Grow your cake business during a dead patch
WHAT TO DO WHEN IT'S OH SO QUIET.....
Lots of cake makers on our Q&A last week were worried that inquiries had really slowed down. This is normal for this time of year, but may be exacerbated by the current financial climate, and fears around the rising cost of living. Here are eight productive tasks that will strengthen your business while you ride it out.
Tidy up your marketing and general collateral. Could you add extra fields or diagrams on your customer order forms to avoid lots of scribbled notes? Is your serving guide up to date? A lot of wedding cake serving guides online ignore that cakes have doubled in height. Do you have a clear delivery form that you can leave with your cake on site, that includes allergens, flavours, serving information etc?
Update your website. Again just housekeeping, but could you get hold of professional shots of the wedding cakes you delivered over the summer to add to your gallery? Maybe delete some that are starting to look a bit dated, or that are of a style you don't particularly want to offer any more. Add as many testimonials as you have. To get more, contact
Promote wedding cake consultations in your Instagram stories with a link to a simple booking form that you can include on your website. This is super easy on Squarespace, you simply add a calendar. Mock up a pretty box of sample cakes and post images of it.
Curate informative blogs and newsletters for your ideal customers. Think outside cake and write about stunning venues in your area, how to plan your big day, how much of your wedding you can DIY (Not the cake obvz). Write about your cakes in every third or fourth post or mailing, but in a helpful way: how to choose the right size cake, how to display your wedding cake etc. This establishes you as an authority and knowledgable about your industry. Make sure you promote your newsletter and blog on Instagram with a link. With Linktree you can have multiple links in your bio.
Grow your subscriber list by building a landing page (easy on Mailchimp, Canva or Squarespace) that links to a free or valuable thing if they sign up. This could be a box of sample cakes, a pdf brochure that includes a price guide to your cakes, serving guide and lots of testimonials and images, a discount code for a celebration cake, anything that the customer would perceive as worth giving their email address for.
Make some reels. Video is key on social media, even if it's essentially a slideshow of recent cakes set to trending music (Instagram will suggest this). Maybe film yourself making a dummy cake and speed it up (you can do this on IMovie). Or some behind the scenes stuff - delivery, consultations etc.
LEARN NEW SKILLS. What cakes would you ideally like to create? Use this opportunity to take your skills forward by watching YouTube tutorials or signing up for courses. Obviously my online course is the BEST out there but there are others. Make dummies (you only need to decorate the front) and take brilliant photos to show off your new-found techniques and post.
Explore Facebook ads. It may sound counterintuitive to be spending money when you don't have much coming in but advertising on the platform is an effective way to drive traffic to your profile/website. Ads are highly customisable, budget friendly and easy to track and measure.
Above all, remain positive and remain focussed on what brought you into the cake business to start with. Don't drop your wedding cake prices, the wedding market is fairly robust: couples will still get married and in the scheme of things a couple of hundred quid either way on a cake is not going to bust the budget in most cases. Remember that most wedding caterers will be charging £7-8 for a desert per head.