Promoting Your Cake Decorating Business - Part 2

If you make and decorate cakes that you are proud of, then tell the world about it! Nothing impresses people more than something that is stunningly beautiful to look at and that they can also eat! In yesterday's post we looked at some low cost ideas for promoting your cake decorating business. Here are a few more:

Quality sells itself This one is a bit of a no brainer – if you are providing a top quality product backed up with top quality service, then your satisfied clients will recommend you and you will gain a reputation for excellence. And remember – for an expensive and (supposedly!) once in a lifetime occasion like a wedding, or 50th anniversary, people will accept nothing less than excellence in a cake. Put quite simply – the better the cakes and service you provide, the better your chance of making a success of your business.

Networking Think about all the different groups you are involved with – family, friends, work colleagues and clients, church, hobby or interest groups, networks of parents through your childrens' school, sports, childrens' sports – and the extent and variety of your networks may surprise you. Then consider that all of these people have their own range of networks, and the numbers become exponential. This is your biggest opportunity to get known as a cake decorator and attract clients. These people all have special occasions that need cakes, they all talk to each other, and don't forget that there will be a lot of overlap between your various networks, so every time you do a cake for one of them, others from within their various groups will see it and want to know who made it. Again – make sure your business card is readily available with your contact details on it (especially your website address – it is the best way for people to contact you as they can see more examples of your work as soon as they see your homepage). It really is quite feasible for you to make a living in this industry by focusing exclusively on personal networks and the business that you can attract through them. And remember – talk is not cheap, it's free!

Use a Website This is probably the best point of contact for potential clients (after word of mouth, of course!). If you use an easy to remember address like cakes.com or something similar, you don't even need to have it written down for people to remember, although of course you should make full use of business cards and brochures. The beauty of websites is that clients can find out everything they need to know about your service without disturbing you from your busy schedule. They can e-mail you from the site and you can then be much more efficient and organised in your response. It is prudent to note here that it pays to reply to e-mails quickly, maybe no more than 4 or 5 hours, certainly no more than a day. Ideally, you should schedule 2 or 3 times a day for attending to e-mails and telephone messages. Potential clients should not have to call you back.
The other huge advantage of a website, is that you can display photographs of your best creations, testimonials from satisfied customers, links to other related sites (being careful not to give away your business to the competition of course!), and general interest things like video clips, music and the like. If you use Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, it won't cost you anything, and you can even make money from the site through Google Adsense and affiliate marketing links. And it's fun!
Here is a link to a really good website for a cake decorating business

Use your business networks As you gain experience, your cake decorating business will gain exposure within the industry – particularly within the wedding industry which has a lot of related businesses associated with it; wedding dressmakers, photographers, caterers etc. It is a good idea to get to know some of the people who run these; although you are supplying the same clients, you are not competing with, for instance, a dressmaker, or a photographer, so you can enter into informal arrangements with them – you recommend them to clients, they recommend you. Wedding planners are the ideal people for this – they need to keep a stable of available contractors to supply for all aspects of a wedding – give them all your contact details, make sure they see samples of your work, and keep in touch with them.
And don't forget - if you are recommending someone to a client, make sure they say it was you who mentioned them – the point of the exercise is to promote your services as well as to help your clients.

Check out tomorrow's post for some more ideas about the promotion of your cake decorating business.