advertising for a bit. We won't get too complex here as it can be overwhelming. But I will go over some ways you can advertise your business!

Please keep in mind, these will be Digital Advertising tips, because it can REALLY pay to be a little tech savvy. 

But first... Why should you listen to me?

Well lovely blog reader, my name is Vincent and I have been working in the advertising space (both digital and physical) for the past 11 years. My primary focus has been on e-commerce stores and brick and mortar restaurants (which is a category your shop would fall into). And I have been able to help brands large and small reach new heights.

Now that that's out of the way, where do you start with advertising?

Let's talk about a few platforms that have been proven to be profitable (if used correctly) for ice cream shops, froyo shops, tea houses, and boba stores. 

1. Yelp both organic and paid traffic

2. Facebook & Instagram (again organic and paid, we will talk about this below)

3. Postmates/Gruhub etc... paid traffic

I am going to start with the 3 main advertising platforms which are specifically for the food service industry. Yelp, PostMates and GrubHub.

All three of these work in a similar way and allow you to run paid traffic directly to users while they are visiting the app. The benefit of these three platforms is that they have a considerably high ROAS (return on adspend). Due to the fact that people using the app are directly searching for what you sell.

All of these platforms offer a signup bonus for new advertisers. Yelp for example is giving away $300 in ad credits when you sign up. So you might as well take advantage of this!

Once you are signed up creating the ads is pretty straightforward. If you have any issues please reach out through the contact form or by emailing me directly at vincent@frozensolutions.com 

In short, you create an account select the audience/demographic and area you want to advertise to, and then create your ad.

The key to successful paid advertising is to have an amazing offer. Something people won't want to miss, but also something you are still profitable on.

A few things to note: When creating an ad with any of these platforms make sure you select people within your area. You can usually choose how far in miles a person is located from you. So you probably don't want people 100 miles away seeing your ads. It would be a waste of your money and they won't visit your shop.

Also, you will be prompted to select an age minimum and maximum to show your ads to. Typically it is a waste of money to target anyone under the age of 25. However if you want to test it out, you can try younger. But keep in mind ages 25+ spend the most money eating out, getting dessert etc... Because they usually have "real" jobs.

Facebook and Instagram where to begin...

This is my specialty, however explaining the ins and outs of paid Facebook/IG traffic would require a novel of epic proportions. So I will keep this as simple as possible.

Facebook and Instagram are essentially the same thing. When you run ads for one, you also run them for the other. Much like the above options, Facebook allows you to target by location, age, sex, and also some much more detailed options that other platforms do not have.

Much like Apple, Facebook creepily knows everything about you (and your customers) so use it to your advantage. You can quite literally target people that like ice cream and live within 1, 2, 3 etc. miles of your shop. It can be a little tricky to figure out, but it's not impossible! 

To start you will need to make a Facebook page for your business, then you make a Facebook ads manager account (just google "Facebook Ads Manager"), then with the click of a few buttons you can link your Facebook page, Instagram page and your new ads manager. 

Admittedly running Facebook paid traffic is much more difficult than many other platforms. It will require a some learning to be effective. Or you can hire a specialist such as the ones that work for us at Frozen Solutions! So reach out if you need help with this.

We can do more of a deep dive into this later if people are interested. So please let us know!