Bakery can be seen to be the best way to display your culinary art work when you have a proper and actionable marketing strategy. With so many of it becoming established, the best way to remain in business is to be the best in your niche. In June 2018, the Bakery Initiative Group trained about 200 bakers in Nigeria who will in turn train others.

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What a competitive market this has turned to. But the unique thing about this food service establishment is that even people with non culinary backgrounds can get into industry easily by opening a home bakery.

If you fall in this category, you have already got your space figured out. Congratulations! The rest is to keep on baking those killer birthday cakes, making the sweet breads and producing that yummy doughnuts for your customer’s gratification.

However, the challenges of starting a baking business from home are quite unique and one strong merit that bakeries have over other food-centric businesses is that sweet tendency of advertising themselves.

Here, demand for products based on consumer’s preferences and profits are being determined not only by how effective or efficient your operations can be but your bakery marketing strategy also plays a greater role. This can be a strong pillar to stand your business and a big driver of your success.

A good marketing strategy can serve as that powerful force that attracts customers to your bakery

How do you attract customers to your bakery?

What is business without those always available to patronize? For God sake, you can not bake bread or cakes for yourself or family consumption. That would not be called a business.

Therefore, customers always make the top list in your business agenda and losing them amounts to losing the business as well. To avoid or prevent this from happening, what could be the possible way?

It is true that good food is one powerful magic that makes a customer happy but other factors must also be considered to achieve that aim of marrying them to your bakery.

1. Killer Aroma

Not just taste but smell. Most foods taste awful but end up being respected because of its powerful scent.

That which can penetrate through the nose and wake one from sleep. When baking, the aroma should take over the air and give one a welcoming spirit.

This kind of smell gives free advertisement to consumers who are around the vicinity and passer by inclusive.

2. Do giveaway

“Awoof” they call it. People, especially Nigerians, love it a lot. Put it in a way that once in a while customers buy one thing and get one extra and try to give out free samples to “tastes” before buying.

This will further boost their appetite towards your content. Who knows? They may even try something and end up liking it which can further push them to buy your whole product.

3. Trade online

You should have a good social media presence and you must promote your bakery using online platforms.

Keep your customers in tact by making your products or company easily accessible through social media content like Facebook, twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

However, before going into this you have to understand how best it works. You should have perfect knowledge about social media marketing.

Social media works best when it is a mixture of conversation, content and promotion. The right mix of each aspect will vary which depends on your market, business and audience.

But it is always better to have that assumption that people don’t fancy accounts that purely post advertising and promotional content.

Your social media page should have been one that converse, share, sell, post photos and videos, get an email sign up sheet and ask customers to stay connected to get the latest News and updates about your product and also ask for their own opinion.

Make your page entertaining, keep your audience engaged but be careful not to annoy them.

4. Conduct survey

Your audience come first in business and their interests must be put at heart. Oftentimes try to conduct a survey using surveymonkey and be sure of what your customers want from your bakery.

Take their feedback and work with it. This will serve as a guide to further create services and products that meet the desires of the people who are loyal patrons of your business.

5. Provide community social responsibility

If able to, your bakery should sponsor community events or groups. Try to help your host community in one way or the other.

Putting money behind a great course will help your bakery expand its reach to targeted groups of people. This will also draw the people’s support towards your bakery.

6.Treat customers with respect

The way a customer is treated will determine his “come back next time”. For your bakery to succeed, you need to take that role of being friendly.

Whether old or young, smile at customers when they walk in. Give them warm reception, keep your communication point simple and you can even open the door for them and make sure that their purchased products are well packaged.

How can a bakery increase productivity?

Although this may be less affordable for new starters, one technology that many have found which gives them a whole new bakery capacity is Rapidojet but for home bakery I will recommend starting with 3 in 1 stand mixer.

Rapidojet is a radical batch, continuous hydration mixing technology for a wide range of baking products. It can be used to produce bread, roll, cake, muffin, pastry dough and gluten free.

The advantage of this is that it dramatically decreases mix time, decreases fermentation time and increases yields. It is also highly energy efficient.

Other ways to boost your productivity can be seen as follows:

1. Higher process efficiency

It is important to make sure that the system of your operations are running smoothly. Maintain the relevant safety precautions and preventive measures. High standard sanitation in place. This is necessary so as to avoid any kind of obstacles that can hinder your operation.

2. Better products

Always adopt new ways of baking and try out new methods. You can increase your speed up process and increase your output. This will definitely increase your productive ability.

3. Energy Efficient Equipment

It is no more news that energy costs are quite high. That is why it is advisable to go for any means to make you spend less. Try equipment that is efficient in all aspects.

The one that is designed and works well can go a long way in reducing time and money wastages in your operation.

What would be the target marketing for a bakery?

Target market refers to those people who have so much interest in your products. They are the people who devote their time and always check out what you have to sell and they are the people who are bold enough to recommend your work to others.

Of course, they are your biggest fans. Most importantly, they stand out to ask ‘what’s wrong? ‘ when they see no new products from your bakery.

Getting the target market for a bakery makes you market your content to the right people, at the right time which is done in a way that brings that natural feeling to them. It also makes you love what you are doing and to have fun while doing it.

Furthermore, it should be in your top priority list that to start a business, targeting the customers is required. Know who they are and what they really want.

Remember, it is not all the people that will like to eat cake. So it is very safe to look for people who matter to your bakery. In doing this, most of the things you need to consider should be:

Who are your present customers?

Who do you have as customers?

Are they old people who used to bake but can’t do that again?

Are they parents who need the supply of birthday cakes yearly?

Find out about them and also make them know how great your capability is and that you are always ready to meet their needs. You must also have to look at the past and present sales, weigh them and see if there’s a change.

Also try checking if you are really happy with your clients or you wish to have a change. It is after knowing this that you can get to work marketing.

You can now know where to target your marketing because you know where they stay and where they hangout online.

Digital marketing for bakery

Digital marketing is nothing more than using the online medium to trade your products. It has to do with the practice of using web-based channels to spread a message about your bakery or the content you produce to your potential customers. E.g social media, email marketing, search engine optimisation, events and webinars etc.

The impact of digital marketing methods for your bakery can not be over emphasized. The mode of advertisement is quite different from the traditional one. Life is becoming more modernized and everyone is becoming digitalized.

Take your bakery online at little or no cost. With a well designed website and a beautiful landing page people get to know about your product and from visitors become paying customers.

Send the photos and videos of the cakes, breads etc, you have baked through YouTube, facebook, Instagram for people to see and feel your worth. Through this, you get them attracted and can also receive immediate feedback.

Bakery sales strategy

It is one thing to start a bakery business and it becomes another to know or have the best strategy of selling the products being made.

As an entrepreneur, your main aim is to have a reason to smile after your effort. Profit making is very key. This article has done so much already as far as the journey of bakery business is concerned.

But we are determined for a successful business and that is why we thought of bringing out this powerful strategy.

How do you sell your bakery products?

Digitized your products:

As a baker who wants to excel, it is very important to be very active on social media. Using a social networking platform to post pictures of your latest creations is a sure way of convincing your customers to come to your shop for a quick pastry before going to work. Do this through Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest etc.

Showcase your product:

Another best strategy to make a good sales is to have several large display cases in front of your shop, equip them with the most attractive and appetizing products that you sell e.g. Pastries and cakes. With this, people who pass by get to know what you sell and may want to patronize.

Partner with local restaurants and coffee shops:

This strategy can best bring money to your pause and increase your fame. The procedure is very simple. Just take out time to look for small shops around, get them convinced and offer your products to them at wholesale price.

Make them your customers and you become their suppliers. An extra advantage of this is that those shops resell your brand out which makes you more popular.

Run Baking classes:

Though this is not a direct marketing technique but you may decide to impact the knowledge you have to others. With this you get paid for service rendered and they also purchase your products and invite others as well.

Marketing mix for bakery business

This will be the final phase of this article. Marketing mix has to do with certain actions or tactics that are put in place to make sure that your bakery promotes its brand or product in the market.

To achieve this, there is a need for proper understanding, conduct research and consultation with relevant people starting from users to manufacturers and others.

The components of marketing mix are actually referred to as ‘4ps‘ (price, product, promotion and place).

Price: The value put on a product is the price. The consideration is based on cost of production, segment targeted, ability of the customers to pay etc.

Product: This is the actual product that is put on sale. The product must be at it best if not the best work on the other features may not go well.

Place: Bakery location, the point of sale. A good place is important in order to catch the attention of buyers which will give them easy access to your product.

Promotion: This refers to all the processes done to bring the product to the awareness of the people. E.g advertising, word of mouth etc.

Note: The importance of this to your business is that all the components affect each other and bring great success to your bakery marketing strategy if handled properly. Take a few seconds to share this post if you find it very informative and we would like to hear your opinion on this bakery marketing strategy in a comment section below. Thank you!