There is a lot of competition in the bakery world. In addition to the storefront bakeries, now most supermarkets have near full service bakery sections with some that can make custom baked goods for you on request. When you add this to the explosive growth of the Internet positioning bakeries in other neighborhoods with an ability to serve customers in nearly every neighborhood nationally, the need has never been greater for a baker to be at the top of its game.
Experts in the baked foods industry like Larry Polhill Café Valley Sr. Executive know that this means that doing things like upping your baked good recipes and ingredients and using effective marketing techniques are a must. There are other things you can do as well to beat the competition. Here is a checklist for you to follow;
Use Social Media to Get the Word Out
These days everyone is online and looking to find new products services and compare those to the ones they are currently purchasing. Social media present a wonderful chance for you to get in front of new customers and speak directly to them about why your bakery is special and needs to be on their shopping list. In order to get the most out of your efforts, make this a daily activity for your company and consider starting your own page and displaying your products there. Encourage and incentivize your current customers to go there and provide testimonials about your products and the great service that your bakery provides. In no time, you should see new customers coming.
Incentivize Customers
If you have great baked goods but not enough people know it, you should consider giving away free samples. This strategy ensures that people will get to experience what you already know because everyone loves getting something for free. So look to set up a way for people to sample some of the food you make. When you do this, be careful about what happens next. Some companies try and force people to make a purchase. What works better is to simply leave the item they just sampled in clear sight and give them an option to decide to purchase it. In other words, no hard sales.
Understand Your Customer
You get people coming into your store for a set of specific reasons and you need to clearly understand what they are and how to expand on them. Are you in a convenient location? Are your prices better than the competition? Are you products tastier then all of the rest? Knowing the answers to these questions allows you to build on your success and then broaden it. If you have a reputation for great products, you should consider making a larger variety of them. If pricing is your main draw, go even further and offer people volume or loyalty discounts. If location is a lure for customers, offer to deliver to others who may be farther away. To learn the answers to these questions requires that you interact closely with your customers and this is a good way to increase sales.