Home-based businesses are all the rage these days. And what could be sweeter than a home-based cake business — literally!? But if you want to sell your pastries, you have to out-bake the competition. According to industry statistics, there are more than 1,500 patisseries and cake shops in the U.S. That’s a lot of competition!
If you want to stand out and sell more cakes than ever before, here are five ways to promote your home-based cake business in your locale.
Hang flyers around town
Online advertising is great and all, but there’s one major problem. It goes to a worldwide audience! What good is it if someone in a different state or country sees your ad but can’t get to your delicious cakes? If you want to hit a local audience, flyers are the way to go.
Paper flyers posted around town can reach people as they go about their day. You don’t have to worry whether they check their social media feeds or type the right query into a search engine. Plus, you can control the reach. Post your flyers inside your delivery or pickup range, so only people within your service area see your advertising.
Of course, you’re busy baking up a storm and probably don’t have time to “bake” flyers from scratch — unlike your cakes. Luckily, there are thousands of templates for small business flyers available online from websites like PosterMyWall. Get a professional-level flyer design without needing professional-level design skills to really attract attention.
Run ads on social media
Social media can be a great way to promote your business, but there is one major drawback: only your followers can see your posts organically. If you want to expand your marketing reach online, it’s a good idea to boost some posts and run a few social media advertisements.
When you create a social media ad, the platform will promote an advertisement to your audience of choice for a small fee. And the best part is that you choose the fee! That way, you won’t break your marketing budget.
Pro tip: Your flyers make great social media ads. Just save them in an image format like JPG or PNG, and you can upload them directly to your social media platforms.
Optimize your website
A whopping 97% of consumers use search engines to find local businesses. With nearly everyone looking up businesses online, having a great website is basically a necessity in today’s world. However, just having a website won’t cut it. It needs to be optimized.
Your website should be as easy to navigate as possible. Make sure that potential customers can find the information they’re looking for quickly and efficiently.
Online ordering capabilities are also a major bonus, especially for home-based businesses. You might not want all those people showing up to your house or constantly calling you on the phone. You’d never get any baking done!
Hand out samples and menus
You can take delicious-looking pictures and write engaging captions all you want. But selling cakes is really all about flavor. And the only way you can use flavor to promote your cake business is by handing out samples.
People can’t resist free samples, and nobody says no to a piece of cake! Visit local establishments and businesses and hand out some of your delicious cakes. The people will taste for themselves why they need to place an order immediately, and you’ll gain new customers for life.
Another option would be to set up a stand in a popular part of town and hand out your samples to anyone who passes by.
Don’t forget to leave behind a few menus, so people can see all the different pastries you offer!
Collaborate with local businesses
Just like cupcakes and sprinkles, some businesses go hand-in-hand with pastries. By collaborating with other local businesses, you can extend your marketing reach to their clientele and share your delicious cakes with more people.
For example, think about partnering up with a food truck. Food trucks travel all around town bringing in new people every day. Plus, many of them specialize in one type of food — typically not dessert. If you collaborate with the food truck, you can also travel around town sharing your cakes and provide a very important part of any meal (dessert) without any competition between the two businesses.
Bring your delicious cakes to more people around town
More people need to try your cakes! And the best way to promote your home-based cake business around town is to start with some well-designed flyers, promote your company on social media, optimize your website, hand out plenty of samples, and collaborate with other local businesses.
The more marketing strategies you implement, the more tastebuds you’ll be able to dazzle and delight with your incredible cakes.
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