Who I work with · Food and drink

Marketing for bakeries.

People eat with their eyes first, and now they do it on a phone. If your case looks better in person than online, the customer who never walked in had no way to know.

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How the work actually comes in

The honest version.

A bakery gets found two ways. The morning crowd searches for something nearby and open right now, then picks from the photos on the map. The custom order customer is different. They are planning a birthday, a shower or a graduation, and they scroll cake photos for a week before reaching out. One decision takes seconds. The other takes days. Your online presence has to serve both.

Most of what decides it happens before anyone talks to you. The photos on your Google profile. Whether the hours are right on a holiday Monday. Whether there is a clear way to ask for a custom cake without calling during the lunch rush. When those pieces are missing, people go with the bakery that made it easy, even if your cakes are better. They already found you. They just could not tell.

By the numbers. Census County Business Patterns, 2023 counts 18 businesses classified as retail bakeries in Plymouth County, 38 in Bristol County, 24 in Norfolk County, 12 in Barnstable County, 38 in Worcester County, 51 in Rhode Island and 22 in New Hampshire, and that is before the grocery store cake counters competing for the same birthday order. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023. Counts cover businesses with paid employees.

Where the work leaks

Your Receipt, bakeries.

SICC MEDIA

Customer copy

Receipt #C8EA97 · BAKERIES

01
No clear way to order a custom cake
LEAKING
The custom cake customer wants to know if you can do it, how far ahead to ask, and roughly what it costs. If the only answer is call us, the request lands during your busiest hour or not at all. A form with the date, servings and design notes catches it.
02
Hours that are wrong on the days that matter
LEAKING
Closed Mondays, early close on Christmas Eve, sold out by noon on Saturday. If Google still shows the normal schedule, someone drives over to a dark storefront and writes a review about it. Holiday hours are easy to forget and expensive when you do.
03
Photos that undersell the case
LEAKING
Your product is visual and it changes daily. A Google profile with a handful of blurry photos from opening week tells a stranger nothing about what is in the case this morning. Fresh, well-lit shots of the actual pastries do more selling than any caption.
04
Preorder deadlines nobody heard about
LEAKING
Thanksgiving pies and holiday cookie trays sell out, which is good, until regulars find out the cutoff passed while they waited for a reminder. A deadline posted once on Instagram is a deadline plenty of people miss. It needs a page, an email and a sign at the register.

This is the general version

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The leak that costs the most

You missed the call. Now what?

One missed call. Two endings.

2:14 PMYou have both hands in dough. The phone rings. You cannot get to it.
2:14 PMThey hit voicemail and hang up without leaving a message.
2:15 PMThey tap the next name on Google.
6:40 PMYou see the missed call. You call back. No answer.
The custom cake order went to whoever picked up.

An example of how it plays out, not a real customer. The text-back is part of automation for bakeries.

Timing

The year, for bakeries.

The year runs on holidays. Thanksgiving pies, Christmas cookies, Easter, Mother's Day, then the spring run of graduations, showers and first communions. Summer brings weddings and, near the coast, beach traffic for the morning case. Here in New England, January and February go quiet. That stretch is when the website, the order form and the photo library should get fixed, not the second week of November.

Where I would start

Websites for Bakeries

A bakery's most valuable orders are custom cakes and holiday preorders, and both depend on a clear way to ask. A mobile page for each order type, with a form that captures the date, servings and design and fires a reply immediately, stops those requests from dying in voicemail during the morning rush.

See the plan →

Everything I do

Ten services, written for bakeries.

Or skip straight to your problem

I run My business and I keep losing jobs to My problem

The list is not everything. Not on it? Pick “a business not listed,” or run the free Receipt. It works for any business.

Service 01Branding for Bakeries

Your logo has to work on a pink box, a window decal, a price card and a tiny circle on Instagram.

Service 02Websites for Bakeries

A bakery website has two jobs.

Service 03Marketing Plan for Bakeries

Most bakeries are three businesses sharing one oven: the daily counter, custom orders and wholesale.

Service 04Social Media Management for Bakeries

Your bakery makes something worth photographing every morning.

Service 05Content Design for Bakeries

You already post.

Service 06Online Stores for Bakeries

Most bakeries do not need a nationwide shipping store.

Service 07Automation for Bakeries

Custom cake requests that never got a second reply.

Service 08Voice Agents for Bakeries

Most bakery calls are quick: are you open, is there rye today, can I order a cake.

Service 09Local SEO for Bakeries

Someone nearby searches for a bakery, a cake shop or fresh bread, and the map decides who they see.

Service 10Paid Ads for Bakeries

Nobody needs an ad to find the croissants.

Questions

What bakeries ask first.

Should I post my custom cake prices online?

Post a starting point, not a full price list. People planning a cake want to know they are in the right range before they spend time describing a design. A starting price per size, plus a line saying detailed designs are quoted, filters out the mismatched requests and makes the serious ones comfortable reaching out. You do not have to publish every add-on.

Is Instagram enough, or do I need a website?

Instagram is good for showing the work and bad for taking orders. Posts get buried, DMs pile up, and there is nowhere to send someone at night who wants the holiday preorder deadline. A simple site holds the order form, the hours, the deadlines and your allergen statement in one place that does not scroll away.

How do I keep from overselling during the holidays?

Set the cap before you open preorders and close the form when you hit it. I can take the form down at the cutoff and put a sold-out note in its place, and the confirmation states pickup windows clearly. In December the marketing problem is usually orders arriving in the wrong channel, not a shortage of orders.

Where they are

Towns with the most bakeries.

Providence, RI · 11Fall River, MA · 9Plymouth, MA · 5Brewster, MA · 4Leominster, MA · 4Cranston, RI · 4Attleboro, MA · 3Swansea, MA · 3West Boylston, MA · 3Westborough, MA · 3

Business counts by town, Census category "Retail bakeries". Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023.

Close neighbors

Other food and drink businesses I write for.

RestaurantsFood trucksCoffee shops and cafesBreweriesCaterers

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