The 4 Essentials of Marketing Your Home/Micro Bakery in a Way that Attracts Customers

“Home Bakery Marketing” sure doesn’t get your heart racing as much as the thought of trying out a new recipe, right?

You’re so not alone!

But if you’re here reading this post, it means you’ve probably realized there’s MORE to a successful Home Bakery than JUST the BAKING part.

“Bake great treats and advertise them.” That’s what I thought I had to do to get more Home Bakery customers and orders. Maybe this is your approach right now?

This strategy may have worked in the 80’s, but honestly, it’s just not enough anymore because there’s a lot more competition now!

I’m sure you’ve been experiencing this reality first hand and that’s why you’re here looking for answers.

Down that path the inevitable happens…

We bake our hearts out, post on social media feeling so proud and hopeful!
But then you get crickets and no one orders anything…

Here’s the big secret my friend…

The best products don’t get the most sales. The best MARKETING gets the most sales! I always tell my Home Bakery Students a successful Home Bakery is 30% great baking and 70% great BUSINESS STRATEGY.

That explains why bakeries with average quality baking often get MOST of the sales! Sure, their baking doesn’t taste as great as yours, but they’re ACING that 70% Business Strategy – and that’s why they’re getting sales consistently, without fail.

If you’re serious about making a profit, you can’t afford NOT to learn about business & marketing.

The GREAT news is that ANYONE can learn marketing! It’s not something you’re “born with” or not.

If you’re open to learning you can also become a marketing ninja!

Before I dive in, I just have to tell you that you’re amazing and I’ve got HEAPS of hope for your home baking career!

Not many home bakers realize that the success of their Home Bakery completely DEPENDS on their Marketing Strategy.

The Home/Micro Bakery scene is NOT a Baking Competition… It’s a Marketing Competition!

The fact that you’re here reading this post tells me you think differently about your baking business.

So, congrats on being open and so dedicated to your business!

Here are the The 4 Essentials of Marketing Your Home/Micro Bakery in a Way that Attracts Customers.

1. Marketing is About STRATEGY, Not “Quick-Fix-Tips”

The most important thing you need to know right off the bat is that Marketing isn’t about a few quick tips. There’s no silver bullet that will “fix everything” and suddenly attract hundreds of customers.

Is there ONE ingredient in a super delicious recipe?

Is there ONE step in the method?

Nope.

Some recipes have over 30 ingredients and 40 method steps in them.

In the same way, effective home bakery marketing doesn’t have just one ingredient or one method-step in it.

When a baking business succeeds, it’s because there are lots of elements working together in harmony. Just like with the best recipes.

Effective Marketing is about many things working together to create a powerful result. That’s what “strategy” is all about.

So, IF you’ve been hoping for shortcuts, silver bullets, quick tips etc. that will get you hundreds of clients in 1 month, let that expectation go. Save yourself the frustration and disappointment!

>> Don’t look for “quick fixes”. Those might get you 1 or 2 orders this week, but next week you’ll be stuck hunting for customers again. Repeat orders require effort and, most importantly, CHANGE.

Through my own painful, frustrating experiences, I’ve found that when we look for quick fixes, we’re really just avoiding our own growth – and success.

If you want a home bakery that gets consistent sales every week; pursue LEARNING & GROWING. The more you truly learn and grow, the more your business will grow.

MANY home bakers don’t want to learn & grow. They just want to BAKE. I totally understand that because I felt the exact same way for YEARS! I didn’t want to know anything about business or marketing at all.

But the bakers who don’t want to learn and grow are the ones who eventually need to close their baking businesses and return to a desk job.

If you want DIFFERENT results, you’ll need to CHANGE the way you do things.

Here’s the biggest thing I wish I knew when I started my home bakery:

The day you decided to start SELLING your bakes, you signed up to become MORE than just a baker. In that moment you signed up to become a BUSINESS OWNER & ENTREPRENEUR.

And if you want more customers & orders, you’ll need to be as devoted (actually even more) to developing your business skills as you are in developing your baking skills.

Marketing is almost like learning a new language.

REAL Marketing is a whole NEW way of approaching your entire business.

Effective Marketing isn’t about promotions and discounts.

REAL Marketing will make you re-evaluate EVERYTHING about your business; your business name, what you bake, how you interact with customers and everything in between.

RELATED: How to Choose a GREAT Home Bakery Business Name

And if you’re worried that I’m going to tell you to pour thousands into advertising, don’t be 😊

Paid advertising is not how I roll – just ask my course students. Ads only amplify what’s already going on in your business.

If a business needs to pay for advertising, it never made the effort to understand PROPER marketing.

Great news is; you can totally create a sold-out home bakery without ever paying for advertising! I’ve done it and so have my students. And YOU can do it too!

2. Understand the Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

Marketing is ALL about learning how to make strangers see & understand that YOUR baked goods are exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Bakers tend to view business in a very outdated way. I did too at first! They believe that there are 2 things you need to do to build a successful Home Bakery Business; bake great treats and advertise them.

But since there are so many bakers to choose from, this strategy simply doesn’t work anymore.

Pretty much everyone has great quality products, so why would a customer choose YOU over another baker?

Don’t get me wrong; it’s great that you’re devoted to creating high-quality bakes! I’m simply saying that this isn’t enough anymore because PLENTY of bakers are devoted to quality.

We believe we just need to “bake great treats and advertise them” but no matter how hard we try, we just DON’T get more customers and orders.

It sucks!

And we start assuming that the reason why it’s not working is because we:

A] Aren’t “good enough” bakers or we
B] Aren’t spending enough money on advertising.

This is TOTAL GARBAGE my friend. You’re a victim of totally outdated information!

First of all, I want to tell you that businesses don’t struggle because their products aren’t good enough. They also don’t struggle because they don’t advertise enough. And they definitely don’t struggle because they don’t spend “enough money” on advertising.

Want to hear a shocking fact?

For 4 whole years I didn’t need to spend a single cent on advertising and my Home Bakery was fully booked every month! And it’s all because of this ONE thing – Effective Marketing.

Truth is that if you’re not getting consistent orders you’ve got a MARKETING problem. NOT an advertising problem.

Advertising and marketing are NOT the same thing.

Here’s the difference between Advertising and Marketing:

Marketing is about all the things you do to ATTRACT people to your business.

When you understand marketing and apply it effectively to your business, you’re essentially turning your biz into a high-intensity MAGNET that attracts your ideal clients to you on autopilot.

Your clients then come looking for YOU, instead of you trying to hunt them down.

Advertising on the other hand is like deep sea fishing…

You spend lots of money to go OUT and hope to find customers. It’s stressful. It’s risky. And most of all it gets expensive very fast! I’m sure you’ve felt that with your advertising efforts!

The honest truth: My Home Bakery has been fully booked 98% of the time (sometimes for 3 months in advance) with ZERO advertising.

When I started out in 2013 I DID TRY advertising and I didn’t get any business from it whatsoever! But investing my time in learning about MARKETING has made all the difference in my business.

3. The FOUNDATION of Proper Home Bakery Marketing

For the first 5 years in my Home Bakery Business I always positioned my Home Bakery to “impress people”. I thought that’s what you need to do to get people’s attention. You need to IMPRESS them.

Impress them with your baking, your long list of ethically sourced ingredients, your fancy logo, with your social media, etc.

If you WOW them the most, they’ll choose you over another baker, right?

Maybe you feel that way right now in your business?

The socking fact is that people DON’T buy because they’re impressed (with your logo, or website, or ingredients, etc.)! They buy when they believe you UNDERSTAND their problems and can fix it for them.

Here’s the biggest marketing mistake Home/Micro Bakery owners make…

… They position themselves as the hero of the story. They make the story all about them and how amazing their business is.

But meanwhile all customers are only interested in ONE story – their OWN story! Not yours.

Here’s a practical example:

We all tend to think WE are Daniel LaRusso at the end of the Karate Kid movie.

On our social media and websites we parade around with our trophy trying to show people “Look! My home bakery it legit! Look at the delicious things I make! Look at the list of organic ingredients I use! Come over here and read my life story that’s all about me!”

I did this too. It’s how we all start out and there’s no shame in that because it’s what we see so many other businesses do so we assume we need to do the same.

But if you want your Home Bakery Business to GROW, you’re going to need to start to approach your business’ story DIFFERENTLY.

Truth is, my dear friend, we are NOT the hero of the story.

YOUR CUSTOMER is the hero.

Your business’ story is about guiding your customers to success.

You’re Mr Miyagi!! You are the GUIDE, not the hero.

A successful business is the one guiding Daniel (your customer) and helping him to overcome his problems and reach success.

Customers are constantly on the lookout for business who understand that everything is about them (the customer). When your business is all about YOU, it won’t attract new customers.

But when your business starts to revolve around your clients’ success, they start flocking to you automatically!

So, spend less time talking about yourself; all the “did you know” facts about your business, the high quality ingredients you use, etc. Your customers don’t really care about this.

Start talking about your customers’ problems and how you can help to solve their problems.

When you talk about the problems they’re ALREADY thinking about, you start breaking through the noise. When you empathize with their problems and present a solution, you suddenly start becoming USEFUL to them.

🌟 People don’t buy products or services; they buy SOLUTIONS to their PROBLEMS.

So, spend some time to really think about this. Write down any and all problems your ideal customer faces in their day.

Then include those words in your social media posts, your website, etc. and explain how your products solve those problems for them.

If you want to learn more about marketing, then you HAVE to read “Building a StoryBrand” by Donald Miller. This book transformed my business! If you read ONE book this year, let it be this one.

4. Be a HUMAN, Not a Robotic Business

As I’ve said earlier, I always assumed that people buy when they’re impressed by a business and their products.

But I was wrong!

Do yourself a favour and memorize this line right now: People buy from people they know, like and trust.

Meaning, people are WAY more likely buy from people they can relate to and connect with. We’re relational beings. Acknowledge your own and your customers’ humanity.

Here are 2 ways you can do that:

A] Speak in the first person. Don’t say “we”, “us” and “our” on your website & social media if you’re just ONE person running the show. Be honest. Be REAL. If you’re one person, use “I”, “me” and “my”.

Speak to your clients & followers in a human-to-human way. Don’t talk to them like a cold, huge, robotic corporation. This is HOME baking, not a legal institution.

B] And show your FACE!

I’m forever grateful to Instagram Expert Carla Biesinger for stretching me outside my comfort zone on this one!

For the first 2 years in my Home Bakery I was so shy. I NEVER showed my face anywhere on Instagram.

This was such a big mistake!

I know it’s difficult, but I urge you to be bold and SHOW YOUR FACE on Insta! Use a photo of yourself as your profile photo.

And use your first name in your profile!

The fact that you, a real person, are baking everything they see is a MAJOR asset to your business! Don’t hide the fact that YOU are the baker.

Want more practical step-by-step methods and ideas for marketing your Home/Micro Bakery?

In this post we covered the foundations of marketing your business.

And now that you’ve got that down, you’re ready to move on to the next step.

In the next post, you’ll get a super practical step-by-step breakdown of some of my favourite, most effective methods for marketing your home baking (without paid ads) >>  https://philosophyofyum.com/home-bakery-marketing-ideas/

Hugs & donuts,
Aurelia

Got a question? Something to add? Let’s chat in the comments section down below! (I respond to every single comment)