Baked treats are used as a form of celebration.

‘Getting married? A wedding cake is needed…Oh, it’s your birthday? Yes, we obviously need a birthday cake…Are you moving away or moving into a new house? Let us celebrate with a cake.’

No matter the occasion, cake and desserts are always used as a way to celebrate. We can say that sweet treats unite us.

Baking is probably one of the most loved activities by many people…and also a messy one. But nothing beats a beautifully decorated cake or cupcake with loads of sprinkles.

In order for The Bake to succeed, an excellent marketing strategy needs to be implemented!

Measuring The Bake’s current success

Being an online baking store, you need to make sure that you are taking full advantage of all online platforms. Such platforms can be Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Whatsapp, Pinterest, YouTube, Google Ads and any other platform that is popular in the country or city you are situated in. You would also need a well set up website in which your target audience can visit if they need more details.

Another point to remember is that your consumers will also want to speak with you personally for which you will need business accounts on social media, a chat box on your website and a personal email address.

In order for you to measure your current success you will need to first see if you are completing these few steps:

Ensure you have registered your online business as this will not only be beneficial to you but will also show your audience that you can be trusted.

[For more information on why it is important to register your business, click on this link.]

Create your logo and slogan. You can use Canva to provide a cleaner finish on your branding image.
Next you will need to ensure that you create a business website, email address and business accounts on the various social media platforms you will be advertising your products. If you have the finances then you can hire a professional to set up your websites and accounts and create your logo.

If you have already completed the above pointers then you will need to check if you are doing the following:

Have you introduced your business and products to your followers?
Do you post content every day or every second day on your accounts to increase interaction?
Do you check your personal messages on your social media accounts as well as your emails to see if your customers need more information on products or are having any troubles purchasing your products?
Do you interact with your customers in the comments sections?
Have you ever put up polls to see what customers expect of you?
This is optional but having competitions also increases interaction between consumers and your websites and social media accounts.
You can also have discount sales which gives customers a chance to purchase your products at cheaper prices.

After evaluating these pointers, it can be noted that The Bake has a professional logo and their website, email address and social media accounts up and running. However, The Bake does not post content on their social media accounts as much as they need to. There is also a lot of time taken to respond to emails and messages and the website is not constantly updated.

The Bake is on the right track, however, there is too much time taken before these tasks are completed. It is important that customers’ emails and messages are responded to within 12 hours and The Bake needs to post content close to everyday to ensure that they gain more audience members.

Identify your goal

With any business, the employer and employees have a goal which they aim at achieving to ensure the success of their business. The same is needed with an online bake store. You as the owner and most likely head baker need to set a goal or goals which you wish to achieve. This can be the most successful online bake store in South Africa or may be actually opening a physical store once you have the finances.

Every business has their own goal and as a business owner you will need to set your goals at the very start of your new venture. You can even get input from employees to see if this goal is attainable and how you plan to achieve it.

Let’s have a look at The Bake’s goals:

Short-term goals:

Attract as many customers as possible
Post content on social media daily
Interact with our target audience
Get to know about other sweet treats our audience wish to purchase on our online store
Ensure our website is fully functional
Change up our packing.

Long-term goals:

Have a designated baking area
Find more employees to join The Bake
Get new and bigger baking equipment
Open The Bake’s first physical store in the city we are based in
Expand our stores across the country
Supply grocery stores across the country.

With setting goals, it is good to remember that they can always be adapted according to the businesses success or progress. But with doing so, the marketing strategy plan will also need to be updated as it helps to achieve those goals faster.

Grow within the digital world

With the world taking their businesses online, it is important for you to stand out. But how does one do so in such a competitive market such as baking?

Being an online baking business is already so unique as it is still something fresh in the marketing and online world. But what else can be done to make your online store successful?

Let’s start off by getting a professional to create your logo, website, email address and business social media accounts. Yes, these are things that can be done by yourself but by creating a professional profile you are not only inviting new customers but you gaining their trust as well.

In this digital age it is so important to make sure that your business profile is professionally done to stand out in the market and gain your customers trust and support so they do not fear being scammed.

Although The Bake has a professional business profile, it is important to make sure that everything continues to run smoothly. This can be done through updating fixtures on your website, changing up your themes on social media and even the inclusion of fun newsletters.

For this you may want to hire someone to run your digital marketing or outsource a professional to ensure everything is running smoothly.

Furthermore, you can create fun and exciting newsletters.

Let’s be honest many people subscribe to newsletters but do they actually take the time to read it? No! Simply because they find that they either receive too many newsletters or the content provided is boring. But The Bake can change that and introduce new and fun content to their newsletters.

Such content can include games, DIYs, teaching our consumers how to bake up a quick dessert. We can get creative with it.

Another way to ensure that The Bake creates a digital fingerprint is by creating memorable, fun, exciting, positive and interactive content on social media. People enjoy taking part in online activities and look forward to them. So it is always a good idea to take time to prepare for such activities as you are likely to get more attention.

Let’s talk about Unique Selling Point

So what is Unique Selling Point (USP)? USP is a form of marketing strategy which is used to inform customers on how one’s brand or company is greater than their competitors.

In order to understand your USP, you will need to:

Know your target audience- as an online business you are bound to receive attention from people in various places, this can be in the same province as you, different cities as well as different countries. Some people will also only follow you on social media because they enjoy your content. But as an online bake store owner you need to know who exactly you are supplying and how you can cater to them while also providing content to your other followers as in the future you may want to expand on your store and they will know what to expect.
Explain your problem- dessert is something that is so attractive to people and when people see good quality bakes they will want to make a purchase but how do you go about attracting your customers?

You would want to promote your products and for that you will need to have good picture taking skills. You will not need to spend lots of money on hiring a professional every time you need a picture but instead you can do it yourself with a cute set-up using things you would find around you such as sprinkles, cake ingredients, chocolate, etc.

You will need to arrange transportation. Being an online business you won’t always have the joy of meeting customers face-to-face so it is important to ensure you have a proper delivery service in place. This is also something you can do by yourself if customers are situated close by but if you are aiming at targeting a bigger audience then you will also need to make sure that you are using a delivery service that is reliable.

This now takes us on to the next point which is choosing your suppliers and delivery team or service. As a business owner you aim at producing high quality products and in this cake you will be using the best and most trusted brands to create your sweets treats. This now means you will need to decide on where you plan to get your ingredients and at what rate you will be paying for them. This is the same with your delivery team as you will need to find a company that is trustworthy, at an affordable rate and will deliver your products safely.

What makes you different- the baking industry is a popular market and bakers or business owners have something different or to sell and some sell the same products as others which can vary in quality and taste. So now as head baker and online bake store owner you will need to decide on what makes you different from others and how you can use this to your advantage.

Yes, this does involve the various types of products you create but you can also get creative and invest in the type of content you create or even the type of packaging you use. Be different! You could host online or in face classes teaching your customers different decorating techniques. Mold your business into a brand!

Research your competitors

It is always a good idea to conduct research on your competitors as you will want to know how you can better them in this market. So how do you conduct this research?

Let’s start off by looking at bakeries or online bake stores that supply in the areas you aim at supplying. Get familiar with what their menu is, what their store looks like or websites. From there have a look at their online business accounts to see the type of content they upload and how they interact with their customers.

From this you can fill in the gaps to see how you can better them. You might even draw inspiration from them but avoid copying them as you will be producing the same content or products which will not make you stand out and copying someone else’s content or designs is not the correct way to do business unless you take inspiration from them and create your own products and content.

Content, content, content!!!

Take advantage of being an online business. Creating attractive content is key in this digital age. As an online bake store you’ll need this content to attract your customers and run a successful online business.

[Content creation requires a whole new marketing strategy plan.]

Conclusion

Having a marketing strategy in place is always a good choice as it sets out what you need to do in order for your business to succeed. Yes, it does seem like a lot of steps to follow and a lot of work needs to be done, however, the majority of steps within a marketing strategy can be completed by using your mobile device.

The Bake is a fairly new online bake store, a start-up we can say and as of now this may seem like a lot of work to do in order to get your online store running. Although, this marketing strategy plan was designed as a basic introduction into how new start-ups can get their business running.

Content creation, web design, packaging and so on all need a plan of strategy which luckily follows almost the same process which makes it easier to meet all goals.

There is a lot of free content online that can guide a new online bake store through the process of marketing strategy plans. Digital marketing agencies can also be used to help simplify this process.

[All images used were taken from Pinterest]

Written by:

Aditi Sukram.

Marketing Strategy Plan for The Bake.