Bakery Marketing: 10 Bakery Promotion Ideas to Guarantee Your Success

Who can resist a slice of fresh, hot, sourdough bread? Or a nice, steamy cinnamon roll? Bakeries are a public favorite, generating $30 billion in revenue annually in the United States alone. But other businesses’ success can also be bad news for you as a newcomer, as it means you will have loads of competition.

Therefore, you must learn how to promote your bakery to stand out from the competition. Baking tasty, unique products is a good start, but it won’t be enough to attract the number of customers you need to succeed.

Instead, what will help you increase your visibility and get more clients is efficient marketing. In this article, you will find 10 bakery promotion ideas you must try:

1. Get the best online business card: an optimized website

How would people know about your delicious pain au chocolat or crispy baguettes if you don’t have a website to advertise them? You can’t make enough profit if you only get sales from foot traffic; you need an online presence, too.

Especially if you are in a more remote area, you need to make your location known with a sales-optimized website. Luckily, you don’t have to break the bank or hire a team of developers, you just need to become a GloriaFood member.

After filling in your information and creating a menu, you can generate your own personalized website within seconds. You get to see what your future website would look like, and you can even play around with it for a bit to see if it’s a good fit for you.

A one-page template, intuitive navigation, relevant sectioning, and contrasting menu buttons make this website ideal for every bakery. Here we have a demo website that will enable you get a look and feel of this paid feature, which at just $9/month costs less than a large pizza.

Moreover, it comes wholly customized with texts full of keywords and beautiful imagery, so you don’t have to put in the effort. The website will be delivered to you already SEO-optimized so people can easily find you when they search for a bakery near them.

Get the perfect website to advertise your bakery promotion ideas by going to admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Sales Optimized Website.

2. Allow people to order your treats online

While walking into a bakery and choosing a sweet treat from all the great-looking options is an experience, some people would like to enjoy fresh bread without leaving the comfort of their home.

Think about how many more people you could serve and how you could grow your bakery business if you had an online ordering system. You may mistakenly believe you have to invest a lot of money to take online orders and, being a small bakery, you don’t have the funds.

But the truth is you are just a step away from selling your carefully baked bread with the free online ordering system from GloriaFood. All you have to do is sign up, complete the obligatory steps with relevant information (such as bakery name, working hours, and location) and create a menu with all your tasty products.

Afterward, there is just one more critical step: publish your menu on the website and start taking orders! You also get access to an easy-to-use order-taking app where you will get a notification whenever someone places an order, and you will have a maximum of four minutes to confirm the order.

Here is a video that will help get you acquainted with how the online ordering system works:

3. Create a tasty menu that can be easily updated

When you are searching for a menu creator for a bakery restaurant, the main selling point should be easy customization. You need to be able to add and remove menu items easily and mark them as out-of-stock as soon as you run out of them.

The good news is when you sign up for the free online ordering system, you also get access to an intuitive menu builder, complete with video guidance. Just follow the steps, drag & drop your beautiful images or use the mouth-watering pictures we provide, add descriptions with lots of details, and you are ready to sell online.

Check out this video that takes you through the first steps of setting up a menu:

Contrasting with the simple setup, the menu offers multiple advanced settings that are extremely useful for a bakery. For example, you can create a different menu for every day of the week if you only bake sourdough on Monday and sesame bagels on Thursday.

If you cater to different allergies or preferences, such as gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, or vegetarian, you can mark the menu items as such, so clients can easily find products that fit their needs. You can also mark items as out of stock for a period of time. Learn more about how to add the advanced options:

4. Offer relevant promotions to grow your business

Promotions are a necessary part of marketing your bakery business as they have multiple benefits, such as:

• increasing your visibility;
• attracting new clients
• increasing the number of return clients.

For bakery promotion ideas to be effective, they must be displayed directly at the top of your online menu and promoted on social media afterward.

This way, whenever someone checks out your menu, they will be tempted to indulge in one of your sweet treats with a discount. If you have installed the GloriaFood online ordering system, there is no need to waste time trying to develop bakery promotion ideas. You can just go to admin -> Marketing -> Promotions and use one or more of the tried and tested promotions.

Here are a few bakery promotion ideas you must try:

• Free delivery: encourage large orders by removing the delivery fee. Clients would surely like to buy another tasty bread than pay a fee;

• %discount on selected items: many bakery menu items must be consumed fresh as they will not be as good the next day. Don’t let them go to waste and sell them with a discount at the end of the day;

• Buy one, get one free: are you launching a new menu item, maybe a more creative bread, and want to encourage people to order it? Sell it with this promotion so people can see how good your products are;

• Payment method reward: make the selling process faster and more sanitary by offering a small discount to people who choose to pay with a credit card instead of cash;

• Get a free item: is there an item on your menu that doesn’t get many sales? Help people try it out by offering it as a free item for any order over $30.

Learn more about setting up promotions in the video below:

5. Organize contests with sweet prizes

What better way to create hype around your restaurant than to hold a contest where the winner gets to try your delicious treats? People love competing when there is little effort involved, and the prize is mouth-watering.

By organizing contests with simple mechanisms (such as commenting on this post to win, sharing this story to win, or tagging a friend to win), you get your followers to spread the word about your bakery, increase your audience and maybe even have a few of them convert to clients. Who can resist an appetizing dessert?

Here are some bakery giveaway ideas that will have people crowding to participate:

• Share your favorite dessert in your story;
• Take a picture of our bakery and tag us;
• Leave a funny caption for the staff in this photo;
• What star ingredient would you like to see in our desserts?
• Guess the type of flour used for this bread;
• Guess the main ingredient in this croissant;
• Share a picture of your online order from the bakery.

6. Focus on video content

You know how they say pictures speak louder than words? Then videos speak the loudest! 54% of consumers want to see video content from businesses they support, so give your clients what they want!

You can post video content on almost any social media platform, from Facebook and Instagram to TikTok. You don’t need special equipment, a phone that can film in Full HD quality will be enough. Instead, you will need many video content ideas for bakeries, such as these:

• Menu item presentations: a short video showing glimpses of the baking process from start to finish;
• Taste tests: cut into a steamy loaf of bread to show the beautiful crumb, break apart the crema Catalana cruffin to show the insides, etc.;
• Slow-motion videos: show some esthetically pleasing videos of your bakery items, such as slowly pouring honey on a tart or adding cream cheese to the cinnamon rolls;
• How to videos: teach your followers how to bake one of the simplest desserts and challenge them to post the results and tag you;
• Staff presentations: have every team member choose their favorite menu item and explain why they like it in less than 30 seconds.

7. Interact with your social media followers

Before you start implementing your bakery promotion ideas, you must build a community of social media followers. The best way to do it? Show them you value their effort and opinions by constantly interacting with them.

It may involve some time and effort on your part, but it will all be worth it when they become faithful clients. Set apart one hour of your day to do these activities:

• Add CTAs at the end of your posts: if you want people to comment on your posts, you must end them with strong Calls to Action, such as “What is your favorite bread from our bakery?”, “What dessert would you like to try next?”, or “Have you tried our peach cobbler yet?”;
• Reply to every comment: even if they are negative, you have the chance to change their opinion if you empathize and come up with solutions to their problems;
• Reply to private messages: sometimes people have questions or want to praise your products and feel more comfortable doing it in private. Check your “Others” folder to ensure you don’t miss an important message.
• Use interactive Instagram stories features: you could have a poll, allow people to vote on a matter, let followers ask questions, etc.

8. Get familiar with local SEO

You need to up your local SEO marketing game for your bakery promotion ideas to reach as many people as possible. Local SEO refers to a series of things you can do to let the search engines know you are a genuine business and rank higher on Google for local searches such as “sourdough bread near me” or “chocolate pastry in Miami”.

The first thing you can do to increase your chances of appearing on the first page of Google is getting an optimized website, full of local keywords that people would search to find your bakery menu items. Your location should also be mentioned often in key points of your website, such as homepage title and metadata, alt tags for photos, and your content headlines.

If you get the Sales Optimized Website from us, you won’t have to worry about all these, since we have that covered.

Here are some more things you can do to gain visibility and attract more clients:

• Claim Google My Business: complete your bakery’s profile with the exact location, working hours, link to a menu, and lots of photos to encourage people to visit you (images of your products, inside of your location, outside, staff);
• Local Link Building: try to get as many links back to your website from other places such as your social media, food blogs, or news articles;
• Make an account on restaurant review platforms: you must add basic information such as location and link to the website and allow clients to review your bakery.

9. Get inspired by social media post ideas for bakery

Social media is the best place to advertise your bakery promotion ideas with creative posts to increase engagement. You need to develop a marketing plan for the bakery to get the best results. Try to envision and write down one for two weeks to help you get organized.

Ideally, you should post every day to reach a bigger audience, but if you can’t come up with seven quality photos, it is better to focus only on three a week. To get you started, we’ve come up with a few post ideas for both Facebook and Instagram.

How to promote a bakery on Instagram

• Behind-the-scenes moments: show the atmosphere at your bakery with candid moments. Go for exciting cooking techniques, such as how to fold a wet sourdough dough or complicated dessert making that requires countless measurements;
• Staff presentations: Let your followers know who cooks and serves their favorite bakery menu items with incredible photos and short captions with an interesting fact about them;
• Baking hacks: teach your audience small tips to help them become better bakers. In time, you can become the authority they look for baking advice if you dedicate enough of your time to produce educational videos;

How to promote a home bakery on Facebook

• Customer testimonials: ask your followers for a review and permission to share on your Facebook page. People will trust your bakery more if other people recommend it;
• Tell the story of your bakery: why did you decide to open your bakery? What is special about your products? Do you use interesting ingredients? What bread would you recommend?

If your bakery also serves delicious desserts, don’t forget to market them accordingly. Here are some cake promotion ideas:

• Offer free customization for the biggest size cake: you can have a set of predefined customization they can choose from, such as adding a name or a theme (birthday, football, baby delivery);
• Free sample tasting for orders over a set amount: it is hard to choose a flavor when you don’t know what the options are; allow people to taste every type of cake before they make a decision;
• 10% off your third order: encourage repeat customers by offering discounts for those that constantly choose your business.

To convert users who browse your social media to actual clients, you need to add a direct link to your menu on your Facebook profile. You can do this easily with the GloriaFood online ordering system, by going to admin -> Publishing -> Facebook or Facebook(Sharing).

Facebook already has a “Start Order” button for businesses, you only have to take the link from the ordering system and paste it to the Facebook button customization panel. Voila, clients can directly order from your Facebook page!

The link provided in Facebook(Sharing) will work easily on other platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok and will lead followers to your delicious bakery menu.

10. Encourage clients to leave positive reviews

Positive reviews have countless benefits for your bakery. Firstly, they let Google know you run a genuine business that people appreciate. Furthermore, other people will consider your bakery trustworthy if other clients recommend it.

Therefore, you should claim your business on every review platform available in your area, complete your profile with the location, working hours, link to the menu, and many mouth-watering pictures, and invite people to review your bakery. Here is how you can easily do it:

• Have a link on your website: a simple banner with a Call to Action urging people to leave a review if they enjoyed your products will do;
• Train your staff to encourage reviews: after every purchase, they can tactfully ask the customer to leave a review if they enjoyed the bread and desserts;
• Have a sign on the tables: if clients can enjoy your menu items at a table, ensure to have a sign that announces them about the review possibility;
• Promote it on social media: let people know how much it would help your business if they would leave a positive review. Don’t forget to include a link.

Conclusion

Opening a bakery can be an amazing business idea if you know how to market it. ­Start with an optimized website and an efficient online ordering system that will allow you to easily implement your bakery promotion ideas.

Don’t forget about local SEO if you want to see your bakery on the first page of Google. Focus your effort on creating a social media community by posting creative videos and photos and responding to every message and comment.