In Ohio, some of the most successful bakers don’t even have a brick-and-mortar location. Many of them work right out of their home, thanks to a law that allows home bakeries to operate, provided that they follow a strict set of guidelines. These bakers often come from the state’s sizable Amish population, as well as from homemakers and hobbyists looking to make an extra income from their talent as bakers. They don’t have a huge budget to spend on extras, even if those extras help them promote their products.
Many of these bakers, as well as their commercial counterparts, have little imagination when it comes to labels, however. One can only yawn when one looks at this label. A chess pie–that kind of goodness needs an image that jumps out at customers and beckons them to buy!
Imagine how much these bakers could boost their marketing potential with a photograph of each selection along with a logo that showcases the unique features of their bakery. For bakers who want to break out of the home bakery category and into a commercial establishment, an effective way to overcome the challenge of a tight budget to market a brand is a must.
Eye-catching labels that are easy to read can do just that. It can create a brand image with just a glance–and for little overhead. That’s the kind of marketing edge that can transform a home bakery–or a startup commercial bakery–into a highly-successful enterprise. Here’s why bakeries need such a solution:
In Ohio and other tightly-regulated states, to move from the home bakery category to the commercial one requires a substantial investment in square footage (either rental or purchase), specially-built commercial baking and preparation equipment, and licensing fees. When they go commercial, the state no longer permits bakers to operate out of their homes, no matter how clean they keep them. To come up with such a hefty sum, home bakers must find a way to learn how to market baked goods on a budget. They must learn to promote their existing business so that it produces enough cash flow to allow the baker to invest in the equipment and space it takes to play with the “big guys.”
Furthermore, once the baker has invested her or his money into the expansion, he or she needs to make the new place profitable. In addition to the marketing efforts they have put into their home bakery, they need to step up their marketing campaign so they may compete with the supermarket bakeries down the street. This means branding their goods to reflect their homey, non-mass-produced origins and flavor. This means that labels, logos, slogans, blog posts, and web content must all reflect the brand’s image across the board.
When a baker, regardless of the quality of her or his work, first goes commercial, money is tight–unless they’ve just inherited Uncle Jake’s fortune. Learning how to market baked goods on a budget is therefore, most important. Prudent business people keep a keen eye on their bottom line–if they want to make their business profitable in this era of cutthroat competition. Therefore, to hire a big-name advertising firm to promote their wares is out of the question.
Yet fledgling bakeries–and other startups, for that matter–can have the panache of a Madison Avenue firm’s expertise for less if they find a company that can provide marketing solutions that do double (and sometimes triple) duty to promote their merchandise and services. Although TV ads may be out of the question, attention-grabbing labels that seduce hungry buyers into purchasing a tasty pie or cake are well within the budget of most startup bakeries.
Furthermore, those businesses can pile on the good marketing juju by combining labels and business cards with walking billboards–promotional wear that call out the business’s name every time one of the business’s fans walk down the street wearing a T-shirt that bears a photo or drawing of a hot, juicy piece of the bakery’s pie. Passers-by can almost smell the goodness and will follow that person like a stalker just to get directions to that bakery.
As one can see, the answer to learning how to market baked goods on a budget is not easy but doable. Even a startup bakery can break into the business with branded promotional merchandise that extols the goodness of their home-baked goods throughout the community for pennies on the dollar. When faced with the decision as to where to buy the cake for dessert for his upcoming dinner for his boss and her husband, a savvy host will choose the homestyle bakery every time–if only s/he only knows where to find it. Quality marketing materials can show her or him the way.
